Reference

The sequel to How to Sound Clever, this compendium presents over 600 useful and slightly more unusual words. Each entry is presented with clear definitions and guidance on pronunciation and usage, along with the word’s linguistic roots and everyday examples. Associated idioms such as ‘feet of clay’ are explored through stories from history, mythology and daily life.

Peter Bowler’s 'superior person' has command of words such as egregious, quotidian and uxorious, and 'we yield to him in debate, not because his arguments are more cogent, but because they are less intelligible'. This A–Z of 500 words could set the reader on the road to superiority. The definitions are accompanied by the all-important notes on usage, lest one lose lexical credibility.

This Thesaurus uses a thematic classification of the English language, with more than 13,000 key entries arranged in over 800 categories and with hundreds of quotations illustrating usage.

Why say 'willy-nilly' when you could say 'nolens volens'? Peter Bowler's third collection of verbarian exotica aims to fortify your vocabulary and allow you to assert your ascendancy 'at the traffic lights of life', possibly. Along with practical definitions for words like haptephobia (fear of being touched) and oscitancy (yawning), Bowler relates cheerful anecdotes of eccentric scholars, idiotic concepts, oddities of the intellectual life and the odd deliberate mistake.

From Angola's Red-Crested Turaco to Zimbabwe's African Fish-Eagle, more than 90 avian species have been adopted as official symbols of national identity. Each bird is pictured and described in this comprehensive guide, which features data such as size, diet and habitat alongside an explanation of reasons for the bird's use as a national emblem, information on its conservation status and examples of its prevalence in the stamps, coats of arms and wider culture of its country. Foreword by Chris Packham.

Hobbies and professions all have their unique and colourful jargon, which is often completely baffling to outsiders. But now Countdown’s resident word expert has decoded these mysterious idioms by interviewing hundreds of members of Britain’s ‘tribes’, from twitchers to spies. Here she presents the idiosyncratic vocabulary that she has learned, so that you too can discover why bin collectors love a ‘Tiffany’, what a publisher means by ‘deckle’ and how ticket inspectors discreetly request back-up.

Written by the authors of Whose Bird, but greatly expanded to list both scientific as well as vernacular birds’ names, the Dictionary has over 4,100 entries and covers more than 10,000 genera, species and subspecies. It provides brief details of the eponymous names – including steel magnates and princes along with the explorers, scientists and ornithologists – from Aagaard (the Buffy Fish Owl, Ketupa ketupa aagaardi) to Zusi (Bogota Surnangel, Helioangelus zusii).