Antedating of "geology"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 8 Aug 2002, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:

> OED gives sense 1 as "The science which treats of the earth
> in general", labelled obsolete, and distinguished from sense
> 2, which deals with the investigation of the earth's crust
> etc. This is the specific sense Fred was antedating.

For some words the distinction between the modern sense and a more general
older sense is an extremely fine line.  I have never tried to antedate the
modern sense of "anthropology" because I can't figure out how to
distinguish it from the older, more general sense in the OED.

Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Public Services     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------