Concise Oxford Dictionary - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019860470X ISBN 13: 9780198604709

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

This is the revised tenth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, published together with a fully up-dated text of the dictionary on CD-ROM. The dictionary offers comprehensive coverage of the current vocabulary of English, with more than 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions. The revised tenth edition includes many additions to the language, covering areas as diverse as e-commerce, technology, and fashion. In addition to up-to-date text, the book offers an extensive set of appendices covering everything from countries of the world and US presidents to proofreading marks and a text messaging glossary. In addition, there is a ten-section "Guide to Good English" which provides the information you need to be able to write and speak English confidently and correctly. The CD-ROM includes the complete revised edition of the A-Z text, which you are able to install on your hard drive for maximum accessibility. Functions include quick headword search and browsable headword index, together with a full text search enabling more in-depth look-up using wild cards and Boolean operations.

About this title

Review

Dictionary [Oxford, Concise] n. a book that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and gives their meaning, or their equivalent in a different language. Oxford n. a type of lace-up shoe with a low heel. Origin C19th: named after the city of Oxford. Concise adj. giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words.

Compiled from the world's biggest language research programme, Oxford lexicographers have rewritten all 220,000 entries in the latest and greatest edition of The Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The very first edition of this dictionary, published in 1911, drew on the content and method of Editor James Murray's revolutionary lifework, the Oxford English Dictionary, the vivid history of which is captured in Simon Winchester's bestselling linguistic detective story of words, murder and madness, The Surgeon of Crowthorne:

"Other dictionaries in other languages took longer to make; but none was greater, grander or had more authority than this. The greatest effort since the invention of printing. The longest sensational serial ever written."

As its name suggests, the Concise Oxford Dictionary provides a streamlined compendium of easily accessible edited highlights from its more cumbersome ancestor. Arduously edited from longhand submissions, a typewritten manuscript and handset on a letter press, the very first edition was a labour of love. Nearly a century later, this new tenth edition draws extensively on new technology--including the citation database of the Oxford World Reading Programme which houses approximately 50 million words--to present an inclusive reference guide to living, breathing English. In its own concise definition of its method:

"Each entry is built around the core sense or senses of the word in current English, as based on rigorous analysis of large amounts of real, modern evidence available in computerized form."

So no need to scrabble for other dictionaries, this is the last word in quick authoritative reference, and a lexical luxury for etymologists. --Rachel Holmes

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 019860470X
• ISBN 13: 9780198604709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1728
• Editor: Pearsall Judy