Specialist Vocabulary
One of the most important uses of a dictionary is to provide explanations of terms in specialized fields that are unfamiliar to a general user. Yet in many traditional dictionaries, the definitions have been written by specialists as if for other specialists, and as a result the definitions are often opaque and difficult for the general user to understand.
One of the primary aims of the New Oxford American Dictionary has been to break down the barriers to understanding specialist vocabulary. The challenge has been, on the one hand, to give information that is comprehensible, relevant, and readable, suitable for the general user, while on the other hand maintaining the high level of technical information and accuracy suitable for the more specialist user.
This has been achieved in some cases, notably entries for plants and animals and chemical substances, by separating technical information e.g., Latin names, chemical formulae, from the rest of the definition (shown immediately after a bullet). For examples, see American crocodile and benzopyrene.
In other cases, it is achieved by giving additional explanatory information within the definition itself, typically in a separate sentence. For examples, see curling and alchemy.
As elsewhere, the purpose is to give information that is relevant and interesting, aiming not just to define the word but also to describe and explain its context in the real world. Additional information of this type, where it is substantial, is given in the
form of separate note (
). For example, see earth and Eocene.
An especially important feature of the New Oxford American Dictionary is the coverage of American animals and plants.
Encyclopedic Material
Some dictionaries do not include entries for the names of people and places and other proper names, or include them only in separate sections. The argument for this is based on a distinction between “words” and “facts,” by which dictionaries are about “words” while encyclopedias and other reference works are about “facts.” The distinction is an interesting theoretical one, but in practice there is a considerable overlap: names such as Shakespeare and Mississippi are as much part of the language as words such as drama or river, and they belong in a large dictionary.
The New Oxford American Dictionary includes all those terms forming part of the enduring common knowledge of English speakers, regardless of whether they are classified as “words” or “names.” The information given is the kind of information that people are likely to need from a dictionary, however that information may traditionally be classified. Both the style of definitions in the New Oxford American Dictionary and the inclusion of additional material in separate blocks reflect this approach.
The New Oxford American Dictionary includes more than 5,000
For a few particularly important encyclopedic
(
).
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