Product Description

o Over 5000 entries, from a priori to Zeitgeist o Covers everyday expressions, specialist terms and tags o Gives clear definitions and easy-to-use pronunciation guide o Includes details of language and date of origin o Highlights additional points of historical and etymological interest

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1044795 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 414 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Are you liable to confuse your a priori and your a posteriori (those Latin phrases!)? Convinced that chiaroscuro (Italian) is something painters do, but not sure what exactly? Whether you're wielding a baton, consuming an aperitif (both from the French), anguishing about the zeigeist (German), wearing khaki dungarees (Urdu adjective, Hindi noun), using shampoo (Hindi again), being menaced by thugs (yes, from Hindi) at the acme (Greek) of your profession or the nadir (old French) of your fortunes, marinading your courgettes, enjoying a baguette in your boudoir (four more from France), tut-tutting at graffiti (Italy), schmoozing (Yiddish), crying as the opera reaches a crescendo or the sonata (three Italian musical terms) ignites your angst (German, as are so many very serious things)--you can't avoid foreign words and phrases in English.

One of the remarkable characteristics of English as a language is its ability to absorb useful words from all over the world, hence its vast vocabulary. This book has collected over 5,000 of the foreign words and phrases that have become a part of everyday English, from long-established Latin phrases to recent borrowings from Russian (apparatchik, perestroika, glasnost). Each term is defined, its ancestry and history explained, its pronunciation made clear and its moment of entry into English pinpointed as accurately as possible. It's a word lover's delight, and if you give it to a trivia buff you may not see them for days. They'll even be able to smile knowingly when people use clever little quotes and phrases like "pour encourager les autres", "sartor resartus" or "cherchez la femme"--the book explains them fully. --David Pickering

About the Author
Adrian Room is the author of over 30 popular reference books, mainly on the origins of words. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the English Place-Name Society and American Name Society. His work for Cassell includes the Cassell Dictionary of First Names, The Cassell Dictionary of Word Histories and he is currently editor of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and other titles in the Brewer's series.