The first concise format edition of a classic reference work, this contains over 15,000 entries which give the meanings and origin of words, phrases and proper names not covered in conventional dictionaries. The majority of entries provide the history of phrases - from auld lang syne to ZIP code - an account of figures in myth and history - from Abdalla and Alberick to Zephyr and Zuleika - or outline the significance of historic terms in religion, magic, philosophy, literature, geography, mathematics and the sciences - from abracadabra, Albion and Avatar to Zen, Zodiac and zombie. In addition the dictionary includes a miscellany of knowledge - lists of the traditional cries of animals, lists of dwarfs and giants in myth and history, of patron saints, of wedding anniversaries; a glossary of terms in heraldry and an account of how to play Nine Men's Morris.