Introduction:
INDO-EUROPEAN A family of languages consisting of most of the languages of Europe as well as those of Iran , the Indian subcontinent, and other parts of Asia . 
TEUTONIC Of or relating to the Germanic languages or their speakers.  Sometimes called Germanic.  It antedates the earliest written records, eventually came to be divided geographically into three groups of languages: East, North, and West. The branch of Indo-European to which English belongs.
CELTIC A subfamily of the Indo-European Family that is comprised of the Brittonic and the Goidelic branches, that is no longer highly spoken in Western Europe . Celtic languages include Welsh, Breton, and Gaelic.
COGNATE WORDS and LANGUAGES Related in origin; genetically related and descended from the same ancestral linguistic root or language.
SANSKRIT The ancient Indo-European language of India .
SIR WILLIAM JONES (1746-1794) British colonialist and philologist who “discovered” the relationship between the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit and European languages like Latin, Greek, and German. Jones attributed this linguistic relationship to an ancestor language he called Indo-European.
OLD ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1066) Began with the end of the Roman occupation of Britain and ends with the Norman Conquest. During this period the Angles and the Saxon settled in Britain and the inflected Germanic language now called Old English developed. The epic Beowulf is an example of Old English.
BEOWULF An eighth-century epic poem written in Old English
MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD:(1066-1500)  Began with the battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. Under the influence of the French-speaking Normans Old English is transformed into a new language called Middle English. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English.
MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD (1500-1900) Period of English as spoken mainly in England from 1500 to the beginning of the 20th century as spoken in England and reflecting changes in the language based upon rapid intellectual, economic, scientific and technical developments.  Shakespeare's language is an example.
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH PERIOD (1900 to the present) The period of English used as an international language of communication and reflecting changes in the language resulting from British colonialism around the world. 
ALFRED THE GREAT During the reign of this Anglo-Saxon king of England (871-899) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were compiled and helped establish the Wessex dialect as the dominant form of English.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR The French-speaking Norman who defeated the English-speaking Anglo-Saxon Harold at the Battle of Hastings and became king of England in 1066 A.D.
NORMAN CONQUEST In 1066 A.D. the French-speaking Norman William the Conquerer defeated the English-speaking Anglo-Saxon Harold at the Battle of Hastings and became king of England . This event marks the beginning of the transition from Old English to Middle English.
BAYEUX TAPESTRY A pictoral narrative of the Battle of Hastings (1066 A.D.) with Latin captions.
GOEFFREY CHAUCER (1340?-1400) English poet and author of The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400), the first major literary work in Middle English.
SIR WILLIAM CAXTON (1476-1490) His career as a publisher arbitrarily marks the beginning of Modern English. In order to publish Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Caxton chose the East Midland dialect of English which became the morphological standard for modern English.

Lesson I
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY  A comprehensive historical dictionary of the English language, first published between 1884 and 1928.
MORPHOLOGY The study of the structure and form of words in language or a language, including inflection, derivation, and the formation of compounds. 
MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGE A change in the form or spelling of a word.
PHONETICS  The branch of linguistics dealing with speech sounds and their production, combination, description and representation by written symbols.
PHONETIC CHANGE A change in the sound of a word.
SEMANTICS: n. used with a sing. or pl. verb 1. Linguistics The study or science of meaning in language forms. 2. Logic The study of relationships between signs and symbols and what they represent.
SEMANTIC CHANGE: A change in the meaning of a word.
ETYMOLOGY The history of a word. Usually indicated in a dictionary entry by [].
GRAMMATICAL INFORMATION Indication in a dictionary about the part of speech of a word and any irregular forms. E.g., sing v. sang, sung.
DEFINITION  n. Abbr. def. 1. a. A statement conveying fundamental character.
USAGE OR SPECIAL LABEL A tag usually before a definition of a word that tells what context the word is used such as slang, informal, colloquial, etc.
SYNONYM A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.
IDIOM OR IDIOMATIC USE An expression whose meaning cannot be derived from the individual words in it. Ex: “to turn over a new leaf” means "to begin anew, to make a fresh start."
PRESCRIPTIVIST: a person who argues that a dictionary should dictate what people should and should not say or write, that a dictionary should determine how people use language.
DESCRIPTIVIST: a person who argues that a dictionary should not attempt to dictate what people should and should not say or write; rather, a dictionary should provide an account of the way a word is actually used.

