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Where interpretation must slow down

• Historical scholarship from 1888, not current consensus or a newly reviewed SET-U analysis.
• The source covers A.D. 1150–1580, including Scottish and some early modern material; the collection label is not a precise date/language determination for every form.
• Variants and inline derivatives remain source clusters. Homographs and the separately printed Additions and Corrections remain distinct source records; correction records can duplicate changes already integrated in the main dictionary.
• Transcription corrections, uncertain hyphenation, and source punctuation are not independent modern verification. Source markup annotations are made readable; general front matter, authorities lists, formatting notes and endnotes remain in the preserved artifact, not entry pages.
• Historical text may contain obsolete, offensive or inaccurate language and classifications.
• Source cross-references are source mentions, not asserted directional ancestry. Missing ancestors here do not establish the limit of human knowledge.
• Public-domain determination is specific to the United States; other jurisdictions require separate confirmation.

An old root, gloss or concordance number does not determine the meaning of every later use. A word’s origin and its modern meaning are different questions.

This page does not invent a manuscript attestation, a sound-change sequence, a modern scholarly verdict or a complete ancestor tree. Missing detail is a limit of this source record, not necessarily a limit of scholarship.