An Elementary Latin Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: Certainly one of the best for the price!
Review: For the value, this dicitonary can't be beat. Detailed entries with examples from several authors cover the wide range of meanings that most Latin words can take on. A little more information than the beginning student would need, but for the advanced student, an indispensible tool. The introductory pages which cover various aspects of Roman society (government, development of the language, monetary system, weights and measures, etc...) are interesting and give a good summary of these topics which other dictionaries leave out. All in all, a must-have item on the bookshelf of anyone reading Latin literature.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best bang for the buck
Review: Okay, so my title is cheesy, but it is wholly accurate. I use this in addition to my Cassell's. This book is invaluable to me because of the references given. It's too bad the quotes within the entries aren't more fully referenced, but this was apparently done to save space.

At first, I found myself paging back and forth simply to find the meanings of words used within other entries. This stimulated my thinking in Latin, and I feel that I learned more quickly. I agree that the absolute beginner might find it too much, but for one who has even a rudimentary base of Latin, it proves to be an outstanding reference.

For many of the quotes used, the English translation precedes it, giving a more solid context of what follows.

And for the price, I would say that it is indispensible. (And the quality of the book is fine, as one would expect from the Oxford Press.) Get the Cassell's first --or another English/Latin dictionary-- then get this one.

Rating:
Summary: This is a superb dictionary for the intermediate student.
Review: This is a superb dictionary for the serious student of Latin literature, both intermediate and advanced. There are references to the major works which a student is likely to read, often solving dilemmas in the examples. Yet the size of the entries is manageable in length. If the word is not there, you need Lewis and Short or the Oxford, neither of which is of a size designed to be useful for normal translating and give far more information than one normally needs. It also has an advantage over the paper-back versions. It will lie open on a table or desk As a Latin teacher and sometimes graduate student in Latin, I consider this the most useful dictionary available. And the cost is reasonable.