About Retro

Compose your prose (or verse) with Retro!

• Users have asked for a long time about including English-to-Latin and English-to-Greek in Logeion. That day is finally here! This new dimension to Logeion was developed this summer by Nathan Li (BA/MA 2022), who wrangled both the existing structure of Logeion and PhiloLogic and built Retro. We further benefited from the many brave souls who digitize older resources. Our thanks go especially to Fergus Walsh for his work on Riddle-Arnold. If you know of further relevant, public-domain resources, do let us know. Here are the main things to know as you try out Retro.
  • If you type in a word that is recognized as an English word, Logeion will suggest that you try looking it up in this section. Vice versa, if you enter a Greek or Latin word in Retro, you will be directed to the main Logeion screen.
  • We look for your English search terms in Woodhouse (Greek), Riddle-Arnold (Latin), and in the short definitions that we have inherited from the Perseus project. Be aware that all of these resources are based on very dated print resources. Channel your greatgrandparents and you may find more results! Click on any of the Greek and Latin words in your results and you will be taken to the main Logeion page, but you can also decide to search the full text of LSJ and Lewis and Short.
• Enjoy! Do let us know what you think.
• Our Sources: You can consult the preface and page images of Woodhouse. For now, here is an extract from his preface:
  • The abbreviations should cause no difficulty. P. before a word signifies that it has prose authority. V. before a word shows that it is found in verse. A word with both P. and V. before it may as a rule be used in any species of composition. Should, however, the name of an author be placed in brackets after the words, this means that its use is limited to that particular writer.
  • If a word occurs in Aristophanes, I have indicated its presence in that author by the letters Ar. before it, but in the case of words occurring frequently in both prose and verse, I have not thought it necessary to signify that they are found in Aristophanes as well. A word used often both by Prose and Verse writers may safely be employed in Comedy. It sometimes happens that a word of prose associations is found in verse, and that one commonly confined to poetry is used in prose. In such a case I have put in brackets after the word a reference to the passage in which it occurs.
• Fergus Walsh presents Riddle-Arnold's preface, abbreviations and an alternative search interface. Taken from that fuller account, here are a few abbreviations and conventions to be aware of:
  • Cic. = Cicero
  • Hor. = Horace
  • Liv. = Livy
  • Nep. = Nepos
  • Ov. = Ovid
  • Quint. = Quintilian
  • Sall. = Sallust
  • Tac. = Tacitus
  • Virg. = Virgil
  • The names of other authors are abridged in the usual way, Caes., Ter., Plin., etc. When Plin. stands without “Ep.” (= Epistles), the Natural History of the elider Pliny is meant.
  • Auct. Herenn. = the author of the “Rhetorica ad Herennium,” among Cicero's works.
  • Cod. Theod., Cod. Just. = Code of Roman laws drawn up by command of Theodosius and Justinian respectively.
  • Dig. = Digests (the body of Roman laws).
  • Inscript. Orell. = Orelli’s Collection of Latin Inscriptions
  • * prefixed to a word or phrase means that it is not found in a classical author, but is the best substitute the compilers can give. Very many phrases to which this note is prefixed are from Muretus, Ruhnken, Wyttenbach etc. Kraft has been very industrious in collecting these.
  • The meaning of a phrase printed thus: Vid. “make WAY for,” is, See the phrase “make way for” under WAY.
  
  

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

  The source is available at https://github.com/FergusJPWalsh/riddle-arnold

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