author
Richard Chenevix Trench
1807–1886
An Irish-born churchman, poet, and word lover, he helped spark the project that became the Oxford English Dictionary. His writing blends scholarship, faith, and a lasting curiosity about how language changes over time.
6 Audiobooks
On the Study of Words
by Richard Chenevix Trench
A select glossary of English words used formerly in senses different from their present
by Richard Chenevix Trench
English Past and Present
by Richard Chenevix Trench
The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other Poems
by Richard Chenevix Trench
Proverbs and Their Lessons Being the Subject of Lectures Delivered to Young Men's Societies at Portsmouth and Elsewhere
by Richard Chenevix Trench
Poems from Eastern Sources: The Steadfast Prince; and Other Poems
by Richard Chenevix Trench
About the author
Born in Dublin in 1807, Richard Chenevix Trench became one of the best-known Anglican churchmen of the nineteenth century. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, later served in the church, and eventually became Archbishop of Dublin. Alongside his church career, he built a reputation as a poet, critic, and scholar of language.
Trench is especially remembered for his influence on the history of dictionaries. In the 1850s, his lectures on the shortcomings of existing English dictionaries helped inspire the large new project that would grow into the Oxford English Dictionary. He also wrote popular books on words, including studies of English language history and usage that made philology accessible to general readers.
His work moves easily between religion and language: he wrote sermons, theological studies, poems, and books about the meanings and lives of words. That mix of learning and readability is part of what keeps him interesting today, whether he is being read as a Victorian thinker, a church leader, or an early guide to the richness of English.