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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Editon: Print a nd CD-ROM Edition (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)
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| List Price: | $75.00 |
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Product Description
This newly updated edition of America's favorite dictionary features
revised biographical and geographical entries as well as up-to-date
charts and tables for topics such as world currencies and chemical
elements. Among the 500 entries new to this update are Amber Alert,
blogosphere, gravitino, halo effect, hawala, lycopene, malware, micropolis,
proteome, Qi Gong, SARS, shout-out, speed dating, sudoku, Texas hold'em,
text message, and wiki.
The renowned American Heritage® Usage Panel, a group of more
than 200 distinguished writers, scholars, and scientists, offers advice on
problems of grammar and style; engaging notes explain word histories
and clarify differences among synonyms; thousands of quotations and
example sentences show words in context; and elegant definitions are
enhanced by 4,000 full-color photographs, drawings, and maps, making
this one of the most readable dictionaries available anywhere.
This dictionary can also be purchased with a fully loadable
Windows® / Mac® CD-ROM that contains the entire text of the
updated Fourth Edition, 68,000 audio pronunciations, 1,000 full-color
photographs and illustrations, and a college-level thesaurus with more
than 260,000 synonyms. The CD-ROM has spell-check capability and
can be used in conjunction with any Microsoft® Office application to get
definitions at the click of a mouse.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #44913 in Books
- Published on: 2006-04-12
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 2074 pages
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up–Five hundred entries have been added to this update of the 2000 edition, bringing the total to 10,500. Many of the new words come from the fields of technology (blogosphere, Easter egg, LOL), current events (SARS, Amber Alert), and pop culture (speed dating, shout-out). The dictionary follows standard arrangement, but is enhanced by notes on usage, history, regionalisms, social aspects of language, and nuances of meaning, as well as illustrations (most in full color) and a pronunciation guide on every page. Proper names and famous people are also included, considerably expanding this book's usefulness. A solid, up-to-the-minute resource and a worthwhile purchase for libraries.–Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and of other reference titles published by Houghton Mifflin Company are trained lexicographers with a varied array of interests and expertise. Most of the editors hold graduate degrees and have studied at least one foreign language. Several have degrees in linguistics or in the history of the English language. Others have degrees in science or sometimes other disciplines. All the editors familiarize themselves with the vocabulary in specific subject areas, collect materials on new developments and usage, and work in association with consultants to ensure that the content of our publications is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible.
Customer Reviews
Great dictionary, poor software implementation
I've been using the digital version of The American Heritage Dictionary since 1995. It is one of the most useful references that I have. Hoping to get an updated dictionary and an improved interface I bought this new version. Whereas the dictionary contains updated content and many new words, the software implementation is amateurish. My old version was designed by Softkey, the new one (1999-2006) by Kanda Software. The new interface is poorly designed both aesthetically and functionally. Important features of the old version are missing. Gone is the Word Hunter, which looks for definitions that contain given words. I am so disappointed with this new version that I am still using the old one.
Perfect Family Dictionary
This Dictionary is just lovely. I am impressed at the quality of the color pictures and the paper it is printed on. The finger index makes it easy to turn the pages. I thought this one would be the best choice with two younger children because of the color pictures. A black and white one with few pictures is just not as exciting. My kids love to look at the pictures and try to pronounce the words. It is a large book so take advantage of the free shipping when available. We put it on a swivel book stand so that the family can easily use it. It is exciting to see the kids and adults in the family examine it on a daily basis. A wonderful addition to our household
Nice Dictionary
I love this dictionary. I have used a previous edition of this dictionary for many years. This fourth edition is very nice and has color pictures in it. Also the entry words are in a neat dark green which enhances the look of the pages. The words in the definitions are pretty small, though, so older people will definitely need their reading glasses. I find the size acceptable though and this small text helps to keep the dictionary down to a fairly reasonable size. The CD-ROM is very nice for computer use and the words and definitions can be enlarged. The whole CD can be loaded on the computer (if you have enough room for this) so that you don't need to keep the CD in the computer which is a real plus over a previous version of the software. The software, on installation, puts little icons in Word, Excel and Internet Explorer so that you can highlight a word in those programs, click on the little icon and get a definition - very handy. But I miss the Word of the Day that a previous version of the software had. Also, you can no longer double click on a word in the definition to get the meaning of that word. You have to use a more laborious left click, hold down left button and drag across the word to highlight the whole word and then click on the lookup tab. Also if you are thinking about getting the downloadable version from the website instead of buying here on Amazon, don't. Avoid the downloaded version that you can directly buy from the company as the audio pronounciations can take up to 20 seconds or longer to hear after you click on the audio icon. With this disk version that comes with the dictionary, if you load the audio to your hard disk, the pronounciations are instantaneous (on my new computer at least). The installation disk says it is compatible with Windows 2000, ME, XP and the MacIntosh OS X operating systems. I have an XP operating system. My Microsoft Office is Office XP with Word 2002, Excel 2002 and I have Internet Explorer 6.0.
