Book excerpt: The Oxford American College Dictionaryis completely new, based on the New Oxford American Dictionary, which was published in October 2001. Drawing on Oxford's unparalleled language resources, including a 200-million-word database, this college dictionary contains: * more than 175,000 entries and more than 1000 illustrations, including line drawings, photographs and maps * boxed quotes from famous writers, demonstrating word usage and style * country guides-shaded boxes highlighting the most important geographical information on more than 180 countries-with maps * "core sense" organization of definitions, a brand-new and utterly sensible plan in which subordinate definitions flow logically from primary ones, and the most important usage of the word comes first * thumb index tabs for easy searching