Customer Reviews

Random House Webster's College Dictionary, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You don't have to be a college student to appreciate this with-it dictionary. As a professional writer, I swear by it. It's not only useful for spelling and capitalization, it has proved invaluable in indicating when hyphenated compound words "graduate" to single words by virtue of their popular usage. (Examples: "head-hunting" became "headhunting" when employment recruiters began doing it; "email" is taking over the place that "e-mail" established; even "weekend" was hyphenated at first.) Accept no substitutes ... insist on the Random House Webster's College version. I buy nearly every edition of this classic, and I am always amazed at the number of new words it includes. I have also given it to friends, family, colleagues, and even my editor.

I write as a hobby and am a reference book addict. I own 10 dictionaries. I've had my copy of RH/Webster's for 3 years and have yet to find a word not listed in stunning detail. Buy this dictionary!

The second edition of Random House Webster's College Dictionary first published in 1997 when it was the latest at college dictionary market. Then, the publisher launched an annual update program in 1998. The 1999 update have more than 207,000 definitions with more new words than any other dictionary. The new words in science, computing, business, society etc were comprehensively updated. I always go to Random house first because I find it always give me a satisfactory answer.

As a Ph.D. student that English is not my native tongue I found this dictionary very helpful and easy to use. I use it to write and read professional publications in variety of fields. I was so happy to finally find a reliable dictionary that contains a lot of words and explain their definitions clearly.

I bought the April 1999 edition after spending an hour or two in the bookstore looking at several dictionaries so that I could find the best one for me.

This one won easily. I can't remember whether the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary was among the others, but I do remember being confused at some point in time by the similarities in appearance and name of these dictionaries. So I found the "No likelihood of consumer confusion?" review very helpful as I hadn't bothered to run it down so thoroughly. Thanks! It seems to me that only a legal system trapped in its own ever-diminishing circle could have concluded that there was no attempt by Random House to imitate.

The dictionary, however, I have found to be excellent. In the three years or so I've had it I've found one mistake - a typo where "liberal" was used instead of "literal" in the definition of the word 'Pharisee'. I measure that against the innumerable occasions where its concise and elegant definitions have been a great help and source of knowledge. I really can't speak too highly of it, but I'll now just have to go out and compare it in my "relatively sophisticated" way to the Merriam-Webster.

I have been using the Random House College dictionary since I received it as a gift in 1981. I found these reviews while I was looking for a newer edition. I have my original Random House College Dictionary(that's what it says on the dust jacket and the cover) sitting here on my desk, in its original RED dust jacket, although the rest of the book is falling to pieces from use. I really wonder about all this confusion. I chose this dictionary as a desired gift because of its superior, clear definitions and wonderfully organized entries, which put the etymological references right at the end where we educated folks like to find them. My final decision as to which dictionary to buy rested on the full definition given of the word "megalomania," which all the others merely listed as a psychiatric condition. I am thrilled to hear that the terminology of all the latest technological advances and vernacular language are included in the most recent edition. I will most certainly be picking up a copy.

I wanted to give my niece, newly graduated from high school and on her way to college, a present, and decided on a college size dictionary. I found about 6 or 7 at the bookstore and spent some time reading each of them. I ended up choosing the Random House Webster College Dictionary. There were several features of this dictionary that I liked. It was easy on the eye: there was a little space between entries, which made words easier to find, and there was a minimum of abbreviations and symbols. Etymologies are placed at the end of an entry, rather than at the beginning. That means that what you see first are the definitions, not a line or two of technical information that most people don't read anyway. When a word has more than one meaning, the different senses are numbered 1,2,3...etc. I found this clearer and less confusing to the eye than 1a,b,c or circles and squares to categorize the various senses. I also liked that Random House lists the most common meanings first. Finally, and maybe most important, people look up words in a dictionary most often to find out what they mean. So any dictionary rises or falls on the quality of its definitions. With Random House, I found the definitions clear, straight forward and easy to read.
I would have given this dictionary five stars, but I found the paper quality, which looks a little like newsprint, to be less than top quality and likely to turn color with age. All in all, however, this was the one I liked the best.
As an added tip, you might want to check out the Random House thesausus, which I also gave my niece to complement the dictionary. It was an even clearer winner over its competition, in my mind, than the dictionary.

I was particularly impressed with the Random House dictionary. I have looked through many other dictionaries that claim to be comprehensive, but none compare with the amount and type of words defined in your product. I based my purchase on a comparison with my husband's "old" Random House College Dictionary that he received in 1968 before enrolling in college. It has been the best reference work over the years, and this new one is even more comprehensive, yet in a reasonable size. I would recommend it for anyone heading to college or with an interest in words!!

My mother bought me the 2nd edition in 2000 and wrote across the cover "Leah's Much-Used Dictionary." It was truly prophetic (or maybe the number of times I had used the family dictionary and spilled various foodstuffs on it had tipped her off...) That dictionary of my parents was a Merriam-Webster's but this Random House dictionary has been immensely useful. I'm a grad student that needs to know many technical terms and this dictionary has rarely failed me. I love reading it for fun; my grandfather said he loved dictionaries, but all the stories were too short!

The recipient of the book ordered expressed gratitude in the quality of the book received.