Outstanding!
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It's kind of ironic that one of the cheapest crossword solver's aids around - compared to, say, The Collins Thesaurus and Chambers Crossword Dictionary - is also the best! If you have no other book in your collection, make sure you have this (in addition to the wonderful Chambers Dictionary, of course!) This book would be of benefit to any crossword fan but is invaluable even for the most ardent cruciverbalist: how many other volumes would inform you that Jettatura means the "evil-eye"? The lists of synonyms include obtuse and obsolete words and the word-lists are invaluable and far-reaching. If you're keen to advance your crosswording skills and tackle the more challenging broad-sheet puzzles, such as the Listener and Enigmatic Variations, then this is the book for you. A must have!
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The Best
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Since 1986, Anne Bradford has, with successive editions of her Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, been making life easier for solvers of crosswords, and more difficult for their setters; so much so that one of the latter has described the work as ‘devastatingly useful’ [for solvers!].
As a review in CROSSWORD explained:
“Its great strength compared to other ‘crossword dictionaries’ is that it is the result of over forty years of faithfully recording definitions and answers used in a wide variety of puzzles from quick, synonym-based, ones all the way up to The Listener and Crossword Club. Thus it tends only to include words more likely to appear in grids, making it very much more probable that you will find a particular answer in it than in a simple wordlist book of the same length.”
Previous revisions have been little more than updates, with the inclusion of additional material and the correction of any misprints and other errors. This latest edition offers a big improvement in ease of use: many of the long lists , such as COINS and MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, which had become unwieldy, are now given in tabular form, and arranged by wordlength.
I’ve so far spotted just a couple of errors/omissions: that most useful of drugs to writers of cryptic clues — E — is absent from the list (though ECSTASY is there); and ANDROCLES is given as a Lion.
Always a favourite with crossworders, Bradford has established itself as the definitive crossword dictionary deservedly becoming number one bestseller. With this latest edition the best has got even better.
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