The Oxford American College Dictionary

I had been thinking about getting a new dictionary for my writing desk. I had a Websters and an American Heritage, which I thought pretty useful (despite their both being rather old editions), but I remembered using Oxford's huge multi-mammoth volume dictionary in high school (back when mammoths still roamed) and I liked the format and information presented by Oxford. I settled on this dictionary (which I actually got on sale, which always makes buying something a little better) because I found that this edition consistently contained definitions for words I was running across while reading books written or translated in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It seemed like the best affordable one volume dictionary for readers of history, literature and biography written during the above mentioned time period. Surely, I've developed a strong bias for Oxford's output. See my review of the 1971 Compact Dictionary too. That said, I still can confidently recommend this dictionary as the single one to keep on the desk at work or home as well as at university. If the word is not in this dictionary, one probably needs to resort to a much larger, more comprehensive (and expensive) dictionary than the sort normally kept for use on the typical writing desk.

What I want in a (portable) dictionary is one that will have the words I look up. Since I have a pretty good vocabulary already, I tend to look up only words that are not in common usage. So, I want something to stick in a backpack, or have sitting on the end table next to me while I'm reading. Since I can't carry all 19 volumes of the OED around with me, and because I don't always have a computer handy, this is the dictionary I've selected. I don't often need etymology information, but I do want to know the meaning of words like orrery, exurb, or prandial before I read on. This is a good, all-around portable dictionary for all but a few who won't be satisfied with anything that doesn't take up six feet of shelf space.

If you need a dictionary for your son or daughter, this is it!