Franz Ludwig Carl Friedrich Passow (September 20, 1786 – March 11, 1833) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 classical

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

 scholar and lexicographer.

He was born at Ludwigslust

Ludwigslust

Ludwigslust is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, 40 km south of Schwerin. It was the capital of the former district of Ludwigslust, and is part of the district Ludwigslust-Parchim since September 2011.-History:...

 in Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1348, when Albert II of Mecklenburg and his younger brother John were raised to Dukes of Mecklenburg by King Charles IV...

. In 1807 he was appointed to the professorship of Greek literature

Greek literature

Greek literature refers to writings composed in areas of Greek influence, typically though not necessarily in one of the Greek dialects, throughout the whole period in which the Greek-speaking people have existed.-Ancient Greek literature :...

 at the Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

 gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

, whose acquaintance he had made during a holiday tour; his lessons were attended by the young Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

. In 1815 he became professor of ancient literature at the University of Breslau, where he continued to live until his death. His endorsement of gymnastic exercises, in which he himself took part, caused a quarrel known as the "Breslauer Turnfehde."

Passow's great work was his Handworterbuch der griechischen Sprache (1819–1824) ("Dictionary of the Greek Language"), originally a revision of Johann Gottlob Schneider

Johann Gottlob Schneider

Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider was a German classicist and naturalist.-Biography:Schneider was born at Collm in Saxony...

's lexicon, which appeared in the fourth edition (1831) as an independent work, without Schneider's name. It formed the basis of Liddell and Scott's lexicon. Other works by Passow are Grundzuge der griech. und röm. Literatur und Kunstgeschichte (2nd ed., 1829) ("Foundations of Greek and Roman Literature and History of Art") and editions of Persius, Longus

Longus

Longus, sometimes Longos , was the author of an ancient Greek novel or romance, Daphnis and Chloe. Very little is known of his life, and it is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD...

, Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

's Germania

Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...

, Dionysius Periegetes

Dionysius Periegetes

Dionysius Periegetes was the author of a description of the habitable world in Greek hexameter verse written in a terse and elegant style...

, and Musaeus

Musaeus

Musaeus or Musaios was the name of three Greek poets.-Musaeus of Athens:Musaeus was a legendary polymath, philosopher, historian, prophet, seer, priest, poet, and musician, said to have been the founder of priestly poetry in Attica...

. His miscellaneous writings were collected in Opuscula academica (1835) and Vermischte Schriften (1843).

Passow's Greek lexicon was the basis for the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell

Henry Liddell

Henry George Liddell was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, dean of Christ Church, Oxford, headmaster of Westminster School , author of A History of Rome , and co-author of the monumental work A Greek-English Lexicon, which is still used by students of Greek...

 and Scott

Robert Scott (philologist)

Robert Scott was an English academic philologist, clergyman, and a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford...

.

See Franz Passow's Leben und Briefe (1839) ("Life and Letters"), by L and A Wachler.