The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

Abstract

If your present desk dictionary is a dog-eared, coffee-stained relic that doesn't have entries for hard copy, reggae , or Watergate and thinks a mouse is a small rodent and nothing more, you're due for an update and an upgrade. Anyone who purchases an English dictionary in this last decade of the 20th century expects it to supply definitions not only for standard, formal English words but also for colloquialisms, slang expressions, contemporary catch phrases, and technical terms, along with authoritative data on word origins, hints as to usage and points of grammar, and basic information about noteworthy persons and places. All of this and more comes packaged in an attractive and convenient format in the third edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . The range of material defined or explained is truly encyclopedic. Alphabetic entries in the body of the dictionary identify hundreds of persons, from Mata