| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford Paperback Reference) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
"A model of its kind--all that anyone other than a specialist needs to know about words."--Daily Telegraph
Product Description
Where did the words bungalow and assassin derive? What did nice mean in the Middle Ages? How were adder, anger, and umpire originally spelt? The answers can be found in this essential companion to any popular dictionary. With over 17,000 entries, this is the most authoritative and comprehensive guide to word origins available in paperback. Based on The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the principal authority on the origin and development of English words, it contains a wealth of information about our language and its history.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is fantastic. When I was a boy my father used to always say to me when I asked what a word meant 'look it up in the dictionary'. This has stayed with me into my adult life, and encouraged me to learn new words and their meanings. This book goes a further step and shows where words originate which is facinating and provides many dinner party conversations.
I have also read some of the Chambers dictionary, and was dissapointed with some of the americanism in this book. The Oxford Dictionary is consise and clear in its layout, and a throughly good reference book. My knowledge of the english language has increased tenfold - highly recommended.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A fascinatingly varied and challenging subject is sadly mishandled by the critic T F Hoad, who seems intent on trumpeting his own brilliance and contemporary knowledge at every opportunity, while simultaneously neglecting to add anything that might be of any interest to anyone who is not personally familiar with the critics' foibles. A sad business all round for etymology, which deserved better.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book is very concise, it treats words in a shallow, unserious manner as if the reader is not expected to have deep interests. There is hardly a definition which one can find satisfactory. You just have to read a definition several times and make guesses! I have checked up words which I know for sure are Shakespearean coinages, and it says nothing about it! It is a shallow, careless, contentless book, not worth a penny!
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Medical & Healthcare Practitioners > Internal Medicine
- Books > Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauri > Subject Dictionaries > Medical
- Books > Reference > Encyclopaedias
- Books > Reference > Language
- Books > Science & Nature > Medicine
- Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Linguistics > Historical & Comparative Linguistics > Etymology
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Linguistics > Reference
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
