The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

I swiped this from my brother's bookcase many, many moons ago in my mid high school years. :) It's my old friend that still beckons me to behold it now and then, despite my habit of opening a browser and typing 'define ____'. All the thumbnail stickers of 'AB', 'CD' have fallen off. But holding it in my hand still feels like the true authority of the English language - a much better time before the butchering done by texting, endless acronyms, and poorly invented words. A solid must have English dictionary for anyone respectful of the language.

Well, ok - it pressed a few flower petals for me too.

Back in 1971 when I was fresh out of college and working at a Boston ad agency, we were launching the first edition of this outstanding dictionary. Since then, and despite the ubiquitous availability of online word-lookups, I have continued to update my AHD to the new edition whenever it's been released. It's partly brand loyalty, but moreso an appreciation for the uniquley entertaining way the dictionary was designed - with color photographs and often humorous references you won't find in Merriam Webster (and I worked on that account, too, in later years).

I have both the third and fourth editions of this book. The color photos are nice in the fourth edition, but I sometimes find them distracting. I've never been able to just read the definition I went in for. Sometimes I wish the definitions went deeper, but mostly I'm very happy with it.

Now that Andrew Bingham recently died, I took a look at my LT entry and saw that I had not put a review and did not list the other editorial staff. So, I needed to remedy this. And I want to say this dictionary is my favorite of all time. I liked a Barnhart dictionary as a youngster as it showed what were the most common words in English. The American Heritage Dictionary doesn't do any stats won word frequency, but it does much more. The etymologies are great. I knew Latin and French when I bought this decades ago and had an incursion into Spanish. So, I was a word person. What's more there is a glossary on Indo-European roots and discovered now words are related to each other, some surprisingly so. The IE root, bhel (1), has spawned show more words as different as blanc (white in French - but white in English is kweit derived and Latin has alb), blue, blond, blind, black, fulgent, flame, bleak, blaze and so forth. There are also small articles on usage, dialects, grammar & meaning, and computers in lexicography. show less

I love dictionaries. The first book I purchased as a six year old was a small pocket dictionary. The AHD is simply the best dictionary you will find. The main advantage is the semi-prescriptive stance taken, by giving usage notes reflecting the votes of a panel of language experts. These notes are particularly helpful for ESL students who may not always know what vocabulary words are offensive among the general public. The pictures are wonderful and distracting, yes, but the definitions are superb.

The first edition of the AHD came out while I was in college and was the first dictionary I fell in love with: the illustrations! Indo-European roots! The 4th ed. is even better, and has Semitic roots as well.

Considering the OED might bankrupt me the American Heritage is a steal at what I payed for it. The color illustrations make it more user-friendly than many dictionaries I've used in the past. And it is large enough to be helpful for esoteric words and small enough to not become cumbersome.