New Oxford American Dictionary / Edition 3

by Oxford University Press, Christine A. Lindberg

Overview

As Oxford's flagship American dictionary, the New Oxford American Dictionary sets the standard of excellence for lexicography in this country. With more than 350,000 words, phrases, and senses, hundreds of explanatory notes, and more than a thousand illustrations, this dictionary provides the most comprehensive and accurate coverage of American English available.

The dictionary draws on the two-billion-word Oxford English Corpus and the unrivaled citation files of the world-renowned Oxford English Dictionary to provide the most accurate and richly descriptive picture of American English ever offered in any dictionary. The Third Edition offers a thoroughly updated text, with revisions throughout and approximately 2,000 new words, phrases, and meanings. Many new words relate to fast-moving areas such as computing, technology, current affairs, and ecology, while others have recently entered the popular lexicon. Usage notes have been updated in light of the most recent Corpus evidence, and a completely new in-text feature on Word Trends charts usage for rapidly changing words and phrases such as carbon, mobile, or tweet. In addition, the volume has an attractive, modern new text design that makes entries easier to read and find.

One of the hallmarks of the New Oxford American Dictionary is the way it reflects the living language. Unlike in more traditional dictionaries, where meanings are ordered chronologically according to the history of the language, each entry plainly shows the principal meaning or meanings of the word, organized by importance in today's English. Thus readers can be confident that the first definition they see is the one most likely to be used by people today, and is not a sense that has been obsolete for two centuries.

Offering clear, authoritative, and precise information, with the in-depth and up-to-date coverage that users need and expect, the New Oxford American Dictionary is the benchmark by which all other American dictionaries are measured.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195392883
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/02/2010
Pages:	2096
Sales rank:	231,944
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 11.00(h) x 2.50(d)

Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Introduction
How to Use This Dictionary
Key to the Pronunciations
Key to the Abbreviations
The New Oxford American Dictionary
Ready Reference (in center)
Illustration Credits (at back)

What People are Saying About This

Helen Gurley Brown

"I have never seen quite such a wonderful compilation of words in my life and that would even include Shakespeare and Tolstoy...wow, what a dictionary! We badly need the dictionary at home because we are using two raggedy Websters that don't contain one-twentieth of your references. David looked under 'Brown' and found me and we are thrilled about that as well. Thank you for such a fabulous present. There has never BEEN such a dictionary, as you well know, and its creation has to be joyous for people like me - magazine editors, writers, etc."
—Editor-in-Chief, Cosmopolitan

Ken Kister

I received THE NEW OXFORD AMERICAN DICTIONARY (NOAD) yesterday and have spent several hours today examining it. Everyone who worked on the new dictionary deserves kudos for a job very well done. NOAD is clearly a superior dictionary, displaying an admirable editorial intelligence throughout. I was especially impressed by its thorough, readable, and up-to-date treatment of American English as used at the beginning of the 21st Century. For instance, it includes many everyday terms not found in MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY (10th ed.), such as "cutdown," "death knell," "eye level," "inner sanctum," "love life," "never-ending," and "piss-poor." I haven't been so enthusiastic about a new dictionary since the publication of Bryan Garner's DICTIONARY OF MODERN AMERICAN USAGE in 1998; in this connection, I was delighted to see that Garner is a NOAD subject consultant.

Editorial Reviews

"It runs more than 2,000 pages and weighs upward of 800 pounds, so will need one forklift or three sumo wrestlers to hoist it, but you will love this gorilla once you get to know it."—James Kilpatrick, "Writers Life"

"Includes some unique and useful extras."—School Library Journal Curriculum Connections

"More current than its closest rival in size....This is a 'buy.'"—Booklist STARRED REVIEW

"Remains true to its initial concent of being an easy-to-use single volume of words that reflect today's soceity...Recommended." —Choice

From the Publisher

Providing the most thorough coverage of American English, the third edition of this dictionary from Oxford is a welcome arrival. With an emphasis on English as an international language, the dictionary has been updated with 2000 new words, senses, and phrases, including words whose meanings have undergone societal and technological change, such as bookmark, browse, and favorite. Updated proper names are also included (Mumbai instead of Bombay), as are entries for informal language and slang. The Oxford English Corpus with its two-million-word database has been fruitfully mined to offer a greater number of words currently in use than in any other comparable dictionary. Unlike the traditional arrangement of definitions by historical usage, this dictionary arranges definitions by most current usage and provides additional guidance in usage notes. Although U.S. English is the focus here, regionalisms from other English-speaking areas are also included. More than 1000 illustrations (e.g., photos, drawings, diagrams) clarify definitions. To construct this tome, a wide variety of subject consultants shared their expertise with Oxford's able staff. BOTTOM LINE A labor of love and an unparalleled gift to writers and readers worldwide, the New Oxford American Dictionary should be on the reference shelves of every library.—Marilyn Searson Lary, formerly with North Georgia Coll. & State Univ., Dahlonega

Library Journal

This new dictionary has more than 300,000 entries, compiled using the expertise of Oxford University Press's renowned dictionary department. Oxford's speciality is etymology, and this dictionary provides some of the best word histories available. It also features precise usage guidance, such as Informal, Derogatory, Humorous, and Dated.

bn.com

Oxford's new dictionary not only examines modern American English vocabulary and usage, but presents a new model of how dictionaries may be written...Entries have a clean appearance; definitions are readable and understandable...A well-designed dictionary, recommended for all libraries.

Choice

Oxford has always been so good at dictionaries, and lexographical publishing ...I'd give NOAD to a person looking for a quick answer.

William Safire

Most striking about this dictionary is its immediate reader friendliness: small but crystal clear type, entries with the spelled- out categories DERIVATIVES and ORIGIN, easy-to-find lexical categories, and occasionally, supplemental information about usage, events, or national histories. Eighteen appendices include the history of English, usage and punctuation guides, presidents with terms and party affiliation, selected proverbs, and hall-of- famers from America's major team sports (a list of Hollywood stars not included). Drawings of animals, maps of countries, and photos of famous figures (mostly political) punctuate the volume. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews