CAWDREY, Robert

views updated

CAWDREY, Robert. English school-master (16–17c), from Oakham in Rutland, compiler of The Table Alphabeticall (1604), the first English dictionary, which briefly defined 2,560 ‘hard vsuall English wordes … gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons’. There were four editions to 1617.

More From encyclopedia.com