Worth its price--And dont be deceived by the title

Many users wouldnt spend $24.99 for a mere dictionary app, but those are the users who are more likely to believe that reading books is a waste of time. If you read book-length texts as often as I do, or at least as often as the typical college student should read, this app is indispensable. Etymology hounds will find good hunting in these definitions. No, the dictionary entries arent nearly as long as they are in the full OED, but for your money you get more than what you pay for. If you can afford the subscription for the complete Oxford English Dictionary, by all means buy it instead.

For the rest of us who have less money to spend on our reference tools, this app is almost as good as it gets. The reason that the title is deceiving is because the Shorter Oxford Dictionary is by no means a short dictionary; its merely shorter than the the 12-volume OED. Its still longer than any other English dictionary that can be found in the App Store.

Incidentally, I find myself using dictionaries even more after finishing grad school, not less. Go ahead and look of the entry for irony in this dictionary, and read all the way to the end of the etymology. Then you can understand why no one really has a right to sneer at a perceived misuse of the word since it rarely is used these days according to its oldest meaning.

Gwiwer about Shorter Oxford English Dict