The Oxford Dictionary of New Words

By Elizabeth Knowles

Book Overview

New words are the footprints of time. Just to recite some of the phrases that have become popular in the 1990s--feng shui, Generation X, jelly shoes, Netscape, Prozac, road rage, shock-jock, Twinkie defense, voice mail, warehouse club--is to fast-forward through our recent history. Now, in the second edition of The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, readers can savor a smorgasbord of new words and phrases that have been coined--or popularized--in the last ten years.
Here are hundreds of informative and intriguing articles that provide the pronunciation, definition, sample sentences, and, perhaps most important, the origin and informal history of over 2,500 words and phrases that have come into popular usage in recent years. The editors have drawn words from politics, the environmental movement, computers and technology, business, sports, and entertainment, from recent crazes such as Magic Eye art and microbreweries, politically charged terms such as tree-hugger, feminazi, lipstick lesbian, and McJob, and popular expressions such as "the _____ from hell" (waiter from hell, dentist from hell), "get a life," and "been there, done that." About 70% of the articles are new to this edition, and the repeat articles--on words included in the first edition which are still sufficiently prominent to warrant attention--have been either revised or newly written.
The Dictionary of New Words is a resource that is both useful and engaging, the first place to turn for information when faced with new words and phrases (from auto bra and Beltway Bandit to trainspotting, wormhole, and zaitech) and a gold mine of language for word lovers everywhere.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198631529
• ISBN13: 9780198631521
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

How to Rejuvenate Your Vocabulary?

This book covers new words which have been 'in the news' in the decade and a half between the beginning of the eighties and the mind-nineties. The book follows the patterns set by the ground-breaking first edition, published in 1991, in aiming to provide an informative and readable guide to about two thousand high-profile words and phrases which have come to public attention in the past fifteen or sixteen years. The purpose is to tell the story of each item treated, by explaining the events that brought it to prominence. Each story is illustrated by examples of actual use in journalism (including electronic publications and outline postings) and fiction. The vocabulary covered provides an overview of the given period, by highlighting historical, cultural, and social concerns and by reflecting the effects of technological development and scientific discovery. For the purposes of this dictionary, a 'new word' is any word ,phrase, or sense that came into popular use or enjoyed a vogue in the given period. Vocabulary thus covers completely new coinages such as Aga saga and pharm, and new uses of existing terms, such as dragon and rage. A minority of terms covered in the first edition claim a place here because their stories have continued to develop(BSE is an example of this). If your work involves the use of words, by keeping this vocabulary within reach, you will have a helping hand indeed.