This volume has been derived from the magisterial work of Eric Partridge and his collaborator and successor Paul Beale. Most of the entries have been adapted from material in the second edition (1985) of the classic A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, although articles have also been specially written for items that came into currency in the 1990s.

The focus throughout is on expressions that are in current daily use, and familiar throughout most parts of the English-speaking world. Items originating in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all to be found within these covers. We at Routledge are proud to publish this companion volume to the Shorter Dictionary of Slang (1993) as a tribute to Eric Partridge on the occasion of the centenary of his birth on 6 February 1894.

The language used in law is changing. There are many legal phrases that non-lawyers don’t understand. This guide is intended to help non-lawyers understand legal phrases and to give lawyers guidance in explaining the legal phrases they use. Although it comprises over 60 pages with over 1,400 words explained, this is not a complete dictionary of legal terms in use in Ireland.

The explanations in this guide are not intended to be alternatives. Lawyers will continue to use legal phrases when necessary. This publication is designed to explain ideas and concepts rather than to give legal definitions.

The aim of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms is to provide clear definitions of phrases and sayings for those who do not know what they mean, but also to offer the curious reader interesting facts about the origins of phrases and examples of their use. This second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms is based on the first edition, edited by Jennifer Speake. It maintains the first edition's focus on contemporary and historical phrases, sayings, and proverbs, and uses a combination of definition and (where required) explanatory note and illustrative quotation to provide a rounded picture of idiomatic usage.

From author: “Over the years I have often found myself both amazed and impressed by the level of wine knowledge and honesty of UK wine drinkers in discussing the taste of wine. Interestingly, the same cannot be said for our friends around the world. In fact, wine-producing countries, in my experience, often have the least well-informed citizens. I have puzzled over why this might be. Perhaps they are too close to the subject and, as they inevitably drink wine regularly, often every lunch and dinner, they don't tend to think much about what's in the glass”

This dictionary has been compiled with the aim of giving an overview of the English, German, French and Italian names of mammals. The Basic Table contains, in alphabetical order, the scientific names of families, genera, species and some sub-species and synonyms with, again in alphabetical order, the identified names in English, German, French and Italian. These are given in the singular for species and sub-species and in the plural for other terms.

The merit of Captain Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue has been long and universally acknowledged. But its circulation was confined almost exclusively to the lower orders of society: he was not aware, at the time of its compilation, that our young men of fashion would at no very distant period be as distinguished for the vulgarity of their jargon as the inhabitants of Newgate; and he therefore conceived it superfluous to incorporate with his work the few examples of fashionable slang that might occur to his observation.

The book reflects a departure from the previous one in scope and in format. This edition, containing some 28,500 terms, is not meant to be exhaustive in its coverage. It focuses on mining-related terms and excludes such related categories as ceramics, glass, metallurgy, petroleum, and other specialized disciplines. Geological terms which relate to mining are included, as are minerals which have a commercial value or which are associated with such minerals. Many chemicals and materials that are not usually connected with mining or minerals processing do not appear, nor do the chemical elements unless they are classified as minerals.

In writing this new edition of the Dictionary we had several aims in mind. One of these was to provide clear and up-to-date definitions of the numerous terms and phrases which form the currency of communication in modern microbiology and molecular biology. In recent years the rapid advances in these disciplines have thrown up a plethora of new terms and designations which, although widely used in the literature, are seldom defined outside the book or paper in which they first appeared; moreover, ongoing advances in knowledge have frequently demanded changes in the definitions of older terms – a fact which is not always appreciated and which can therefore lead to misunderstanding.

This dictionary provides the user with the basic vocabulary currently being used in a wide range of healthcare situations. The areas covered include the technical language used in diagnosis, patient care, surgery, pathology, general practice, pharmacy, dentistry and other specialisations, as well as anatomical and physiological terms. Informal, everyday and sometimes euphemistic terms commonly used by people in discussing their condition with healthcare professionals are also included, as are common words used in reading or writing reports, articles or guidelines.

The design of the first volume was maintained, with entries arranged alphabetically and composed with an eye toward factual introduction and guidance in research. Contributors were asked to conduct their research with two principal goals in mind: first, to provide a concise summary of literary inf luences; and second, to provide clear direction for further research. Each entry includes three components: an introductory section provides basic biographical data; The body of each article is devoted to an assessment of specific literary works and authors known to have influenced the subject; A bibliography includes principal archival collections, standard biographical resources, and published materials relating specifically to the subject’s reading, etc.