I solved that by shedding my copy of Denniston.
I hope you gave it to someone who could appreciate it.
No it’s not a typo, it’s incompetence. μονάκανθος is a perfectly ordinary μονο- compound. The alpha belongs to -ακανθος, just as with μοναμπυξ. μονάς doesn’t come into it.
And the –ακανθος element is formed on ἄκανθα, not ἄκανθος.
I really don’t want to go on criticizing the Brill dictionary…
Its clear you can resist everything except temptation.
Brill gives four words with a derivation from μονάς apart from μονάζω and μονάκανθος for example μοναδικός with several references to Aristotle. Whether this is wrong or not I too am not able to judge, but the entries are sequential. Nevertheless I am not particularly persuaded by terms like “a perfectly ordinary μονο- compound”.
The preface to the dictionary says that there are likely to be errors as it is a first edition. Perhaps we should collect them and send them off. That would at least be helpful.
Of course errare humanum est, though this mistake does seem quite elementary for the black-belt Graecists who have compiled the dictionary. Μονάς belongs to the 3rd declension, μόνος to the 2nd. Thus μονάς (genitive μονάδος, stem μοναδ-(ο)-) would compound into **μοναδάκανθος, which looks quite different. But they undoubtedly correct it for the next edition.
Or perchance the compilers have a completely new take on Greek morphology.
Well, they’d better as this thread will show up in Google searches εις απαντα τον αιωνα!
Oh, I’m sure that the images will go down eventually. And I don’t know if anybody is actually archiving these things. (Hello, future historians! – If you are reading this, my sympathies to you on your poor choice of graduate school.)
Here is a picture of a stack of dictionaries for Markos:
From the advertising the Brill Dictionary appears to have better coverage of Patristic Greek than does LSJ. I remember reading somewhere that it included the lemmas from Lampe as well as those from LSJ. Would anyone here be able to speak to this? Thanks!
I said that, at the end of http://discourse.textkit.com/t/smyth-and-the-basics/13915/1 But I have properly tested it.
EDIT. For “have” read “haven’t”
That was exactly what I was referring to as it turns out! Can anyone speak to this? Brill’s dictionary certainly isn’t cheap—but a used copy is in reach. Lampe’s lexicon is simply outrageously priced.
looking at the pdf preview, I like the clarity of the fomatting but the information level is closer to the Middle Liddle than to LSJ. That is to say, it doesn’t replace LSJ, but it could be a replacement for the Middle Liddle.
The Brill dictionary definitely scores over the main LSJ when it comes to patristic Greek, but very little else, apart from weakly attested words which few will be interested in and perhaps the look on the page. LSJ’s patristic and ecclesiastical coverage was spotty (much ameliorated in the 1996 Revised Supplement however). Beyond that, as I said earlier, LSJ for all its out-of-date-ness has seemed to me consistently better than the less knowledgeably edited Brill product. But if it’s patristic Greek you’re interested in and you can’t afford Lampe, I guess a discarded copy of Brill might be your best bet. But I can’t recommend it. Its faults are too many and too deep, and I don’t see it getting much better in future editions either.
What is your opinion of Lampe? Are there any other lexicons that cover Patristic Greek?
LSJ Rev.Suppl. includes most of the words but is not at all patristically oriented. Before Lampe there was E.A.Sophocles’ incredibly wide-ranging Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods, in many ways obsolete but still serviceable and in some areas (but not patristics) still not superseded over 150 years later. It’s a marvelous work (and in English, conveniently), and it’s available for free on the internet. Just google it. So I think you could well use that in preference to the Brill dictionary. But when it comes to patristics Lampe is now really the only game in town.
So really, if I’m serious, I will just have to get Lampe!
If I had LSJ, Lampe, BDAG ( not the brill iteration), Muraoka for the LXX, and Sophocles, is there anything else that would be considered “essential”? Thanks so much for the help!
Also I’ve heard complaints about the print quality of new copies of LSJ. Would it be better to get a copy of the 1940 edition and then purchase the supplement separately?
If you had Lampe you wouldn’t need Sophocles (which is pre-Migne anyway), and if you want to read only patristic Greek you wouldn’t need LSJ either.
I can’t advise on LSJ. I bought mine new in 1996 (from OUP, $100) and have no complaints of it. It’s stood up very well to constant use. It’s the best-bound 2500-page book imaginable, and with clear type throughout, and no wasted space.
I’m not sure why anyone would want a hard copy of LSJ when the various online and digital versions are so much easier to use (and read!).
Then let me tell you. It’s easier to make notes in a hard copy; and it’s easier to consult multiple pages more or less simultaneously; and I learnt to be fast at finding the entries I want; and it’s what I’m used to; and it’s mine. 
The first reason is the main one.
plus, i usually get enjoyably lost in the analog versions just by not having automatic retrieval of the desired word. great way to waste a bit of time!
1940 edition (and maybe 1950s [and 1960s?] reprint, too) is typeset, 1996 edition offset. The letters will be a little sharper in typeset edition, but I don’t have big complaints about the newest (last?) edition.
Weird differences can be found between Intermediate LS and the big 'un. I noticed that in the former we have s.v. πύππαξ “an exclamation of surprise, bravo ! Plat.”, in the latter “an exclamation of admiration, bravo ! Pl. Euthd. 303a, Com. Adesp. 1130.”