English and Tamil Dictionary

The want of a good and handy English-Tamil Dictionary has long been felt. That compiled by Revds. Knight and Spaulding of Ceylon, the first edition of which appeared about 1844, and the second in 1852, are quite out of print and are now scarcely ever met with. To meet this desideratum, and at the suggestion of several missionaries and members of the civil and military services of government, we have undertaken the publication of this volume. It is an enlarged and much improved reprint of the popular work above referred to. It contains upwards of one thousand new words, making altogether about thirty-seven thousand, seven hundred and thirty-seven words; the Tamil synonyms are now for the first time printed in both the native and Roman character, and the peculiar Ceylon idioms, with which the original abounded, have been altered to adapt the language to Southern India. A table of the Tamil vowels and consonants with their Roman equivalents is appended to help correct pronunciation. In its present improved form we have no doubt that the work will be found very useful not only to Europeans learning Tamil, but to native students learning English.