Of all American-English dictionaries, American Heritage dictionaries have most closely hewn to an ideal that dictionaries should not only answer questions about individual words, but should engage the mind in larger questions involving the usage and history of the language. The present thumb-indexed (plain edge also available) dictionary displays in a more compact form most of the virtues of its immediate predecessor, the much-admired American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition (1992). These include new words of the 1990s, guidance to usage, word histories, regional notes, an Indo-European roots appendix, and some 2,500 illustrations. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. Read Less