American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language CD-ROM [CD-ROM]

Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries (Editor), Editors of The American Heritage Dictionaries (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dictionary | Publication Date: January 15, 2000

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition on CD-ROM offers all the features of its print counterpart and more. The Fourth Edition includes over 10,000 new words and senses, full etymologies, a revised Appendix of Indo-European Roots, and an all-new Appendix of Semitic Roots. It also includes an expansive note program: over 450 new and revised Usage Notes, 100 Regional Notes, and a new feature, Our Living Language Notes.

The new Fourth Edition on CD combines the innovation of the print dictionary with the ease and accessibility of an electronic format. Special features include:

· Over 1,000 color photographs, illustrations, and maps from the print edition

· Nearly 70,000 spoken pronunciations

· Definitions and usage instantly accessible by highlighting and right-clicking on words in any Microsoft Office application

· A simple search tool for finding the word you want, even if you don't know how to spell it

· Separately searchable indexes of all images and note features

Whatever your experience as a computer user may be, The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language on CD will help you discover the richness of the English language in ways you never have before.

Minimal System Requirements

· PC with Pentium® 200 or higher processor · Windows® 95, Windows® 98, Windows NT®, or Windows® 2000 · 32 megabytes of RAM · Hard disk with at least 20 megabytes of free space · CD-ROM drive (or DVD-ROM drive) · Multimedia system with Microsoft Media Player for sound · SVGA 800 x 600 or higher resolution monitor · Mouse and Keyboard

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries and of other reference titles published by Houghton Mifflin Company are trained lexicographers with a varied array of interests and expertise. Most of the editors hold graduate degrees and have studied at least one foreign language. Several have degrees in linguistics or in the history of the English language. Others have degrees in science or sometimes other disciplines. All the editors familiarize themselves with the vocabulary in specific subject areas, collect materials on new developments and usage, and work in association with consultants to ensure that the content of our publications is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible.

Product Details

• CD-ROM: 2704 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Fourth Edition edition (January 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618094555
• ISBN-13: 978-0618094554
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 5.1 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,654,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Advice for using this exceptional dictionary on CD, September 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language CD-ROM (CD-ROM)

I am responding to a reviewer who had a difficult time trying to load the CD onto his hard drive, so he wouldn't have to have the CD in the disk drive while using it.

The instructions are clearly written, and easily accessible, in the help contents, but I thought I would list them below anyway: You simply copy the entire CD into a folder on your hard drive and run SETUP.EXE from there by double-clicking on it. This will allow you to run The American Heritage® Dictionary from your hard drive without having to insert the CD. (Please note: This will require 600 Megabytes of disk space.)

If you want to use The American Heritage® Dictionary with Microsoft® Office (and this is a wonderfully helpful feature):

You can use The American Heritage® Dictionary on CD to look up words in the following Microsoft® Office 97 and Microsoft® Office 2000 applications: Microsoft® Word, Microsoft® PowerPoint, Microsoft® Access, and Microsoft® Excel.

To look up the definition of a word while you are working in one of these applications, just right-click on the word. The drop-down menu that results will contain the item "American Heritage® Dictionary". If you click on this menu item, The American Heritage® Dictionary application will appear, showing the dictionary entry for the word.

If you want to look up a phrase (for example, "give away"), you should select all of the desired text before you right-click.

Exception: In Microsoft® Excel, you can select an entire cell and invoke the Dictionary by right-clicking, but you cannot do so while editing the cell.

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, October 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language CD-ROM (CD-ROM)

For a few years, I was a happy user of the prior version of this CD-ROM. It was a Windows 3.1 program, but still worked well in Windows 95/98. My only criticism of the prior version is that you can't load the entire dictionary (with pronunciation) onto the hard drive. In any event, I lost the CD-ROM, and, as a temporary measure, have been using the dictionary included with Microsoft Bookshelf 95. When the Fourth Edition of the AHD was released on CD-ROM, I purchased it with high expectations. Unfortunately, it is a stinker. True, you can load the entire program (including spoken pronunciation) onto the hard drive. But the features stop there. Unlike the prior edition, you can't do a reverse look up. For example, if you know there is a word that means, roughly, superficial knowledgeability, the AHD4 can't help you. In the prior version, you could search the definitions for "superficial knowledgeability" and come up with sciolism. Also, opening the program takes at least three times as long as the old version. You can't double-click on a word in the definition to get that word's definition. Finally, listings of colleges and universities (total enrollment and street address) are not included in the AHD4.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Instructions for using with Office XP, March 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language CD-ROM (CD-ROM)

Although this CD-ROM predates Office XP, it can be made to work correctly with it.
1. Locate the file named AHDLookup.dot, on the CD or on your hard drive, if you have copied the data to your hard drive. Select (highlight) this file and type Ctrl-C to copy it.
2. IF YOU HAVE WINDOWS 95, 98, or NT: Paste AHDLookup in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 10\Startup. Restart your computer.
3. IF YOU HAVE WINDOWS ME, 2000, or XP: Paste AHDLookup in C:\Documents and Settings\[your username]\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup. Restart your computer.