Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary[2006?]

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Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary
8 l8 O: G/ {- hhttp://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_AHD_vs_NOAD.html

It is clearly seen, that NOAD is also somewhat a learner's dictionary, using oft misleading, simplistic descriptions.

Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_review.html
+ Y6 ~# d. Q( ?3 v; j8 |1 U2 rThe versions i'm reviewing are:
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The American Heritage Dictionary Version 4.0 (1995) for Mac OS. (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company)
Merriam-Webster version 2.5. (2000) (for both PC and Mac (runs in Classic under OS X).)
+ f0 k; y' j- V: NEncarta Dictionary Tools as part of Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2003. (the BEST electronic encyclopedia on computer, all things considered, period.)
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http://wordyenglish.com/words/dictionary_tools.html

Review of Dictionaries

( b; ?& c; ]! W2 qHere's a quick summary: i highly recommend American Heritage Dictionary. Its vocabulary size is larger than all the others online. Its definition is professional and rich. It is not dumbed-down “explanatory” style as in learner's dictionaries, nor is it terse and incomprehensible as in the abridged “Merriem-Webster collegiate”, nor is it “web samples” as in Word Net.
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The worst is the Merriem-Webster COLLEGIATE dictionary. It is a abridged dictionary and very popular due to i suppose aggressive marketing. Also, extremely bad is the dictionary bundled with every Mac OS X: New Oxford American Dictionary. It is a “learner's dictionary” and a bad one.
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What's Learner's Dictionary?

“Learner's dictionary” is a class of dictionaries that take a explanatory approach. Instead of giving a definition, it simply explains what the word means. This is great if you are a casual reader and simply want to know a word's meaning quickly, but it has several serious problems.

: O1 |: S# u" E- f/ {You won't be able to understand a word unless it is used in the most common way. Because, learner's dictionary usually omits a word's less popular meanings.
It does not give you any sense at all of the word's connotation, background, etymology. If you are reading a old classic English novel (e.g. Jonathan Swift), or finely-crafted journalism such as Time Magazine articles, learner's dictionary will puzzle and mislead you.
For in-depth review of dictionaries, see:

Review: American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_review.html
, @+ N9 H# b! E- b* XReview: American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_AHD_vs_NOAD.html
0 w" ]0 m: W; s" @1913 Websters Dictionary and WordNet http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_websters_wordnet.html
1 \5 j6 B( o6 c1 |) K/ g# |Problems of Open Source Dictionaries http://wordyenglish.com/musing/dict_open_source_probs.html