本书是著名的美国梅里亚姆-韦伯斯特公司出版的大型语言工具书之一。本书收词量大，引文广博，对词条注释详尽，书中共收入两万余条解说性引文，所用引文是由韦氏词典编辑部历经一百多年，从数千个来源中收集的近一千四百万个引文中精选而成，着重对有疑问和有争议的用法进行引证。引证注重科学性和客观性，所收引文均出自颇具语言功底的古典和现代作家之手，具有代表性。本书以它的实用性，权威性和学术价值，被公认为二十世纪英语用法最大的档案库，成为图书馆及广大英语工作者和学习者的必备工具书。

Preface

Explanatory Notes

A Brief History of English Usage

Pronunciation Symbols

A Dictoinary of English Usage

Bibliography

This book includes thousands of illustrative quotations intended to clarify and to test the discussion.These may very occasionally be run in with the text but are usually indented and are always followed by an attrbution.