American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate. By Xah Lee. Date 2. Cove Reading Program Directions To Jfk. Last updated 2. 01. I learned English literally by looking up dictionaries. Of the English dicts ive used, mostly its just. American Heritage Dictionary. Merriam Webster. Collegiate MWC. I learned English literally by looking up dictionaries. Of the English dicts ive used, mostly its just American Heritage Dictionary AHD and Merriam Webster. The muchanticipated Fifth Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is the premier resource about words for people who seek to know more. The New Oxford American Dictionary NOAD is a singlevolume dictionary of American English compiled by American editors at the Oxford University Press. In the early 1. 99. MWC. Since 1. 99. AHD on computer and almost never bothered to turn a paper page again. Since 2. 00. 3 ive got MWC on computer too. Also in 2. 00. 3 i bought Microsoft. American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language 3Rd Edition' title='American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language 3Rd Edition' />PC that includes Microsofts own dictionary a collegiate sized dict. On occasion i check other dicts in libraries, such as OED or Random House International, but due to practicality, ive used AHD and MWC daily and exclusively and extensively for the past about a decade. On periods im writing or actively reading, i lookup a hundred or two times each day. The American Heritage Dictionary on Mac OS Classic. Of the 3 AHD, MWC, Encarta, AHD is the best by far. If you doesnt understand a word, AHD provides understanding much better than MWC. Labyrinth definition, an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find ones way or to reach the exit. See more. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition. Editors of The American Heritage Dictionaries. Nature definition, the material world, especially as surrounding humankind and existing independently of human activities. See more. The Hardcover of the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition by American Heritage Publishing Staff at Barnes Noble. Amazon. com The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 0046442825177 Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries Books. AHD3 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd Edition. Looking for abbreviations of AHD3 It is American Heritage Dictionary of the English. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Third Edition. All libraries of any consequence need the new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. If you want etymology, AHD gives in paragraphs, as opposed to MWCs single sentence. AHD also provides valuable notes for many words. They include usage, interesting background, synonym nuances, at a level professional word buff will appreciate. Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary is just about the worst in all aspects. Terse and pedantic, often incomprehensibly. American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language 3Rd Edition' title='American Heritage Dictionary Of The English Language 3Rd Edition' />I was a MWC fan because it was my first pure English dictionary and. MW bills. itself as being authoritive. However, after using AHD now in. MWC not in anyway authoritive. Its a bit more. pedantically prescriptive, and in practice sketchy. As far as. definition accuracy goes, some 7. I prefer ones given by. AHD. In comparison, using MWC feels like trying to understand thru synonyms. If you are dithering over words for exact nuances or background research as often called in writing or heaven forbid me in admission in writing poetry, the terse and pedantic definitions given by MWC help little. MS Encarta dict is a learners dict. It takes ostensibly a explanatory. Its decidedly much inferior than AHD too. Microsoft Excel 2010 Tutorial 7 Case Problem 1. I havent used it. Between MWC and Encarta, im. Possibly MWC because at least it is honored and. Since i use these dicts on my computer, i might as well comment on their software aspect. Again, AHD here is splendid in every aspect. And here MWC is worst of the worse. For example, AHD allows you to type wild cards such as ism for all words ending in ism, or f AHD allows searching of definition content as youd do so with searching computer file contents they call this feature Word Hunter. AHD lists definitions and synonyms at the same time. MWC software provides only a few of these extremely useful amenities, but made them extremely cumbersome to use. AHDs Word Hunter feature. AHD also provides on target guesses when a words spelling is just on the tip. When a dictionary decided to punish you for not being a spelling bee and. This is true of MWC and. Encarta. AHD software also provide well designed keyboard shortcuts. So you can. move about different panes or functions easily, and do copy and paste if so. MWC forces you to use the mouse and menus painfully on every use. MWC. complicate things with modes. For example, if i type love in the current. Definition Mode, i then have to pull down Thesaurus Mode and type it again to. Then, to look up another word i have to switch. Definition Mode again. Under each of the Dictionary mode and Thesaurus. In AHD, all of these are integrated. The Encarta dict provides none of these extra features. Just plain definition. No wild card or search definition or. However, it does have a translation feature between English. Spanish, French, Italian, German, in bi way lookup. I havent used it. As. for software interface, its minimally usable. For example, it doesnt allow you. It. doesnt have a direct keyboard shortcut to put the cursor on the input. Instead, you have to press tab or shift tab 6 times, or use the mouse to. Still it is far better than MWCs interface. All 3 have the ability to speak the word. Encarta here is notably unclear and synthesized. The versions im reviewing are The American Heritage Dictionary Version 4. Mac OS. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. Houghton Mifflin CompanyMerriam Webster version 2. PC and Mac runs in Classic under OS X. Encarta Dictionary Tools as part of Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2. BEST electronic encyclopedia on computer, all things considered, period. Note online versions may be slightly different than what i have on my computer. For example, i noticed that the online AHD at various sites sometimes are missing usage notes which are typically 2 or 3 paragraphs long. Also, as far as i tried, i know of no online version that lets you search by wildcard. Addendum I did not realize until today that American Heritage Dictionary is actually not a collegiateabridged dictionary, and Merriam Webster Collegiate is not its full version Merriam Webster dictionary. No wonder AHD beats M W Collegiate by far. The famed Merriam Webster is about its full version, not the Collegiate edition. Great Books Online. We are the preeminent internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge.