and place-name studies In pure philology, Skeat's principal achievement was his An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (4 parts, 1879–1882; rev., and enlarged, 1910). While preparing the dictionary, he wrote hundreds of short articles on word origins for the London-based journal Notes and Queries. Skeat also coined the term ghost word and was a leading expert in this subject. Skeat was also a pioneer of place-name studies. His major publications in this field include: A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (1888), in conjunction with A. L. Mayhew "A Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words" (1914) with A. L. Mayhew The place-names of Cambridgeshire (1901) Place-names of Huntingdonshire (1902) Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904) Place-names of Bedfordshire (1906) Place-names of Berkshire (1911) Place-names of Suffolk (1913) Editions The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions (1871) Chaucer's A Treatise on the Astrolabe (1872) Piers Plowman in three parallel texts (1886) The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1894–97) Skeat edited works for the Early English Text Society: Bruce of John Barbour Pierce the Ploughman's Crede Havelok the Dane William of Palerne For the Scottish Text Society: Skeat edited The Kingis Quair, Skeat published an edition (2 vols., 1871) of Chatterton, with an investigation of the sources of the obsolete words used by Chatterton. Skeat published an edition of Chaucer in one volume for general readers Skeat published an edition of Chaucer's A Treatise on the Astrolabe, with an expert commentary. Skeat produced what is still the main edition of Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of the Saints; the edition includes translations which were largely the work of two women referred to as Mss Gunning and Wilkinson, who were credited in the preface to his edition. Teaching According to A. J. Wyatt, Skeat "was not a great teacher ... he left the teaching to those who had learned from him" – i.e. Wyatt himself and Israel Gollancz – "his teaching was episodic. Yet his lectures were eagerly followed by the fit though few; they were always interesting when least utilitarian, when he forgot examinations and syllabuses, and poured forth from the quaint storehouse of his motley memory things new and old." Skeat's pedagogical works include: Specimens of English from 1394 to 1597 (1871) Specimens of Early English from 1298 to 1393 (1872), in conjunction with Richard Morris Principles of English Etymology (2 series, 1887 and 1891) A Student's Pastime (1896), a volume