The ''Chambers Dictionary'' (''TCD'') was first published by

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and Robert Chambers as ''Chambers's English Dictionary'' in 1872. It was an expanded version of ''Chambers's Etymological Dictionary'' of 1867, compiled by James Donald. A second edition came out in 1898, and was followed in 1901 by a new compact edition called ''Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary''. ''TCD'' is widely used by British

crossword A crossword is a word puzzle that usually takes the form of a square or a rectangular grid of white- and black-shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answ ...

solvers and setters, and by ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

'' players (though it is no longer the official ''Scrabble'' dictionary). It contains many more

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

al, archaic, unconventional and eccentric words than its rivals, and is noted for its occasional wryly humorous definitions. Examples of such definitions include those for ''

éclair An éclair is a pastry made with choux dough filled with a cream and topped with chocolate icing. The dough, which is the same as that used for profiterole, is typically piped into an oblong shape with a pastry bag and baked until it is cris ...

'' ("a cake, long in shape but short in duration") and ''middle-aged'' ("between youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner"). These jocular definitions were removed by the publisher in the 1970s, but many of them were reinstated in 1983 because of the affection in which they were held by readers. The twelfth edition of ''The Chambers Dictionary'' was published in August 2011 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd and runs to 1936 pages with 62,500 main entries. This edition is available for mobile use as an iPhone, iPad, or Android app. That has been followed by the thirteenth edition published in 2014. Also on sale is the smaller ''21st Century Dictionary'' of 1664 pages, where "the focus is on the English that people use today, and definitions are given in straightforward, accessible language". This dictionary can be accessed for free online.

''Scrabble''

In an agreement with

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...

's predecessor, J. W. Spear & Sons, the ''Chambers Dictionary'' was, for several decades, the official source of words for the book ''Official Scrabble Words'' (OSW), a lexicon of all words and inflections playable in tournament ''

'' within the UK and other countries such as New Zealand and Australia. In 2005, Mattel changed the source dictionary to ''

Collins English Dictionary The ''Collins English Dictionary'' is a printed and online dictionary of English. It is published by HarperCollins in Glasgow. The edition of the dictionary in 1979 with Patrick Hanks as editor and Laurence Urdang as editorial director, was ...

''.

References

External links

Official websiteChambers Harrap Publishers Ltd
*''Chambers's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language'' **1st edition, impressions
18671872187418751876
**2nd edition, impressions
1900
*''Chambers's English Dictionary''
1872
*''Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary'' **
1903
impression

including some of the famous "Chambersisms" {{Authority control 1867 non-fiction books 1872 non-fiction books 1901 non-fiction books English dictionaries Scottish non-fiction literature 1872 establishments in Scotland History of Edinburgh Culture in Edinburgh Online English dictionaries

''Scrabble''

See also

References

External links