Random House Unabridged Dictionary

I've been using the dictionary for six months,it is the best Webster I've had so far. In contrast to other Websters I have, it gives many examples, has unique, clear usage notes, regional variations,at least two pronunciations at each entry.There is however a spelling mistake in the world"acqiure"-spelled"aquire" in the usage note at "gotten". I have found all the words I needed, but not all the meanings. At the entry "skite"the British meaning-'play hooky' is not given, but it is a dictionary of American English. It is very useful for the learners of English like myself. Phrasal verbs are in bold, all their meanings are given and the layout is clear.Using the book each time may really be time consuming,and the CD version does not include all the senses that are in the book.. still worth buying...

Version 3.1 of this find dictionary has it all. Anagrams, instantly available definitions for all the words in the English language, and easy access. It has been developed for ease of use, the definitions can be easily copied and pasted, and the references are just superlative. In comparing this with the Merriam Webster edition, this one wins hands down.

I was shopping for an extremely well rounded dictionary that would take me through college and beyond. After ordering the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary I will stop right here. It is large in size, but when you want ease of use and full coverage of the material you may need look no more. I would recommend this dictionary to anyone, especially college students who plan to get advanced degrees. This one should last for years to come. Keep up the good work Random House is my comment to them. I love it is all that I can say about the product. It exceeded my expectations.

I write long legal documents for a living. This dictionary is in my lap daily. It is known in my office as "Big Blue" in referance to the IBM super computer. You cant find a better workable dictionary.

There are many versions of this product. Mine has two ISBN's 0-679-45019-X for the CD-Rom component and 0-679044998-1 for the Software package. It is based on the 2nd Printed Edition with a copyright 1996. Recently I acquired the 'Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictinary.' I was able to put it through its paces by seeimg how easily I was able to solve crossword puzzles in an old "Giant Crossword Puzzle Book" from the New York Times' Will Weng, editor. I am not very good so normally I use the big "The Master Crossword Puzzle Dictionary' by Herbert M. Raus. This is an excellent reference in and of itself but availabilty over the year has not be consistent. Barnes and Noble, the bookstore is the publisher and distributor. I was able to also compare the Random House with Softkey's version of the "The American Heritage Dictionary" (AHD). I also have dictionaries on my Britannica and Worldbook CD's but the search engine for these dictionaries is simply 'enter the word'. The Random House may be the second largest dictionary, second to the full OED, at least until Oxford comes out with the New Shorter OED on CD this Spring (1997). It has far more words than the American Heritage as well as more meanings per word. It is a good collection of geographic, biographical and botanical references. It has etymologies, the AHD does not. Most words have a speaker icon which gives either a male or femaie voice (only one per word). Some animal, plant and boat words have line diagrams that are resizeable and savable.The Random House's main screen is itself resizable unlike the American Heritage(AHD). The Random House has five 'Search types'. Anagrams will allow you to cheat at scrabble on the PC. 'View History' is a list of words (1-100 default 20) you have looked up which is maintained in a file. The AHD has a similar list but starts from scratch at startup. More useful are the remaining three modes. 'Browse on Index' gives you a list of words which is refined as you type in letters. The Browse list appears in a narrow word list subscreen to the left and the right is a wider definition of the either the first word found or the last one you clicked on before entering another letter. You control the relative size of these subscreens and Preferences provides for an alternate vertical layout. 'Search on Main entry' requires you to enter an entire word and gives just that one definition unless you enter wildcards: ? for a single letter, * for one or more. Then, it creates a list of all qualifying words. Now, if you mistype and that sequence of letters is not a word, you get a word list of possible words. This is quite nice. The first letter of the suggested words are not all from the first letter you typed. Still better (and here RH is superior to the AHD) you can spell the word as it is pronounced and the correctly spelled suggestion appears. For example, both 'koopon' and 'kyoopon' will give you 'coupon' and a