本词典是当今世界英语界公认的最有权威的韦氏词典系列中最畅销的品种

之一。自1898 年初版至今，已有近百年历史。

本词典为1994 年的第10版，本版更充分利用了韦氏公司逐年增加的庞大语

料库和计算机检索技术，对第9版 中的16万个词条与20万条释义详加考证，并作

修订与增删，反映了近年来词汇研究的新成果。木仅保留了第9版 的精华，又增

添了近百幅插图，对于读者确切理解词义颇有助益。另外，对同义词的解说，则有

较大篇幅的补充。

本书是一切英语学习者案头必备的工具书。

Preface

Explanatory Chart

Explanqtory Notes

The Engilsh Language in the Dictionary

Guide to Pronunication

Abbrevitions in This Work

Pronunication Symbols

A Dictionary of the English

Abbrevititions and Symbols for Chemical Elements

Foreign Words and Phrases

Biographical Names

Grographical Names

Signs and Symbold

A Handbook of Style

Index

In 1898 an abndged dictionary titled Webster's Collegiate

Dictionary took the place, in the Merriam-Webster line, of an

earlier book titled Webster's National Pictorial Dictionary.

The new book was based upon the 1890 edition of the Mer-

riam-Webster Unabridged, and it aimed, its editors said, "to

present the most essential parts of Webster's International

Dictionary, in a compact and convenient form, suited to the

general reader and especially to the college Student." The

change cannot have seemed momentous to the people in-

volved; nonetheless, it inaugurated a series of'editions that has

continued for nearly a hundred years. The book you hold,

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, is

the very latest in that series. Its title is new, and its contents

have undergone the most searching and extensive sort of re-

view and modification over the two-year course of work, but it

remains rooted as firmly as ever in the Merriam-Webster tra-

dition of excellence in the making of dictionaries.

A word must be said about the new title, which breaks with

tradition in beginning not with Webster's but with Merriam-

Webster's. During the time that our Collegiate Dictionary has

been in existence, we have seen the proliferation of dictionanes

from other publishers bearing the designation Webster's in

their titles. In 1982 we changed the name of our company

from the G. & C. Merriam Company that it had borne since

its inception in 1831 to Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.

Events of the succeeding decade have brought us to believe

that we must now place even greater emphasis on the Mer-

riam-Webster combination, which is uniquely ours. The new

title of a very prominent dictionary in our line reflects this

belief.

Although Merham-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth

Edition, may lack a familiar ring, this dictionary like all ear-

lier editions is meant to serve the general public as its chief

source of infonnation about the words of our language. Its

title may suggest a special appropriateness for the ttudent, but

those who work in offices and those who read, think, and

write at home will equally find it a trustworthy guide to the

English of our day.

The ever-expanding vocabulary of our language exerts inex-

orable pressure on the contents of any dictionary. Wprds and

senses are born at a far greater rate than that at which they

die out. The 1600 pages of this Collegiate make it the most

comprehensive ever published. And its treatment of words is

as nearly exhaustive as the compass of an abrldged work per-

mits. As in all Merriam-Webster dictionaries, the information

given is based on the collection of 14,500,000 citations main-

tained in the offices of this company. These citations show

words used in a wide range of printed sources, and the collec-

tion is constantly being augmented through the efforts of the

editonal staff. Thus, the user of the dictionary may be confi-

dent that entries in the Collegiate are based on current as well

as older material. The citation files hold 4,500,000 more exam-

ples than were available to the editors of Webster's Third New

International Dictionary, published in 1961, and 1,500,000

more than the editors of the Ninth Edition had at their dis-

posal. The editors of this edition also had available to them

for the first time a machine-readable corpus of over

20,000,000 words of text drawn from the wide and constantly

changing range of publications that supply the paper slips in

the citation files.

Those entries known to be trademarks or service marks are

so labeled and are treated in accordance with a formula ap-

proved by the United States Trademark Association. No entry

in this dictionary, however, should be regarded as affecting

the validity of any trademark or service mark.

The best features of the vocabulary section in the last edi-

tion have been retained, reviewed, and improved for this one.

Over a hundred additional pictorial illustrations are present,

and many of them were drawn especially for this book in or-

der to supplement and clarify definitions. To the synonym

paragraphs brief verbal illustrations have consistently been

added to assist with the understanding of the discrimination

offered. Usage paragraphs, which appeared for the first time

in the Ninth Edition, are here again, augmented in number

and extensively revised in the light of the research and

thought that produced Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

about halfway between these editions. The dates of first use

provided at most main entries, also new to the last edition,

have proved to be very popular with users of the Collegiate.

