Robert L. Chapman Books

Includes more than 1,000 subject categories, 325,000 words and phrases, and an index-reference system

An entertaining reference dictionary of contemporary and traditional American slang furnishes definitions, pronunciations, historical development, synonyms, and other information about thousands of slang expressions. Reprint.

For those who prefer a thesaurus in dictionary form, this bestseller (more than 50,000 hardcover copies sold) is the ideal choice.

A newly revised and updated 8th edition of the world’s bestselling thesaurus—the only thesaurus based on Peter Roget’s original reference classic of 1852. This hardcover thumb-indexed edition includes more than 443,000 words and phrases grouped into 1,075 categories. The revolutionary achievement of Dr. Roget was his development of a new principle: the grouping of words according to ideas. If the user cannot find something in a reference book, it is often because of the restriction of searching alphabetically by ‘known’ headwords. Dr. Roget’s thesaurus thus reversed the access to allow the user to find a word from another word, a concept or an idea. When in 1852 Roget published the first book ever to realize this concept with thoroughness and precision, he called it a “thesaurus” (from the Greek and Latin, meaning “treasury” or “storehouse”). And thesaurus it has remained to this day. The ultimate reference tool, this new edition contains over 443,000 words and phrases grouped into 1,075 numbered categories. Within each category you’ll find all the parts of speech, frequent cross-references, commonly-used words singled out in boldface, quotes that puts words into context , hundreds of fascinating and idiosyncratic word lists and much more. If you’re a writer who needs help organizing a thought or mastering the nuance of expression, Roget's International Thesaurus® remains the first source to turn to.

Completely revised and expanded, this is the ultimate slang dictionary, giving the meaning of more than 15,000 words and phrases of modern slang.

Now updated with 20% new information, this revised thesaurus is a bestselling classic, retaining Roget's brilliant category-based organizing system, an innovative ordering of the English language to organize readers' thoughts and stimulate ideas. Includes nearly 3,000 new words.

Dollars to doughnuts , your reference shelf lacks a good slang dictionary, and that's a fine how-de-do . Whether you're a stuffy writer looking to gussy up your prose, a poindexter who thinks studying dictionaries is the cat's pajamas , or a muttonheaded fogey hoping to get a clue , Robert Chapman's Dictionary of American Slang fills the bill. Containing more than 19,000 terms of American slang, this lexicon represents all periods of American history, from phrases out of the 1880s, such as carrot-top for "redhead," to current '90s jargon such as carjacking . It covers the widely acceptable and the taboo, slang from cowboys and railroad workers and slang from rock & rollers, corporate America, and the gay community. It includes obsolete phrases such as canoeing for "making-out," and up-to-date terms relating to technology, such as listserv for "electronic mail list." Each item features pronunciation guides, word origins, and usage examples, and words that are derogatory or impolite are clearly labeled as such. A righteous reference and a lulu of a browser, the Dictionary of American Slang is an elegantly produced and scholarly rigorous linguistic knockout . --Stephanie Gold