More than 3,000 most commonly misspelled, misused, misunderstood, and confusing words are featured in this reference guide. Arranged alphabetically, with each word defined, pronounced, and given a sample usage, this book is ideal for school, business, home, or for anyone seeking to increase their vocabulary.

"Features more than 10,000 entries that focus exclusively on words that, while outside most people's working vocabulary, are often encountered in literature, in technical writings such as computing or medical terminology, and in such diverse subject areas as law, philosophy, and art. Special attention is given to easily confused or closely related words. Usage notes are provided to ensure that readers know how to integrate these words into their vocabularies for more precision and power in speech and writing."--Back cover.

​What is a bumbershoot? Or a moonbow? And what does it mean when someone absquatulates...? Find out all this and more in The Dictionary of Difficult Words. Test your knowledge with more than 400 words to amaze, confuse, and inspire budding wordsmiths (and adults). All of the words featured in this book are difficult to spell, hard to say, and their meanings are obscure to most children (and most adults)! Written with simple, easy-to-understand definitions by lexicographer Jane Solomon, this dictionary celebrates the beauty of the English language for family trivia time spent around the printed page.

50 lessons with 130 activities and write-in exercises Each lesson focuses on an area of language, with the emphasis on vocabulary extension and the Oxford 3000TM (the most important words to learn in English) Each lesson encourages students to explore different dictionary entries (taken from the Oxford American Dictionary for learners of English), so that they know how the dictionary helps with pronunciation, parts of speech, and using words correctly Focus on useful vocabulary with the Word Banks The Wordlist in the back of the book shows all the words that are taught in the 50 lessons.

This dictionary covers tricky words and includes pronunciation, parts of speech, and concise definitions for each word, sample sentences to reinforce correct usage, specialized technical terms, and more.

Produced by Oxford's American Dictionaries Program, and drawing on the expertise of scores of American scholars and advisors, The New Oxford American Dictionary sets the standard of excellence for lexicography in this country.Here is the most accurate and richly descriptive picture of American English ever offered in any dictionary. Oxford's American editors drew on our 200-million-word databank of contemporary North American English, plus the unrivaled citation files of the world-renowned Oxford English Dictionary. We started with American evidence--an unparalleled resource unique to Oxford. Our staff logged more than 50 editor-years, checking every entry and every definition. Oxford's ongoing North American Reading Program, begun in the early 1980s, keeps our lexicographers in touch with fresh evidence of our language and usage--in novels and newspapers, in public records and magazines, and on-line, too.To provide unprecedented clarity, the entries are organized around core meanings, reflecting the way people think about words and eliminating the clutter and confusion of a traditional dictionary entry. Each entry plainly shows the major meaning or meanings of the word, plus any related senses, arranged in intuitive constellations of connected meanings. Definitions are supplemented by illustrative, in-context examples of actual usage.This major new edition of The New Oxford American Dictionary includes a guide to the pronunciations on every page, a new etymology essay by Anatoly Liberman, completely updated and revised maps, and more than a thousand new entries, covering everything new in our language from low-carb to warblog and beyond.The New Oxford American Dictionary is designed to serve the user clearly, simply, and quickly, with the precise guidance you expect from Oxford University Press. With in-depth and up-to-date coverage that all users need and expect--for reading and study, for technical terms, for language guidance--it continues the tradition of scholarship and lexicographic excellence that are the hallmarks of every Oxford dictionary.Web SiteA companion web site is now available at www.oup.com/us/noad.