Publisher's Synopsis
The first concise format edition of a classic reference work, this contains over 15,000 entries which give the meanings and origin of words, phrases and proper names not covered in conventional dictionaries.;The majority of entries provide the history of phrases - from auld lang syne to ZIP code - an account of figures in myth and history - from Abdalla and Alberick to Zephyr and Zuleika - or outline the significance of historic terms in religion, magic, philosophy, literature, geography, mathematics and the sciences - from abracadabra, Albion and Avatar to Zen, Zodiac and zombie.;In addition the dictionary includes a miscellany of knowledge - lists of the traditional cries of animals, lists of dwarfs and giants in myth and history, of patron saints, of wedding anniversaries; a glossary of terms in heraldry and an account of how to play Nine Men's Morris.
