Promptorium parvulorum

The Promptorium parvulorum (Latin: "Storehouse for children") is an English-Latin bilingual dictionary completed around 1440 AD. It was the first English-to-Latin dictionary.^[1] It occupies about 300 printed book pages.^[2]

Promptorium parvulorum

Author	Attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian
Language	Latin, Middle English
Subject	Bilingual dictionary
Publication place	England

The authorship is attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian, a friar who lived in Lynn, Norfolk, England.^[3] After the invention of the printing press, the Promptorium was repeatedly published in the early 16th century by the printer Wynkyn de Worde.^[3] In the 19th century, the Camden Society republished it under the extended title Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum (“Storehouse for children or clerics”).^[1]

For language historians it is a major reference work for the vocabulary of late medieval English. It is also a frequently cited source in the Middle English Dictionary, the primary dictionary of late medieval English, published by the University of Michigan.

See also

• Catholicon Anglicum, an English-to-Latin dictionary dated 1485