The Wordsworth Advanced Learners Dictionary is unique in that it combines the elements of thesaurus usage guide lexicon & historical survey in one volume. As well as the usual features of a dictionary this book
Includes:: expository panels which present a point of usage the history of the word the area of vocabulary or the nuances of a definition. As David Crystal says of the book in his Introduction The test quite simply is to open it at any page & see if you can stop yourself browsing. I couldnt. The surprising origins of words & phrases such as Beefeaters between the devil & the deep blue sea & the disease named after a shepherd in an Italian poem mean that The Wordsworth Advanced Learners Dictionary is of enormous use to both foreign students & to those whose mother tongue is English.