Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

Some citations in the OED have an italic a before the year to indicate the year is uncertain, for example:

a​1556 N. Udall Ralph Roister Doister (?1566) iii. iv. sig. E.iijv, By gosse and for thy sake I defye hir in deede.

What does the a stand for in a​1556? In this case, the book was believed to have been published in 1556, or shortly thereafter, but not known for sure.

I don't think it's "about" because it's italic so possibly Latin, and italic c is also used for circa in other citations ("c​1315").

share|improve this question
1  
In this case, I think the book is believed to have been published around 1566, but was written and performed several years before publication. My guess would be that the a means that it was written probably before, but no later than, 1556. – Callithumpian May 21 '12 at 12:44

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

On the OED's homepage, there's a Helpful resources section, with some links, including one to abbreviations, and another to a symbol key:

enter image description here

Either of those two links reveals:

enter image description here

I believe that, loosely translated, it means sometime before, when the precise date is unknown.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

According to their public portion of the site an a before a date means "ante." So whereas c means something happened around a date, a means it happened before that date. In your specific instance, the use of gosse occurred before 1556 according to the quote entry.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.