The opening of Preface
This is the third English Dictionary which the present Editor has prepared, and he may therefore lay claim to an unusually prolonged apprenticeship to his trade. It is surely unnecessary for him to say that he believes this to be the best book of the three, and he can afford to rest content if the Courteous Reader receive it with the indulgence extended to his Library Dictionary, published in the spring of 1898. It is based upon that work, but will be found to possess many serviceable qualities of its own. It is not much less in content, and its greater relative portability is due to smaller type, to thinner paper, and still more to a rigorous compression and condensation in the definitions, by means of which room has been found for many additional words.