Scott, Foresman Advanced Dictionary [antikvár]

Preface To put the proper word in the proper place or to comprehend fully what you read or hear is not easy. The Advanced Dictionary has been specially designed to help high-school and mature junior high-school students by bringing to them the essential information about vocabulary needed by English-speaking people in reading and writing, listening and speaking. Each of the 95,000 words entered in this book has been carefully and systematically evaluated by a staff of editors long experienced in writing dictionaries for young people. A wide variety of contemporary textbooks and other literature was read to ensure the inclusion of all of the words and meanings likely to be encountered by today's student. This reading is backed up by Scott, Foresman's citation files, which contain more than one million examples of words in use continually collected from newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications. Current word frequency counts were reviewed. Great care has been taken to arrange the information about each word in a way that will be of the greatest use to the student. Related meanings are put close together, common and general meanings are put before rare and special meanings, and present-day meanings are put before archaic meanings. All entries- ordinary words, biographical names, geographical names, abbreviations, and foreign words and phrases-are in one alphabetical list to enable the student to find information quickly and easily. For more than forty years Scott, Foresman has published dictionaries that have made the complex meanings of our language understandable to millions of students. This book adheres to the basic techniques of definition characteristic of the dictionaries in the Thorndike-Barnhart series. All entries are explained, so far as possible, in simpler language than the word being defined. Words are put together in the simplest possible way to produce a meaningful definition. Illustrative phrases and sentences are used freely to clarify definitions so that the student cannot fail to understand them. These sentences have been written to reflect the pluralism of our society, and at the same time to avoid unfortunate stereotypes. The Advanced Dictionary has several additional features that provide further help. Some 900 synonym studies and usage notes provide additional information on syntax, spelling, and shades of meaning to help students use words with exactness. Because we have not used abbreviations in the 16,000 etymologies, young people are encouraged to use them and gain fresh insights into language. The 1300 illustrations with their captions are set full-column width. Definitions are not run around the illustrations, thereby avoiding short lines and excessive hyphenation that make reading difficult. The following pages contain information that will help students make full use of this dictionary. Exercises are provided for pupils who may need or want to review particular dictionary skills. An answer key is available for these exercises. We hope that this dictionary will be a tool to help students understand what they hear and read, and an ever-present aid to expression. Through a knowledge of the facts about words, they will continue to improve their understanding and their ability to speak and write good English. The Editors