Word Lover’s Dictionary
The Word Lover’s Dictionary by Josefa Heifetz is for all those word lovers out there with an insatiable need to learn new and sometimes esoteric words. The sub-title of the Word Lover’s Dictionary is “Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words”, which should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of word that’s contained inside.
Words For Word Lovers
In all, “The Word Lover’s Dictionary: Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words” contains over 260 pages and details over 6,000 words you aren’t likely to come across every day. In fact, Word Lover’s Dictionary includes words that even amateur etymologists and people who read a whole lot won’t be familiar with. I was amazed at how many words I didn’t know, and I consider myself a word lover. Mrs. Heifetz-Byrne, the author, claimed he went through a whole slew of unabridged dictionaries to find his word list.
Why a Dictionary of Obscure Words?
You might be asking yourself: why do I need a glossary of words that no one uses? The answer is you probably don’t “need” a book like that, but if you’re a word lover, you might well “want” a book of obscure. And if you’re going to have a list of ununusal words, it’s better that a word author collects those for you than you have to spend countless hours going through the 75,000 words in an unabridged dictionary. The Word Lovers’ Dictionary definitely is a niche book, but if you live in that niche, you’re going to love this obscure word dictionary.
What’s a Preposterous Word?
The word “preposterous” is perhaps a misnomer. The words you’ll find in Josefa Heifetz’ dictionary are often forgotten English words, but Heifetz chose words that, for one reason or another, shouldn’t have been forgotten. Largely, I found the words in the Word Lover’s Dictionary to be interesting, logical and good to know. So don’t think this is some novelty book that’s going to introduce a bunch of funny or nonsense words that no one with a lick of sense has any business knowing. This truly is a resource for people who love the English language and want a one-stop, quick resource for finding new English words.
About Josefa Heifetz-Byrne
Josefa Heifetz was born in 1930, one of two children of the famous Jascha Heifetz, widely considered one of the best violinists of the 20th Century. Mr. Heifetz was born in the Russian Empire in 1901, but defected to the United States in 1917 on a tour of the country. Josefa Heifetz-Byrne completed her Word Lover’s Dictionary in 1980, at the age of 50, and 7 years before the death of her famous father. The Word Lover’s Dictionary is a little difficult to find these days, so you word lovers out there might have to perform a bit of a scavenger hunt when trying to find these elusive six-thousand English words.