The Trunk of Lost Words: Symbol Analysis in The Dictionary of Lost Words

What the Trunk Is

The trunk is a small wooden box that lives under Lizzie’s bed in the Murray household. Esme first uses it in May 1887, when she is about five years old, to hide a discarded dictionary slip for the word bondmaid that she caught as it fell from the sorting table in the Scriptorium. Lizzie, the Murrays’ maid, offers the trunk as a safe place for the slip, and it becomes Esme’s private archive for words that have been thrown away, neglected, or otherwise left out of the Oxford English Dictionary. Over the years Esme adds more slips, letters from her godmother Ditte, and other paper treasures. In August 1893, when Esme is twelve, she scratches the words “The Dictionary of Lost Words” into the inside of the lid using Lizzie’s hat pin, giving the collection a name that echoes the official dictionary but marks it as its opposite.

The trunk is not just a container; it is a physical counterpart to the Scriptorium’s sorting table and pigeon-holes. Where the official dictionary is built from slips that are verified, defined, and published, the trunk holds slips that have been discarded, duplicated, or deemed superfluous. It is a space where words that do not fit the dictionary’s rules can still be kept and given meaning.

How the Trunk Appears and Evolves

The trunk first appears in chapter 2 when Esme shows Lizzie the bondmaid slip. Lizzie pulls the trunk from under her bed, and Esme places the slip inside, noting that it looks “small and lonely.” Lizzie tells her she will need to find more treasures to keep it company. This early scene establishes the trunk as a place for things that are fragile and easily lost.

Over the next few years, Esme adds more slips, often taken from the discard basket or from the floor of the Scriptorium. In chapter 4 (April 1891), she reflects that the trunk is “full of words that have been lost or neglected,” and she begins to see it as a parallel to the dictionary itself. She also stores Ditte’s letters there, treating them as “slips that helped define me.” The trunk becomes a repository not only for words but for pieces of Esme’s own identity.

In chapter 5 (August 1893), Esme scratches the title into the lid. This act transforms the trunk from a random collection into a deliberate project. She later tells Lizzie that the trunk is like the dictionary, “except it’s full of words that have been lost or neglected.” The carving also causes a rift with Lizzie, who is hurt that Esme used her mother’s hat pin and bent it out of shape. The trunk becomes a site of tension between Esme’s private world and Lizzie’s own need for tangible proof of her existence.

The trunk reappears in chapter 7 (August 1897), when Esme, home from school in Scotland, takes a slip for hurry (defined as harassment rather than haste) and hides it in the trunk. She also pins Da’s definition of alone to a letter from Ditte and hides that in her clothing, though she does not put it in the trunk. The trunk is now a place where Esme stores words that carry emotional weight, not just discarded slips.

In chapter 10 (August 1901), Esme retrieves the trunk to search for the missing bondmaid slip after Dr. Murray receives a letter pointing out that the word is absent from the published A–B volume. She finds the slip at the bottom, but she does not return it to the dictionary. Instead, she keeps it, and the trunk remains a hidden archive.

The trunk’s final appearance is in chapter 27 (November 1928), after Esme’s death. Ditte sends the trunk to Esme’s daughter, Meg, who opens it and finds a collection of slips, letters, suffrage pamphlets, theatre programmes, and a small leather-bound volume titled Women’s Words and Their Meanings. The trunk has become a legacy, passed from one generation to the next.

The Trunk as a Counter-Archive

The trunk functions as a counter-archive to the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary is built on a system of verification: words must have quotations from printed sources, and they must be defined by male editors who decide what is “standard” or “proper.” The trunk, by contrast, holds words that have been discarded because they are duplicates, or because they come from oral speech, or because they are considered vulgar or unworthy. Esme’s collection includes words she learns from Lizzie, from market stallholders like Mabel O’Shaughnessy, and from actresses like Tilda. These are words that rarely appear in the dictionary’s pages.

In chapter 11 (May 1902), Esme writes her first slip for knackered after Lizzie explains it as “tired from physical work.” She places it in the trunk, tied with a ribbon. She also records cunt and quim from Mabel, words that she later finds are absent from the C volume. The trunk becomes a place where women’s words—words used in kitchens, markets, and theatres—are preserved, even when the official dictionary ignores them.

