The opening of Preface
~The Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language~, which was published in the year 1808, has been so favourably received, that although the impression was large, a set is now rarely to be found; and at any rate cannot be purchased at less than double the price paid by Subscribers.
As many, who would wish to possess the original work, cannot now be supplied; while it has still been out of the reach of others, not less interested in our national literature; the Author has been advised to give it to the Public in an abridged form.
He has followed the same plan with that of the abridgment of Dr ~Johnson~'s English Dictionary; in giving all the terms contained in the larger work, in their various significations, the names of the writers by whom they are used, or the titles of the works in which they occur, and their derivations. In one instance only has he deviated from the plan of the great English Lexicographer, in placing the etymons after the definitions.