A Concise English Proverb and Idiom Dictionary with English-Chinese Explanations

Author: Chen Wenbo (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: The term "concise" in the title refers to the number of entries. A relatively comprehensive English proverb dictionary should have thousands of entries, but this book contains only about 1,200 entries, making it smaller in scale. However, it has more entries than the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs compiled by British authors. Not only does it have more entries, but the content is also richer. The Oxford version mostly lacks explanations, merely listing the historical order of the proverb's appearance in the book. This book, on the other hand, provides explanations for every entry and includes example sentences. The explanations and example sentences are all sourced from English and American dictionaries or publications, not limited to a single source, making them more comprehensive than those in any other dictionary. The example sentences are drawn from the works of English and American authors, allowing readers to see how the proverbs are used. To facilitate reading and appreciation by a broad audience, both explanations and example sentences are translated into Chinese. With very few exceptions, the translations are done by the editor. Due to the idiomatic nature of the entries, the translations often differ from the original text in meaning, and readers can refer to English-Chinese or English-English dictionaries for a deeper understanding. The arrangement of this book draws inspiration from dictionaries both within and outside China, adopting a keyword-based retrieval method. This method is novel and differs from conventional dictionaries, requiring readers to study and master it for effective use.