Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary

374 Pages·1995·52.363 MB·English

by  Theodore Menline Bernstein, Francis X. Feighan, David Grambs

A
conventional dictionary lists words alphabetically
and gives their meanings. Thisunconventional dictionary
alphabetizes 20,000 definitions to lead tothe
precise word you seek.
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Bernstein, Theodore
(Theodore Menline),
1904-1979
Bernstein's reverse
dictionary
DATEDUE

BERNSTEIN
5
REVERSE
DICTIONARY
Other books by Theodore M. Bernstein
The Careful Writer
Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins
Dos, Don'ts and Maybes of English Usage
Other books by David Grambs
dlmboxes, epopts, and other quidams:
Words to Describe Life's Indescribable People
Words About Words
!
REVERSE
E D UFO N
THEODORE M. BERNSTEIN
revised and expanded by
DAVID GRAMBS
Wm
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BOOKS
Copyright © 1988 by Random House, Inc.
Copyright © 1975 by Theodore M. Bernstein
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto.
The first edition was published by Quadrangle/the New York Times Book Company
in 1975.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bernstein, Theodore Menline, 1904—
Bernstein's reverse dictionary.
• Includes index.
—
1. English langua—ge Synonyms and antonyms.
2. English language Dictionaries. I. Grambs,
David. II. Title. III. Title: Reverse dictionary.
PE1591.B45 1988 423'.1 87-40596
ISBN 0-8129-1593-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Revised Edition
BOOK DESIGN BY BETH MCNALLY
. . . and this one is for Ethel
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2014
in
https://archive.org/details/ryOOtheo
a
Introduction to the
Original Edition
A
conventional dictionary lists words alphabetically and gives you their
meanings. This unconventional dictionary lists an array of meanings al-
phabetically and gives you the words. That is why it is called a Reverse
Dictionary.
The words it discovers for you are those you have momentarily forgot-
ten or those you never knew or those of whose meanings you were not
quite certain. If I tell you how the concept originated, it may make the
idea more quickly understandable.
One evening a couple ofus, in the course ofconversation, got onto the
subject of Chinese cuisine. My friend said he was especially fond of won
ton soup. That led me to remark that the words "won ton" made perhaps
even more sense ifthey were read backward. Whereupon my friend cried
out, "Yes, just like that famous sentence, 'Madam, I'm Adam.' What do
you call that kind of sentence?" I replied, "I know the word you want,
but I'm damned ifI can think ofit at this moment. But anyway, 'won ton'
is not what that word refers to, because then 'won ton' would have to read
exactly the same backward as forward. And it doesn't."
On and off, between drinks, the two of us struggled for the rest of the
evening to recall that word, elusive and yet familiar to both of us.
The next morning I telephoned him in triumph. "You know what we
needed?" I said. "A reverse dictionary."
"A what?" said he.
"A reverse dictionary. When we couldn't think ofthat word last night
we would have gone to the reverse dictionary and looked under the b9s
—
for 'backward,' and it would have said something like 'backward
sentence that reads backward the same as forward: palindrome.' Or we
could h—ave looked under the r's for 'reverse' and it would have said,
'reverse a sentence that reads the same in reverse as forward: palin-
drome.' Or if neither of those definitions had occurred to us, we could
—
have tried under the r's for 'right to left a sentence that reads from right
to left just as it does from left to right: palindrome.' Get it?"
He got it, all right, and that is how this project began.
It has entailed labor, to be sure, but it was lovable labor. I found it
lovable and so did Jane Wagner, who toiled mightily and perceptively as
vii