Open the pages of the Reader's Digest UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY and you are entering an Aladdin's cave of language. Here are old words and new words (what does HAZCHEM mean on a warning sign?), difficult words and everyday words, soothing words and threatening words, persuading words and entreating words - words for all purposes and all occasions.

With more than 180,000 definitions and references, this work is outstanding among single-volume dictionaries of the English language. The definitions are given in words that are understandable and free of jargon. The pronunciations are set out for the most part in ordinary letters of the alphabet, rather than symbols which not everyone may understand.