Chambers Compact Dictionary - Hardcover

(Ed.), Chambers

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0550100954 ISBN 13: 9780550100955

Publisher: Chambers Harrap Pub Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

75,000 definitions explaining the meanings of 48,000 words and phrases

Chambers Compact Dictionary, incorporating a distinctive and colourful World Reference section, is the essential guide to English today. Comprehensive, up to date, and easy to use, it focuses on contemporary English, providing straightforward definitions and helpful notes in a convenient and accessible volume. This edition also includes hundreds of additional words, senses and notes on usage.

The World Reference section, 48 full-colour pages, is packed with facts and figures including major cities, the longest rivers and the highest mountains. Numerous colourful maps illustrate social and environmental issues as well as geographical features.

About this title

Review

Dictionaries have come a long way in terms of user-friendly clarity since the dense, esoteric abbreviation-heavy days of some of the older efforts--and the attractively uncluttered Chambers Compact Dictionary is no exception.

We use dictionaries for at least three purposes--to find out what a word means, to check its spelling and to ascertain the origin or etymology of the word. Chambers Compact Dictionary sets each of its 170,000 words in a clear emboldened sans-serif font so you can quickly see the word you're looking for and how to spell it. Then there's a straightforward definition--an omnivore, for example is "a person or animal that eats any kind of food"--and, pleasingly, the etymology is printed below in blue. So you can see precisely what's what--at a glance.

The emphasis is on contemporary English so, on the whole, archaisms are out. In their place come "halterneck", "megastore", "disco", "e-mail", "byte", "squeegee" and the like. Occasional inset boxes in blue draw the user's attention to potential pitfalls such the confusion of "serial" with "series" or "compliment" with "complement."

Hundreds of standard abbreviations--such as PE, DTP, BMA and ANC--are explained as they occur alphabetically and there are some handy maps and geographical data at the back. There's also useful guidance on those phrasal verbs which cause non-native speakers such agony--the not so subtle difference between, for example, "sit back", "sit down", "sit in", "sit out" and "sit up". Or between "make off", "make out", "make over" and "make up". Meanings are appended as part of the entry for the root word under a clear heading, "phrasal verbs". --Susan Elkin

Book Description

The essential guide to English today

Edition details

• Publisher: Chambers Harrap Pub Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0550100954
• ISBN 13: 9780550100955
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 936