2,110 pages £24.50 (30% savings)

For many speakers and learners of English, the word "Oxford" spells authority about language. The second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English is no exception. Any dictionary which comes from Oxford University Press (whose origins lie in the Middle Ages, the foundation of the university and the dawn of printing) tends to be in a different league from its competitors. Based on the "Oxford English Corpus", language databases, which amount to "hundreds of millions of words of written and spoken English in machine-readable form", this hefty single-volume dictionary has four million words of text. That includes 355,000 words phrases and definitions, 12,000 encyclopaedic entries and 68,000 explanations. The statistics are mind blowing.

Like all good dictionaries it's bang up to date. "Greasy spoon", "data smog" and "WMD" are all here, scrupulously glossed. So, of course are wonderful, old, near-obsolete words like "editrice" and "bouffant". Plenty of proper names get in too. Did you know that a "Queensland blue" is a cattle dog with a dark speckled body as opposed to a "Queensland nut" which is another name for the macadamia nut?

Like other new dictionaries the Oxford Dictionary of English provides boxed usage notes which point up, say, the difference between "pedal" and "peddle" or discuss the vexed old question of whether infinitives may be split. More unusual are the 14 detailed appendices on, for example, English in electronic communications, collective nouns and proof-reading marks. Most useful of all is probably the "Guide to Good English" which manages to be both admirably concise and immaculately clear.
--Susan Elkin

Book Description
This ground-breaking dictionary, first published in 1998 as the New Oxford Dictionary of English, has established itself as the foremost single-volume dictionary. Drawing on Oxford's renowned language research programme this is a major new edition which has been fully revised and updated, with the addition of brand-new appendices.

1,120 pages £5.59 (20% savings)

The Oxford Paperback Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordpower Guide is a practical aid, giving you a full dictionary text and a full thesaurus, together with a unique Wordpower Guide to help you improve your vocabulary skills.

Synopsis
This volume gives you three books in one. The dictionary section offers comprehensive coverage of today's English, with over 145,000 words, phrases, and definitions, while the thesaurus has over 333,000 alternative words. Other features include clear and straightforward guidance on grammar and usage in the form of in-text boxes and thousands of example sentences illustrating words in use. The Wordpower Guide offers extra help to enrich and develop your vocabulary, and includes a section on foreign words and phrases, information on collective names foranimals and birds, useful vocabulary for word games, lists of common confusables, a section on selecting the right word, an extensive Wordbuilder section which gives instant links to related words, and a section on difficult or unusual words

CD-ROM

£24.99
This title provides instant access for PC users to 190,000 definitions and over 325,000 synonyms and antonyms. You should never be at a loss for words again, as this 190,000-word dictionary includes: 14,000 new and updated entries; etymologies; pronunciations; examples of words in use; in-depth information on how to use words appropriately, and more. There is a 325,000-word thesaurus which includes antonyms; a definitions search to find a word when you only know its definition, or have a vague idea of what it means; a wildcard search finds a word when you only know part of the word, for example, type "dra*" and get a list of 149 words beginning with "dra*", including "drachma"; anagram search finds all the words that can be made with the letters of a word. For example, type "cat sat on the mat" and get a list of 9 words with 8 letters or more, including "test match"; and the browse function lets you look through the entire dictionary or thesaurus one word at a time.