But neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb.
Obsolete words are admitted when they are found in authors not obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve revival.
As composition is one of the chief characteristics of a language, I have endeavored to make some reparation for the universal negligence of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words, as may be found under _after, fore, new, night, fair_, and many more.
These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and modes of our combination amply discovered.
Of some forms of composition, such as that by which _re_ is prefixed to note _repetition_, and _un_ to signify _contrariety_ or _privation_, all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of these particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, that they are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or is imagined to require them.
There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty.

We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle subjoined; as to _come off_, to escape by a fetch; to _fall on_, to attack; _fall off_, to apostatize; to _break off_, to stop abruptly; to _bear out_, to justify; _to fall in_, to comply; to _give over_, to cease; to _set off_, to embellish; to _set in_, to begin a continual tenor; to _set out_, to begin a course or journey; to _take off_, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of the simple words, that no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by which they arrived at the present use.

These I have noted with great care; and though I cannot flatter myself that the collection is complete, I believe I have so far assisted the students of our language that this kind of phraseology will be no longer insuperable; and the combinations of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will be easily explained by comparison with those that may be found.
Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth, Philips, or the contracted _Dict._ for Dictionaries, subjoined; of these I am not always certain that they are read in any book but the works of lexicographers.

Of such I have omitted many, because I had never read them; and many I have inserted, because they may perhaps exist, though they have escaped my notice: they are, however, to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries.
Others, which I considered as useful, or know to be proper, though I could not at present support them by authorities, I have suffered to stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same privilege with my predecessors, of being sometimes credited without proof.
The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered; they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced when they are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations; and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation of our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English grammarians.
That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently to fasten, is the EXPLANATION; in which I cannot hope to satisfy those, who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always been able to satisfy myself.

To interpret a language by itself is very difficult; many words cannot be explained by synonimes, because the idea signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described.