Yet it remains lighter and easier to hold, and now has an even more durable jacket so that it will be a beautiful hardback reference for many years to come. " The Chambers Dictionary is the most useful and diverting single-colume word-hoard available." Telegraph First published in 1872, The Chambers Dictionary contains more words, phrases and meanings than any other single-volume English dictionary. anticipation or foreboding (usually of evil).Click on the cover image above to read some pages of this book! 1714, borrowing of French presentiment, variant of pressentiment, from Middle French, from pressentire to have foreboding or premonition, from Latin praesentire to sense beforehand, have a feeling of foreboding (prae- before + sentire perceive or feel see SENSE) for suffix see -MENT anticipation or foreboding (usually of evil). Here's one short example to give you a sense (and Amazon doesn't support italics, so just realize that all foreign words appear in italics in the book):
#Chambers dictionary amazon code
It's just understandable, rather than written in code :) But it's still a "real" dictionary, with nearly 1,300 pages and over 30,000 words. My impetus to buy the book was two children who are always asking me about words, and after one too many "I don't know" answers, I decided to find an etymological dictionary, and this one is perfect for giving me answers that are easy to quickly understand and explain, rather than answers that require either memorizing all the standardized abbreviations, or flipping back and forth between multiple pages in order to understand what it's saying. This one instead is far more legible and approachable, listing the word, pronunciation, a short definition, and then a sentence or two of background.
Some etymology dictionaries will skip the definition of a word, then go straight into a list of 5-30 standardized abbreviations to "explain" what's happening in the word, and then a phrase or two. This is the perfect etymology dictionary for most of us who are wondering about word background. Having to learn abbbreviations is no objection : it takes a mere second or two, and the result only better prepare one for more rewarding refernec text usage. Partridge outstrips Chambers at every turn. Now I wish I had gone for something else, the Oxford, for example. On the whole, I have found the much slighter book by Eric Partridge, "Origins:A Short Etymological Dictionery of the Modern English" to be far deeper, richer, more suggestive of pockets of sense, than any other I have used so far. Where are the Greek and Latin derivatives? Why is there no folksy, learned fancy to touch a pertinent phrase.Īt times this book provides, through its discussion like text, a tidbit or two that was of help. But, it stops far short of intriguing threads of sense that are crucial for seious research. The best thing is the prose style which is readable and invites easy access. But after using the book through a month of extensive etymological research, I find that the resource is much too thin, although the book is thick with 25,000 entries. I read the other submitted reviews and felt encouraged. Chambers Dictionary of Etymology is not a purchase I am glad to have made.
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