Lesson II
BASE The element which provides the essential meaning of the word. This element can be nominal, adjectival or verbal in meaning.
DERIVATIVE: A word formed from another by derivation, such as electricity  from electric. 

Lesson III
PREFIX The element which is attached in front of a base and which adds a directional, negative or intensive meaning to the word.
"INTENSIVE" PREFIXES An element which attached in front of a base and which adds,  for emphasis,  “very” or “completely” to the meaning of the base
EUPHONY: Agreeable sound, especially in the phonetic quality of words.
ASSIMILATION A form of phonetic change in which certain sounds blend together into neighboring sounds, to which they become identical or similar. Example- prefix in- + possible becomes impossible. See Ayers, pg. 35.

Lesson IV
ACRONYM: word formed from the initial letter or letters of other words- ex- MADD-Mothers Against Drunk Drivers
ABBREVIATION n. Abbr. abbr. abbrev. The act or product of shortening.

Lesson V
BACK FORMATION the creation of a word from another by taking away the prefix
APHERESIS The loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word, as in till  for until.
APHESIS: The loss of an initial, usually unstressed vowel, as in cute from acute. 
ANTONYM a word having meaning opposite of that of another word (example: wet/dry)
CONNECTING VOWEL: a vowel has been inserted between the bases in order to make the pronunciation easier. Generally -i- between Latin bases and -o- between Greek bases. (See Ayers, pg 52)

Lesson VI
CONNECTING VOWEL
COMPOUND WORD A word consisting of two free morphemes or meaning units that can stand alone, for example: mailbox, hallway, jellybean.

Lesson VII
HYBRID: A word composed of elements from different languages. For example, bicycle is a hybrid because BI- is Latin and CYCL- is Greek.

Lesson VIII
SUFFIX The word element which is attached after the base, usually adds meaning to the base, and determines the part of speech of the whole word.
ELISION:  n. 1. a. Linguistics Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation. b. Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse. 2. The act or an instance of omitting something.

INDEPENDENT TWIN

DISSIMULATION  n. 1. The act or process of making or becoming dissimilar. 2. Linguistics The process by which one of two similar or identical sounds in a word becomes less like the other, such as the l  in English marble  (from French marbre ).

Lesson XII
FUNCTIONAL CHANGE One type of semantic change in which a word’s part of speech changes without any change in spelling. A process whereby a word, without change of form, that is, without the addition of suffixes, comes to be used as a different part of speech. E.g., “an iron sword” and “to iron a shirt.”

Lesson XIV
DEGENERATION OF MEANING A type of semantic change whereby a word which originally had a good, or at least a neutral, meaning has come to indicate or suggest something objectionable, low, or unpleasant; (e.g., Ahussy@ from Ahousewife@).

Lesson XIV
HYPERBOLE (Greek: hyper- “excessive” + BOL- “to throw/put”) Exaggeration, a path that leads to a process called weakening, by which the overused word becomes less forceful and vivid.

Lesson XVIII
EUPHEMISM The practice of substituting a less direct phrase for a direct term. (e.g., "perspiration" for "sweat")

Lesson XIX
FOLK ETYMOLOGY The attempt to make unfamiliar words resemble better-known words to which they are erroneously thought to be related.

Lesson XX
CLIPPED WORD The creation of one word from another by the clipping off of a suffix.

Lesson XXI
BLEND A word produced by combining two words so that only a part of each remains. Ex. Smog from smoke + fog.

Lesson XXIII
LATINISM An idiom, structure, or word derived from or suggestive of Latin.  

Lesson XXV
LOAN WORD A word adopted from another language and completely or partially naturalized.