Chambers McGraw-Hill Second Learners' Dictionary

**Preface** This dictionary is intended to provide learners of English with a large number of words in a compact, easy-to-read form. The vocabulary covers a wide range of fields including scientific and literary language but concentrates mainly on the everyday language so essential to students of English in their reading and listening. Words are defined as simply as possible and many phrases and sentences have been given not only to make the meanings clearer but also to help the student use the word correctly. The dictionary also includes some common American meanings, spellings and pronunciations. Pronunciation is given in the alphabet of the International Phonetic Association (IPA). A detailed chart setting out the pronunciation scheme is on pp. vi and vii. How to use this dictionary Arrangement of words Each entry begins with a headword in bold type. Under each of these you will find its part of speech and its meaning(s). After this come the meanings of other parts of speech which have the same form as the headword. Then follows a list of words formed directly from the headword eg by adding -ness, -ment, -ly etc. Where these are easily understood from the word from which they are formed, no meanings are given but they are placed as close to that word as possible. Following these is a list of compounds, also in alphabetical order. These are words consisting of two parts whose first part is the headword, eg high-handed, or a word directly formed from it, eg highly-strung. Sometimes these are written as one word, eg hardware, sometimes with a hyphen, eg hard-hearted, sometimes as two words, eg hard labour. Next comes a list of phrases in alphabetical order. These are groups of words containing the headword, eg hard of hearing, or a word derived from the headword, eg in keeping with.