Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary is not only an entirely new dictionary created by the editorial staff of America’s oldest dictionary publisher; it also marks the beginning of a new kind of publishing for this company. Over the past 160 years. Merriam-Webster has produced hundreds of dictionaries and other reference books, and many of those books have been useful to learners of English as a second or foreign language, but this dictionary is the first one that we have produced specifically to meet the needs of those learners. The creation of this dictionary reflects the reality that English has become an international language, and that American English, in particular, is now being used and studied every day by millions of people around the world. We believe that we have a unique opportunity to help students of English — in the U.S. and elsewhere — to understand our language and to use it more clearly and effectively.
