Which one do you think is supreme and most proficient-like?

Hallo there!

The choice of best dictionary is a rather subjective one. I think the first criterion is your dialect. Most dictionaries serve a specific dialect of English: it might have entries and spellings from other dialects, but will treat one as standard and the others as variants.

Size may be an issue. The Oxford English Dictionary is thorough, but how many pages on ‘and’ do you really want read? Chambers dictionaries are rather conservative, and is full of obscure, archaic words, but quite sniffy about changing usage. Other dictionaries are a bit more practical. Some have pronunciation guides (American ones make up their own ‘house’ squiggles, while Brits tend to use IPA standard); some have etymologies, so you can see where a word comes from (this is a must for me, but then I’m me!). More recent dictionaries have been leaning towards being encyclopedias: pictures, articles, jokes and such. One thing that can be handy in a dictionary is to have ‘grammar guides’ to help you out: a note under ‘affect’ that tells you how it differs from ‘effect’ for instance.

So, it depends what you’re looking for…

- Garzo’s back.

Thanks, Katy! I’m back and lurking, but the muse currently has her hands full turning Finglish into English…

Garzo, have you seen this posting on languagelog.org about "affect" and "effect"?

Ed
- More musings anon

Haya Ed,

There returns another old regular welcome!  Hope still more others will come.

Flam

‘house’ squiggles
well it’s true.
the best dictionary depends on if you want  to learn OED ( love it, probably useless if you don’t know the language like the back of your hand) or some american tome that’s mostly useless abroad, there’s really no good dictionary out there. I like old dictionaries because they illustrate rare birds and that’s about it. And they have old words.  But if you want to learn English,  get a small dictionary, they’re all the same.  There are only 50.000 words you have to know.

i live and die by oxford

Whatever the case, it’s certainly not Oxford!  More "exhaustive" than "comprehensive" does this premium edition suitable justice for a quaint description.  It reminds me of all those "lodge trophies" you see on the shady walls of sporting clubs here & there, but especially in the remotest corners of this venturesome globe.  None can definitely say where on earth all these stuffed heads actually hail from, and there are ever just too many of them to be esthetically appealing.  True to its nature, OED also seems to profess a sinister double standard for what exactly constitutes a dictionary entry: On the one hand, highly discretional editors will unwittingly accept very nearly any sort of pulverulent drivel, that some 17th cent. scribbler left behind on requiescently decomposing paper, or else these same, rather nimble savants plus ingenieuses might fawningly introduce ebonic language, right out of contemporary hip-hop rap without even scrutinizing its etiological legitimacy; on the other hand, if any lexical candidate happens to be written down, first and foremost by the well-schooled instrument of American erudition, i.e. whether by pen alone or word processor, historic bias forthwith enters the picture to send our unassuming, completely newborn gem straightway to the veritable gallows of literary oblivion: "Talk about infanticide!"