A 101-year project to complete a dictionary of medieval Latin has finally come to an end.

Zythum, which means ‘an Egyptian beer’, was the last word to be entered into the 58,000-word dictionary, compiled by Oxford University’s classics department.

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin is published in 17 volumes and runs to 4,000 pages. The project started when historian Robert Whitwell wrote to The Times in 1903, looking for people to help.

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