The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology

I own different dictionaries and by far Oxford dictionary of... is on the bottom.No dictionary is perfect but when I see etymology in title I
expect etymology inside.One example--police;where I expected to see its
roots from Greek,no luck,instead dictionary gives the difference in pronunciation in parts of Great Britain.My wild guess is the authors
are not familiar with term etymology.

I have found this book to be only a supplement to my Webster's College Dictionary. Most of the etymology I am looking for is in my regular dictionary. I have found some slight expansions of the folk influence on words, but basically I check my dictionary first. Fortunately, I used a gift certificate so I didn't pay the full price of the book myself.

Great book if you want brief word history's. Isn't much different than what you can find in many online etymology databases, however, a good investment.

We have had a copy of the Oxford Etymological Dictionary in our kitchen for past several years because over the dinner table, inevitably, one of our children asks, "where does that word come from?" We were tired of running in and out of the living room to find out. Now it has become a game -- who can come up with a probable root before whoever is looking it up finds the real answer. No, we don't home school. Our children are still young -- 12 and 9. I have occasionally caught my 12 year old just wallowing in this book, and she is normal in every other way.

Don't compromise because something seems a little difficult to access! The more you use it, the more comfortable you'll be with it. This, along with S.I. Hayakawa's Choose the Right Word, are two veritable smorgasbords for word lovers. A good atlas is a good thing to have on hand as well.

Other reviewers claim that the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology is a better book than the Oxford Dictionary of Etymology. I must disagree. I was recently in a bookstore that had both in stock, and I was able to compare the two. Overall, I found the Chambers to be less informative than the Oxford book.

Admittedly, I did not have the time to compare a lot of entries, but the few words I did look up showed a pattern that was hard to dismiss. In all of the cases that I saw, the Oxford dictionary included much more of the history of the word and often went back to the Latin root as well as proposing possible alternate developments of the word. The Chambers dictionary, on the other hand, tended to trace a more linear path and often only went as far back as the Old English or Old French root.

While the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology is a very clear and concise work..., I feel the Oxford Dictionary of Etymology has a slight advantage in precision and depth. Perhaps (as one reviewer has stated) the Chambers has more entries overall, but I feel this has come at the price of a lack of depth of history behind each entry. The Oxford book may have less entries, but each entry contains all the information anyone would ever need.

All in all, I think both books are way ahead of their competitors, but if you want the ultimate in depth, go for the Oxford publication. If you want a good dictionary of etymology at a reasonable price, get the Chambers book.