For the Tenth Edition, thousands of these dates have been

pushed back in time, anywhere from a single year to several

centuries from published materials not available ten years ago,

from the continuing investigations of our own editors, and

from the contributions of hundreds of interested readers.

The front matter of this book establishes a context for un-

derstanding what this dictionary is and how it came to be, as

well as how it may be used most effectively. The Explanatory

Notes address themselves to the latter topic. They answer the

user's questions about the conventions, devices, and tech-

niques by which the editors have been able to compress moun-

tains of information about English words into little more than

1400 pages. All users of the dictionary are urged to read this

section through and then consult it for special information as

they need to, The brief essay on our language as it is recorded

in Merriam-Webster dictionaries, and this Collegiate in partic-

ular, is meant to satisfy an interest in lexicography often ex-

pressed in the correspondence which our editors rcceive. The

Guide to Pronunciation serves both to show how the pronun-

ciations in this book are arrived at and to explain the mechan-

ics of the respelling system in which they are set down.

The back matter retains five sections from the last edition of

the Collegiate. These are Abbreviations and Symbols for

Chernical Elements, Foreign Words and Phrases that occur

frequently in English texts but have not become part of the

English vocabulary; thousands of proper names brought to-

gether under the separate headings Biographical Names and

Geographical Names; a gathering of important Signs and

Symbols that cannot readily be alphabetized; and a Handbook

of Style in which various stylistic conventions (as of punctua-

tion and capitalization) are summarized and exemplified. All

the sections are expanded in this edition.

Looking at a copy of that long-ago first Collegiate Dictio-

nary, one is struck by how different it is, as a physical book

and as a work of referencc, from the present edition. The

board covers are heavy, the margins of the page are wide, and

the type is relatively large; at the same time it holds only

about 1100 pages and only about half the number of vocabu-

lary entries of this Tenth Edition. At that time the Merriam-

Webster citation file was no more than in its infancy. Yet the

editors of that book created it with the same careful, serious

attention that the present editors have brought to their work.

The publishers said of their original Collegiate Dictionary,

"For the book as a whole we venture to claim that in its class

and for its purpose it has no superior and no equal." The

trained, experienced, permanent staff of Merriam-Webster,

Incorporated, who worked on this Tenth Edition and whose

names are given on the facing page, have no less confidence in

what they have created. They offer it to people everywhere

who need information about the vocabulary of English, in the

assurance that it will prove a reliable companion.

Frederick C. Mish

Editor in Chief



Editor in Chief

Frederick C. Mish

Executive Editor

John M. Morse

Director of Defining

E. Ward Oilman

SeniorEditor, Operations

Madeline L. Novak

Senior Editors

Robert D. Copeland ?James 0. Lowe

Roger W. Pease, Jr. ?Stephen J. Perrault

Associate Editors

Michael G. Belanger ?Paul F. Cappellano

? Joanne M. Despres ?Kathleen M. Doherty

? James L. Rader ?Brian M. Sietsema

Assistant Editors

Susan L. Brady ?Jennifer N. Gslo

? Jennifer S. Goss ?Peter D. Haraty

?Amy K. Harris ?Oaniel J. Hopkins

?Alexandra C. Horowitz ?Rene P. Houle

?Rachel King ?Deborah S. Morris

Brctt P. Palmer ?Michad D. Roundy

Maria A. Sansalone ?Joan 1. Swartz

Jennifer B. Tufts ?Linda Picard Wood

Editorial Assistants

Donna L. Rickerby ?Katherine C. Sietsema

Product Development Editor

Mark A. Stevens

Librarian

Francine A. Roberts

Departmental Secretary

Georgette B. Boucher

Head of Typing Roora

Oloria J. Afflitto

Senior Clerk

Ruth W. Oaines

Clerks and Typists

Demetra C. Doolin ?Mary M. Dunn

? Florence A. Fowler ?Patricia M, Jensen

? Ella L. Johnson ?Marjorie C. Kochanowicz

? Veronica P. McLymont

Editorial Contributors

Cynthia S. Ashby ?Sharon Ooldstein

? Eileen M. Haraty