Book Description

"Kudos (Greek), encomiums (Latin), and accolades (French) to the authors for their enlightening and amusing lexicon, a testament that English is the most cheerfully democratic and hospitable language ever cobbled together."-Richard Lederer, author of The Miracle of Language From angst to zydeco, the ultimate guide to foreign terms and phrases This handy, practical, and browsable A-to-Z reference tells you all you need to know to understand, pronounce, and appreciate the nearly 2,000 foreign words and phrases commonly used by speakers and writers of English. The Browser's Dictionary covers a wide variety of subject areas and includes loan-words from more than sixty languages around the world, such as: Latin (desideratum) * the romance languages (rapprochement, macho, imbroglio) * German (gestalt) * Russian (gulag) * Hebrew (shibboleth) * Yiddish (shtick) * Persian (tambura) * Hindi (purdah) * Arabic (loofah) * Hawaiian (kanaka) * Creole French (zydeco) * and Japanese (netsuke) In addition, each entry provides: * A guide to pronunciation using easy-to-understand transcriptions from ordinary English * Comprehensive literal and idiomatic definitions * The word's source language, as well as its literal meaning The Browser's Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases is sure to become a favorite reference for anyone with an interest in words and language.