gazetteer

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English[edit]

WOTD – 17 May 2024

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

The noun is borrowed from French gazettier (archaic), gazetier (“journalist, newspaperman”) + English -eer (suffix forming agent nouns denoting people associated with or engaged in a specified activities).[1] Gazettier, gazetier are derived from gazette (“newspaper”) + -ier (suffix denoting a profession); and gazette from Italian gazzetta, from Venetian gazeta, from gazeta dele novità (literally “a gazeta of news”) (referring to the cost of the newspaper, a gazeta being a Venetian coin of little value, whence English gazet (obsolete)), possibly a diminutive of Latin gaza (“riches, treasure; treasury”), ultimately from Old Median *ganǰam (“treasure; wealth”). The English word is analysable as gazette +‎ -eer.

The verb is derived from the noun.

Noun[edit]

gazetteer (plural gazetteers)

  1. (archaic or historical) A person who writes for a gazette or newspaper; a journalist; (specifically) a journalist engaged by a government.
  2. (by extension, obsolete) A gazette, a newspaper.
    • 1742, Henry Fielding, “A Dialogue between Mr. Abraham Adams and His Host, which, by the Disagreement in Their Opinions Seemed to Threaten an Unlucky Catastrope, had It Not been Timely Prevented by the Return of the Lovers”, in The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book II, pages 306–307:
      The Hoſt look'd ſtedfaſtly at Adams, and after a Minute's ſilence aſked him "if he vvas one of the VVriters of the Gazetteers? for I have heard," ſays he, "they are vvrit by Parſons." "Gazetteers!" anſvvered Adams. "What is that?" "It is a dirty Nevvs-Paper," replied the Hoſt, "vvhich hath been given avvay all over the Nation for theſe many Years to abuſe Trade and honeſt Men, vvhich I vvould not ſuffer to lie on my Table, tho' it hath been offered me for nothing."
    • a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Autumn”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 134, lines 557–560:
      Confus'd above, / Glaſſes and bottles, pipes and gazetteers, / As if the table even itſelf vvas drunk, / Lie a vvet broken ſcene; […]
    • 1769, [Edmund Burke], Observations on a Late State of the Nation, London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 3:
      All the common-place lamentations upon the decay of trade, the encreaſe of taxes, and the high price of labour and proviſions, are here retailed again and again in the ſame tone vvith vvhich they have dravvled through columns of Gazetteers and Advertiſers for a century together.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
person who writes for a gazette or newspaper — see journalist

Verb[edit]

gazetteer (third-person singular simple present gazetteers, present participle gazetteering, simple past and past participle gazetteered) (transitive)

  1. Synonym of gazette (“to announce the status of (someone) in an official gazette”)
    • 1864, C[harles] J[ames] Collins, “A Congratulatory Meeting”, in Singed Moths: A City Romance […], volume II, London: John Maxwell and Company […], →OCLC, page 74:
      [A]s an old friend I've got one favour to beg and to request to be granted. […] Why, when you've been gazetteered as Sir Robert and Lady Smugglefuss, that I shall be the first to be honoured with a visit.
    • 1894 July, Charles R. Corning, “General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley”, in The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine Devoted to History, Biography, Literature, and State Progress, volume XVII, number I, Concord, N.H.: Granite Monthly Company, →OCLC, page 3, column 2:
      But the change was at hand, and two new major-generals and six brigadier-generals were gazetteered to the anxious country.
    • 1981, Denis Judd, “A Career of One’s Own?”, in Prince Philip: A Biography, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, →ISBN, page 146:
      Gazetteered as Lieutenant-Commander, he [Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh] was now twenty-nine years old, about the age when he might have expected such promotion. No sign there of favouritism or nepotism, though his unrivalled connections had hardly held him back.
  2. (archaic) To report about (someone) in a gazette or newspaper.
    • 1756, “a man of business” [pseudonym], A Satirical Review of the Manifold Falshoods and Absurdities hitherto Publish’d Concerning the Earthquake. To which is Annext, an Authentic Account of the Late Catastrophe at Lisbon, and the Present State of that August Capital. […], London: […] A. and C. Corbett, […], →OCLC, page 38:
      [O]ur modern canibals of the gazetteering tribe, leſs delicate than they, can divert themſelves in cool blood vvith the pangs of their friends, and exert their more licentious brutality amidſt the miſeries of nations in ſtrict alliance vvith their ovvn;—if ſuch inſects can be deem'd of any nation.
      An adjective use, referring to gazetteers or journalists.
    • 1841 October 30, “Memoirs of Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, Knt., Containing His Speeches and Poems. Edited by J. A. Manning, Esq. Boone. [book review]”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, number 731, London: […] James Holmes [for] John Francis, →OCLC, page 824, column 3:
      Patience, it will be our turn by and by, we shall have the honour of being Gazetteered in our place, at least I expect a whole paragraph in the 'Evening Post' for my own share.
Translations[edit]
synonym of gazette — see gazette
to report about (someone) in a gazette or newspaper — see report

