Words have been included in the English Glossary if they are not found with the required sense in the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OEDO) or cannot be easily found there in the spelling in which they appear in the text. Other works consulted can be found in the General Bibliography. Words with unusual spellings have not been included if they have been treated in the text as scribal errors and footnoted, or if they are the result of the following common spelling variations alone:

doubling of single consonants and vice versa

a/ai/ay

a/au

ar/er

c/s

ea/e/ei

e/i

ie/e(e)

i/j

i/y

oa/o/oo

o/ou

o/u

s/z

sch/sh

u/v

u/w

w for u as a vowel

y- in initial position for th or þ

presence or absence of final -e

medial d for th (eg, fader for father)

plurals ending in -n (eg, shoon for shoes)

3/y

elision of the with words beginning with a vowel or h (thandes for the hands)

fusion of indefinite article with following noun or adjective (eg, aboke for a book)

interchangeable vowels in unstressed syllables (eg, aftor or aftyr for after)

past tense verbs ending in -t (eg, rackt for racked)

Obsolete or nonce compounds are not glossed unless they are particulary obscure or difficult.

The capitalization of headwords conforms to modern usage. A word appearing in several noteworthy spellings is normally entered under the one most often found in the text or else – when two spellings are equally or nearly equally common – under the one nearer modern usage, but a marginally less common spelling may be preferred to keep related forms together in the entry order of the glossary. Other spellings are entered in their alphabetical places and cross-referenced to the main entry. In the alphabetical order of the glossary 'þ' follows 't' and 'ȝ' follows 'y.' Where the definition repeats the headword in a different spelling, the latter is normally the entry spelling in OEDO and further information can be found there. When that form is itself an archaism or ambiguous, a further brief definition usually follows. Any further citation of an authority or other succinct account of the glossarian's reasoning appears within square brackets at the end of the entry.

1	first person
2	second person
3	third person
abbr	abbreviation
abl	ablative
abs	absolute
adj	adjective
adv	adverb(ial)
AL	Anglo-Latin
AND	Anglo-Norman Dictionary Online
art	article
attr	attributive
CL	Classical Latin
coll	collective
comp	compound
compar	comparative
conj	conjunction
cp	compare
dat	dative
def	definite
DML	Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources
DuCange	Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis
E	English
EG	English Glossary
exclam	exclamation
F	French
f	feminine
fut	future tense
gen	genitive
Gk	Greek
imper	imperative
indecl	indeclinable
inf	infinitive
interj	interjection
intr	intransitive
L	Latin
LL	Late Latin
Latham	Revised Medieval Latin Word-List
m	masculine
MED	Middle English Dictionary
ML	Medieval Latin
mod	modal
n	noun
nom	nominative
nt	neuter
obj	objective
OE	Old English
OEDO	Oxford English Dictionary Online
OLD	Oxford Latin Dictionary
OT	Old Testament
pa	past tense
pasp	passive participle
pass	passive
per	person
pfp	perfect participle
phr	phrase
pl	plural
poss	possessive
pp	past participle
ppl	participial
pr	present tense
prep	preposition
pron	pronoun
prp	present participle
rel	relative
sbst	substantive
sg	singular
subj	subjunctive
superl	superlative
tr	transitive
v	verb
var	variant
vb	verbal