Product Description

This edition of the "Chambers Dictionary" combines the long-established virtues of its predecessors with a modern design and updated content. It offers coverage of English vocabulary, ranging from rare and archaic words to the latest slang and technical terms, and contains appendices with information from chemical elements to first names, and the plays of Shakespeare to the Greek and Hebrew alphabets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308016 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1825 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's official! The word techie--a devotee of or expert in (some aspect of) technology--has made it into the Chambers Dictionary. And there are a slew of other net-specific words too, including netiquette, browsing, applet, span, cybersex and cybercafé. It just goes to show how the world of computing and electronic communications has advanced and changed our world. Of course, there are also those other little things that have become part of our lives: Prozac, sound bite, cellulite...

From the Publisher
The thumb-indexed edition of The Chambers Dictionary does include thumb notches as well as a ribbon marker. We apologize that one of the Amazon reviewers received a faulty copy that did not have these notches. We would ask anyone who receives a faulty copy of one of our books to please contact us so that we can rectify the situation; our UK telephone number is 0131 556 5929.

Customer Reviews

More words than any other single-book competitor
I wanted to find out the meaning of the word "mommet" that crops up in Hardy's "Tess of the Durbevilles". I looked through increasingly large versions of the Oxford English Dictionary, and only found it eventually in the two-volume Shorter Oxford. However, when I turned to my Chambers Dictionary, it was right there.

The point being, Chambers' style of categorising words under similar roots allows it to cram far more into a single volume. If you want lots of words, rather than long, encyclopaedic and often repetitious, definitions, go for Chambers.

all you'll ever need
The ultimate single volumed dictionary. This is the only dictionary you'll ever need: invaluable for all crossword and scrabble lovers. Don't be misled into buying the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, it's not as good as this one! Every home should have one very good dictionary and if you want one to serve you well for life then get this!

The perfect crossword companion
The Chambers is the best available source of obscure dialect words, obsolete words from Spencer et al, and senses of ordinary words that have long been forgotten. It is this comprehensiveness that has made it the cruciverbalist's bible, particularly for crosswords of the more fiendish variety.

Qua dictionary, though, it is awkward to use compared to the various Oxford dictionaries (the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the New Oxford Dictionary of English, and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, in order of size). Moreover, the famously amusing definitions are far and few.

In short, buy this dictionary if you have to - i.e., if you while away your time solving (or setting) crosswords, or if you delight in our language's paths less trod. Otherwise, your best one-volume bet is probably the New Oxford Dictionary of English.