A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon

Rating:
Summary: Avoid this one and get the intermediate lexicon!
Review: This is a review of the smallest version of Liddell & Scott's lexicon ("Little Liddell"). I've long felt it inadequate, but today let's try a controlled experiment. Can we use it to read the first two pages of Xenophon's Anabasis?

(Xenophon's "Anabasis" has a reputation as a straightforward narrative written in a very clear style--it's what schoolboys used to cut their teeth on, before teachers grew worried that it was too boring to keep students interested in Greek.)

In these first two pages (OCT edition), here are three basic questions about words that are not very clearly answered by the abridged lexicon. Page 1: lines 15-16, epi is used with the dative to mean "in the power of" someone, a meaning omitted by the abridged lexicon. Page 2: line 19, the accented form of the reflexive pronoun hoi is used, but the abridged lexicon gives only the enclitic form; line 23, amphi is used with the accusative in an only vaguely local sense (made clear in the intermediate lexicon, s.v., A/C/5, but impossible to guess from the "Little Liddell").

If you can't read the opening of Xenophon's Anabasis with it, then, somebody has to say it, so I will: this book is NOT VERY USEFUL FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE. Spend seven more dollars and resign yourself to the extra weight and size of the intermediate. Sure, you'll outgrow it too one day, but it will always remain useful and will rarely cause this kind of frustration.