Edition – 2025 – 26

That a learner of the English language (or, for that matter, any language) needs to have a good vocabulary at his command goes without saying. The problem arises when he finds himself unable to think of, or recall, the most appropriate word that will convey the sense he wants to. Appropriate words are highly elusive, especially when they belong to a foreign language. What is required is ceaseless and constant practice, patience and perseverance, inquisitiveness and eagerness to augment one’s verbal resources. Learning words, phrases and typical expressions is a never-ending process and one should never be satisfied with, and complacent about, what one has learnt, nor should one tire of one’s highly rewarding quest and search. English is a very rich language (and this now sounds like a cliché) and to learn it is an extremely pleasurable exercise. The natural corollary of this statement is that efforts to learn it should be commensurate with its importance.

How to build up what is now frequently called your ‘word power’ is a moot question. The compiler of this book does not subscribe to the view that you can increase your vocabulary just by learning words by rote. You are obviously not going to pick up a dictionary and start learning words given in it. Reading, writing and speaking a language purposefully and on a regular basis will go a long way towards generating confidence in you. You should, of course, be careful to mark and learn the new words that you come across while reading a passage, an article, a story, etc. A very interesting method of enhancing your vocabulary is to try to find out the synonyms and antonyms of useful words. There are a host of prefixes and suffixes that alter or modify the meanings of words and you should learn them. A word can have many derivatives and you should not forget to make them a part of your vocabulary. Grammar and composition books contain many useful exercises relating to word formation and solving them can be very helpful. Many foreign words and phrases are now commonly used in English and you will find them in every good dictionary. Try to learn them as you come across them.

One-word substitution is a unique method of learning new words. You have a definition or description before you and you have to think of a word, or maybe a small phrase, that best answers, matches or suits it. This way the word and the definition will become associated with each other and will be easily lodged in your mind.

The present book is a unique collection of definitions and their answers in that no such book has, to the best of the compiler’s knowledge, been attempted so far. Though it cannot claim to be exhaustive (many words might have been left out), it is a fairly good collection. It incorporates words from all branches of human knowledge and all fields of human experience. All the words and their important derivatives (excepting certain self-explanatory words) have been used in expressive sentences so as to make their meanings clear.