Etymology 2[edit]

The noun is derived from The Gazetteer’s, or Newsman’s Interpreter (1st edition, 1692), the name of a geographical index compiled by the English clergyman and historian Laurence Echard (c. 1670 – 1730);[1] in the preface he said “The Title was given me by a very eminent Person, whom I forbear to name.” The preface also stated that the work was “partly design’d for all such as frequent Coffee-Houses, and other places for News”,[2] that is, to help readers better understand the newspapers written by gazetteers or journalists (see etymology 1).

The verb is derived from the noun.[3]

Noun[edit]

gazetteer (plural gazetteers)

  2. (geography) A dictionary or index of geographical locations.
    • 1704, [Laurence Echard, compiler], “The Preface”, in The Gazetteer’s or Newsman’s Interpreter. The Second Part. Being a Geographical Index of All the Empires, Kingdoms, Islands, Provinces, Peninsula’s: As also, of the Cities, Patriarchships, Bishopricks, Universities, Forts, Castles, &c. in Asia, Africa and America. […], London: […] Thomas Newborough […], and George Sawbridge […], →OCLC, signature A2:
      The kind Reception the Gazetteer has met vvith in the VVorld, manifeſted by the ſeveral Editions that have been of it, vvithin the compaſs of a fevv Years; and indeed, the Conveniency of a Compendious Undertaking of this kind, have induced us to go on vvith a ſecond Part, comprehending the other three Quarters of the VVorld, viz. Aſia, Africa and America; ſince the firſt had confin'd it ſelf entirely vvithin the Boundaries of Europe.
    • 1876, James Russell Lowell, “Spenser”, in Among My Books. Second Series., Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 137:
      The "Polyolbion" [by Michael Drayton] is nothing less than a versified gazetteer of England and Wales,—fortunately Scotland was not yet annexed, or the poem would have been even longer, and already it is the plesiosaurus of verse. Mountains, rivers, and even marshes are personified, to narrate historical episodes, or to give us geographical lectures.
    • 1890 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Baker Street Irregulars”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC, page 157:
      This is the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being published. It may be looked upon as the very latest authority.
    • 2017, Helen Hardacre, “Edo-period Shrine Life and Shrine Pilgrimage”, in Shinto: A History, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 267–268:
      According to a gazetteer of 1662 called Edo meisho ki, the Ōji Inari Shrine was the "big boss" (sō-tsukasa) of all the Inari shrines around Tokyo. […] Other gazetteers of the period preserve a story holding that on the last day of the year, innumerable foxes would gather at a certain mulberry tree to worship at the shrine, making foxfire, which could be seen from Edo.
  3. (by extension) A descriptive list (often alphabetical) of any subject.
    • 1897, David P[eck] Todd, “The Stars and the Cosmogony”, in A New Astronomy, New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Oh.: American Book Company, →OCLC, page 426:
      [A]ll the brighter stars of the sky are registered in their true relations one to another, on charts and photographic plates. […] When a higher precision is required, one must consult those gazetteers of the sky known as star catalogues.
    • 2013, Mark Lawson, “Continuing Service to Dead Horse: Alaska”, in The Battle for Room Service: Journeys to All the Safe Places, London: Picador, →ISBN, page 123:
      The mountain was McKinley. At twenty thousand feet, it was a third lower than Everest but, in the gazetteers of mountaineering, was highly prized because its rise from plain to peak – what climbers call the 'uplift', a technical description with a metaphor hiding behind it – is greater than that of the Nepalese skyscraper.
    • 2017, Eli Cook, “The Hunt for Growth”, in The Pricing of Progress: Economic Indicators and the Capitalization of American Life, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 144:
      Statistical gazetteers of the time that were written explicitly for merchants, such as Timothy Pitkin's Statistical View, were filled with pages of international import and export data but included only a few, rather meager population tables.
    • 2024 February, Mark Vander Linden, “Where and When?”, in Manuel Fernández-Götz, Bettina Arnold, editors, The Bell Beaker Phenomenon in Europe: A Harmony of Difference (Cambridge Elements; Elements in the Archaeology of Europe), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 18:
      Unlike other prehistoric processes, there is no comprehensive gazetteer of radiocarbon dates for the entire Bell Beaker phenomenon apart from a few high-quality regional datasets […].
Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