This counter-archive is not just a collection of forgotten words; it is a critique of the dictionary’s authority. The dictionary claims to define the English language, but it excludes the language of women, servants, and working-class people. The trunk challenges that authority by insisting that these words matter. As Esme says in chapter 4, “It’s not the paper I’m collecting, Lizzie; it’s the words.”

The trunk also represents a form of resistance to the social control that language enforces. The dictionary defines words like service in ways that reinforce class hierarchies, as Esme discovers in chapter 2 when she reads the slips for service and realises they do not explain why service means something different for Lizzie than for herself. By keeping her own words, Esme creates a space where those hierarchies do not apply.

The Trunk and Lizzie

Lizzie is central to the trunk’s meaning. She provides the trunk itself, and she keeps it secret for Esme, even when Esme is away at school. In chapter 7, Esme is relieved to find the trunk still under Lizzie’s bed, and she wonders what might have happened to Lizzie if anyone had found it. Lizzie’s willingness to hide the trunk shows her loyalty and her understanding of its importance.

The trunk also connects to Lizzie’s own need for permanence. In chapter 4, Lizzie explains that her daily work—cleaning, cooking, setting fires—leaves no trace, and she feels like “a dandelion just before the wind blows.” Her needlework, by contrast, will always be there. The trunk, with its collection of words, serves a similar purpose for Esme: it is proof that she exists, that her words matter. But the trunk also becomes a point of conflict when Esme uses Lizzie’s mother’s hat pin to carve the title, bending the pin and damaging a precious keepsake. Lizzie’s hurt reaction shows that the trunk is not just Esme’s project; it is also a place where Lizzie’s own history is entangled.

The Trunk as Legacy

By the end of the novel, the trunk has become a legacy. In chapter 27, Ditte sends the trunk to Meg, Esme’s daughter, after Esme’s death. Meg opens it and finds not only slips but also letters, pamphlets, and a small book titled Women’s Words and Their Meanings. The trunk has grown from a child’s hiding place into a curated archive of a life. It contains the words Esme collected, the letters she wrote and received, and the objects that marked her involvement in the suffrage movement and the theatre.

The trunk’s final meaning is one of preservation and transmission. It ensures that the words Esme saved are not lost, and that her story—and the stories of the women who contributed to her collection—can be passed on. The trunk is a physical reminder that language is not fixed, and that the dictionary is always a work in progress. As the Author’s Note suggests, the first edition of the OED was “flawed and gendered,” but the trunk offers an alternative record, one that values the words that were left out.

Study Questions

1. How does the trunk’s function change from Esme’s childhood to her adulthood?

In childhood, the trunk is a secret hiding place for discarded slips, a way to rescue words that would otherwise be burned or thrown away. As Esme grows, it becomes a deliberate counter-archive, a place where she stores words that challenge the dictionary’s exclusions, such as knackered and cunt. By the end of her life, it has become a personal and historical record, containing not only words but also letters, pamphlets, and other artefacts of her life.

1. What does the trunk reveal about the relationship between Esme and Lizzie?

The trunk is a shared secret that binds them. Lizzie provides the trunk and keeps it hidden, even when Esme is away. But the trunk also causes conflict when Esme uses Lizzie’s mother’s hat pin to carve the title, bending it and hurting Lizzie’s feelings. The trunk thus reflects both the intimacy and the tensions in their relationship, as well as Lizzie’s own need for tangible proof of her existence.

1. In what ways does the trunk serve as a critique of the Oxford English Dictionary?

The trunk holds words that the dictionary discards or ignores, particularly words from women, servants, and working-class people. By preserving these words, the trunk challenges the dictionary’s claim to authority and completeness. It suggests that the dictionary’s definitions are not neutral but reflect the biases of its male editors, and that there are many words that matter even if they are not included in the official record.

1. How does the trunk’s final appearance in chapter 27 affect its symbolic meaning?

When Meg opens the trunk, it becomes a legacy. It is no longer just Esme’s private collection but a record that can be passed on to future generations. The trunk’s contents—slips, letters, pamphlets—show that Esme’s project of preserving lost words has outlived her. The trunk now symbolises the enduring value of women’s words and the importance of remembering what has been excluded from official histories.