From Library Journal
C.T. Onions's Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford, rev. 1969, $45) is the source of this compact version, and for the most part the reductions are carefully chosen, as in eliminating the pronunciations of common words and technical terms. But this work is abridged: e.g., over two former pages, between dickens and dignity, entries for dictaphone, dies non , and dight have been deleted, and these deletions are representative. Secondary information has also been cut from individual entries. The result is a handy and compact desktop reference book, well printed and bound as expected from the Clarendon Press. However, both the original, and Ernest Klein's Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Lanaguage (Elsevier, 1971, $85) are in print, and larger libraries should have them as well. Stephen H. Cape, Indiana Univ. Lib., Bloomington
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A model of its kind--all that anyone other than a specialist needs to know about words."--Daily Telegraph
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