gazetteer (third-person singular simple present gazetteers, present participle gazetteering, simple past and past participle gazetteered)

  1. (transitive, geography) To describe the geography of (a country or other place) in a gazetteer (etymology 2, noun sense 1).
    • 1864, John Weiss, “Correspondence—Knowledge of the People—Hand-writing—Projected Work on the Development of Christianity”, in Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, Boston. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, […], →OCLC, page 43:
      Such a cosmopolitan collection of post-marks is seldom made. They have a conventional range, from Buckingham Palace and Osborne, through university towns, scholars' libraries, remote parishes in Scotland, the seats of power in British India, to places Down East, and towns at the West not yet gazetteered; […]
    • 1876, James Russell Lowell, “Spenser”, in Among My Books. Second Series., Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 137:
      Neither of them could make poetry coalesce with gazetteering or chronicle-making. It was like trying to put a declaration of love into the forms of a declaration in trover.
    • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “Wressley of the Foreign Office”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., →OCLC, page 266:
      […] Wressley went back to the Foreign Office and his "Wajahs," a compiling, gazetteering, report-writing hack, who would have been dear at three hundred rupees a month.
    • 1981, Michael Ashley, “The Supernatural”, in Richard Davis, editor, The Encyclopedia of Horror, London: Octopus Books, →ISBN, page 116, column 2:
      […] Peter Underwood […] has carefully and systematically gazetteered ghosts throughout Britain.
      Referring to the recording of locations of ghost sightings.
    • 1987, J[ames] G[raham] Ballard, “Noon”, in The Day of Creation, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: Lester & Orpen Dennys, →ISBN, page 85:
      I have a lease, Captain. I paid you a thousand dollars. The river is even gazetteered in my name.
    • 1996, Norman J[oseph] W[illiam] Thrower, “Modern Cartography: Private and Institutional Maps”, in Maps & Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 220:
      A problem that almost defies solution in such a work is the rendering of place-names on the maps, which in the case of The International Atlas are gazetteered according to the local name and in English, German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
    • 2002, W. Francis, Gazetteer of South India, New Delhi: Mittal Publ., →OCLC:
      The success of the gigantic undertaking has been unparalleled: few countries, if any, are more thoroughly gazetteered than India.
Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “gazetteer, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “gazetteer, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ Lawrence Eachard [i.e., Laurence Echard], compiler (1692) “The Preface”, in The Gazetteer’s, or Newsman’s Interpreter: Being a Geographical Index of All the Considerable Cities, Patriarchships, Bishopricks, Universities, Dukedoms, Earldoms, and such like; Imperial and Hance Towns, Ports, Forts, Castles, &c. in Europe. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Salusbury […], →OCLC, signature A2, verso.
  3. ^ “gazetteer, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023.

Further reading[edit]

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