From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—The more than 4500 words and expressions in this update of the 2002 edition are those that are used unchanged, or almost unchanged, from their source language. Notable among the 500 new entries are fresh adoptions such as sudoku and an increased number of prefixes and suffixes. Entries include idioms (the French homme moyen sensual , "the man in the street"); scientific terms (the Latin nucleus , "kernel"); gastronomic terminology (the Italian farfalle, "butterflies"); religious terms ( swami , from the Sanskrit for "master" or "lord"); legal and political terms ( apparatchik , from the Russian for "political machine"), and many other words and phrases. The short entries include an American-English pronunciation guide; the language of origin; the part of speech; a direct translation; the meaning as used in English; and, in many cases, an illustrative quote. Cross-references guide readers where a word may have alternate spellings. Some entries are obscure but many are words that are heavily used. Though a helpful listing by tongue shows that English has been influenced by many different languages, including some "smaller" ones (Narragansett, Basque), it also serves to illustrate bias, as it is obvious that Latin, French, German, and Italian dominate. Still, this is a captivating title to browse.— Henrietta Thornton-Verma, School Library Journal
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.