Gazetteers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A reference work that lists geographical places, often providing descriptions, historical context, and other relevant information about each location
2. A comprehensive publication that organizes and describes locations, typically including maps and data about regions, towns, and features of interest
3. A catalog of geographical entities that presents details and insights about various areas, often serving as a guide for travelers and researchers

Etymology: Laurence Echard, an English clergyman and historian, gave the world the modern sense of this word by accident of a title. In 1692 he published "The Gazetteer's, or Newsman's Interpreter," a geographical index meant, as its preface put it, partly for people who frequented coffee-houses and other places for news. The title came from a "very eminent Person" whom Echard declined to name, and the book was designed to help readers understand the place-names that appeared in the newspapers of the day. The title itself turns on "gazette," which came into English through Italian "gazzetta," traced to a Venetian coin of little value called a "gazeta." The coin's name was attached to the price of a news-sheet, so a newspaper was literally a sheet bought for a few coins. Those newspaper writers were "gazetiers" in French, and English added the suffix "-eer" to form the agent noun "gazetteer," meaning a journalist. The word's older sense, then, was a person who wrote news, not a book of places. Echard's index shifted the meaning. A "gazetteer" came to denote the geographical dictionary itself, and the sense of a journalist faded. The word later became a verb, derived from the noun, though the modern plural in your query refers to the reference books.

Synonyms: directory, index