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"Webster's Dictionaries"



At 10:12 5/1/99 -0400, you wrote:

(According to my edition of Webster's, density is "the quantity per unit
volume, unit area, or unit length")
....
Robert Cohen

I am sorry to report that the current meaning of "Webster's" is
'any American generic dictionary.' There is no longer any copyright.

I consulted some of the dictionaries titled "Webster's" in my
possession:

Like yours, the Merriam Third International Vol 1 of 3 (Enc Brit 59)
accepts one, two and three dimensions of spatial extension.

The Lexicon 91 (which used as its source the Larousse International 91)
permits just two spatial extensions: area or volume.

The Ottenheimer 86 by John Allee GWU permits of no more than one
extension - volume

The Bell 80 Compendium derived from Ottenheimer, mentions only volume.


Of Non-Webster dictionaries, The New Century prefers volume except for
electricity where it allows area

And the fundamental dictionary of the language, the OED (as relayed by
two concise editions) cleaves to the volumetric denominator:
Oxford Current English OUP 96, and Concise Oxford, Clarendon 51 as
reprinted...

Various editions of Enc Brit and McGraw-Hill Enc Sci Tech concur on the
'density' definition with Oxford as mass per volume, as it happens.


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK