All Scholars

GEORGES, Karl Ernst

  • Karl Ernst Georges
  • Date of Birth: December 26, 1806
  • Born City: Gotha
  • Born State/Country: Germany
  • Date of Death: August 25, 1895
  • Death City: Gotha
  • Death State/Country: Germany
  • Education:

    Study at Göttingen, 1826-8; Ph.D., Jena, 1834.
  • Dissertation:

    Latein-deutsch Handwörterbuch 2 vols. (Jena,1834).
  • Professional Experience:

    Senior teacher, Realgymnasium, Gotha, 1839-56; professor (hon.), 1863; Verdienstkreuz für Kunst und Wissenschaft, 1878.
  • Publications:

    Latein-deutsch Handwörterbuch 2 vols. (1834, 1882); I.J.G. Scheller, Ausführliches und möglichst vollständiges Latin-deutsches Lexikon oder Wörterbuch zum Behufe der Erkläung der Alten und Ubung in der Lateinischen Sprache 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1784; 8th ed., rev. by Georges, 1837); Scheller, Kleines lateinisches Wörterbuch in etymologischer Ordnung (1847); Zur Lehre vom Übersetzen aus dem Lateinischen in’s Deutsche (1852); Thesaurus der klassischen Latinität, vol. 1, 2 (Leipzig, 1854); Kleines lateinisch-deutsches und deutsche-lateinisches Handwörterbuch (1864); Lexikon der lateinischen Wortformen Wörterbuch der latein. Eigennamen (1878); Ausführliches lateinsich-deutsches und Deutsch-lateinisches Handwörterbuch. Aus den Quellen zusammengetragen und mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf Synonymik und Antiquitäten unter Berücksichtigung der besten Hülfsmittel 4 vols. (1879-82); Koch, Specialwörterbuch zu Vergil und Cornelius Nepos (rev.) (1885).
  • Notes:

    Karl Georges’ father was glazier to the court and pulled his scholarly son out of school at age 14 to learn the craft of making stained glass. After six months, it was clear that the boy had little interest in the trade and returned to his Gymnasium. There, under the lexicographer Valentin Christian Friedrich Rost (1790-1862), he began his interest in lexicography. Issues of health required him to move to Nordhausen in his senior year where the philologist and lexicographer Friedrich Karl Kraft (1786-1866) furthered his interest and expertise. At Göttingen he studied with Karl Otfried Müller (1797-1840) and Georg Ludolf Dissen (1784-1837). He moved to Leipzig where, in 1828 he was made assistant to the lexicographer Georg Heinrich Lünemann (1787-1827), editor of Immanuel Johann Gerhard Scheller’s (1735-1803) Latin German-German-Latin lexicon. Georges published his 8th edition of the revision in 1837. His son Heinrich completed the 8th edition in 1912-13 and the seventh edition of his Kleine Handwörterbuch (1911). 

             Georges retired from the Gymnasium due to failing eyesight and devoted the rest of his life to lexicography. He made a plan for a comprehensive Latin thesaurus as early as 1854, resulting in the first volume of his dictionary of Latin word forms in 1890 (volume 2 completed by Georg Mühlmann) which may have encouraged Edward von Wölfflin to begin the massive Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in 1893. The failing energy and eyesight of old age prevented his completion of his thesaurus but the end of his life was decked with numerous honors.
  • Sources:

    Wölfflin, E. von, ALL 9 (1896) 623-4; R. Ehwald, BBJ 19 (1896) 143-50; M. Berbig, ADB 49 (1904) 288-90; Oliver Schelske, Brill 225-6.
  • Author: Ward Briggs