Fantastic value -- rivals the giant unabridged dictionaries
This is a fantastic value. Mine amazingly appears to be brand new. Seems to weigh around 3 or 4 pounds. It has several sections of color plates, with such things as antique aircraft, flowers, state flags, anatomy, fish, trees, wild flowers, lichens, solar system, sponges, worms, etc. But I bought it because of the comprehensive dictionary content including thorough etymology of each word. I owned a smaller ancestor of this one published decades ago and enjoyed the word origins given, which is why I sought out and bought this more comprehensive version. It has comprehensive word origin and pronunciation information, but like most dictionaries, does not use the international phonetic alphabet.
We both remember in high school the dictionary had its own stand in the library. This copy is great the older edition seems to have a lot up information. The dictionary at our City Library is quite a bit smaller.