use-icon

HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY

To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key.

Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window.

guide to the dictionary

use-icon

THE USAGE PANEL

The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.

The Panelists

open-icon

AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP

The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.

scroll-icon

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG

The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more.

100-words-icon

See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series!

Find out more!

open-icon

INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?

Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com

Bi·ble (bībəl)
Share:
n.
1.
a. The sacred book of Christianity, a collection of ancient writings including the books of both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
b. The Hebrew Scriptures, the sacred book of Judaism.
c. A particular copy of a Bible: the old family Bible.
d. A book or collection of writings constituting the sacred text of a religion.
2. often bible
a. A book considered authoritative in its field: the bible of French cooking.
b. A document containing in-depth details about a movie or television series that writers and production staff consult in order to avoid continuity errors.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl. of biblion, book, diminutive of biblos, papyrus, book, from Bublos, Byblos.]

BOOKS OF THE BIBLE

Books of the Hebrew Scriptures appear as listed in the translation by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Books of the Christian Bible appear as listed in the Jerusalem Bible, a 1966 translation of the 1956 French Roman Catholic version. The Old Testament books shown in italic are considered apocryphal in many Christian churches, but they are accepted as canonical in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Armenian and the Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox Church. The Christian Old Testament parallels the Hebrew Scriptures with the exception of these books.

HEBREW SCRIPTURESCHRISTIAN BIBLE
The TorahOld TestamentNew Testament
GenesisGenesisMatthew
ExodusExodusMark
LeviticusLeviticusLuke
NumbersNumbersJohn
DeuteronomyDeuteronomyActs of the Apostles
The ProphetsJoshuaRomans
JoshuaJudgesI Corinthians
JudgesRuthII Corinthians
I SamuelI SamuelGalatians
II SamuelII SamuelEphesians
I KingsI KingsPhilippians
II KingsII KingsColossians
IsaiahI ChroniclesI Thessalonians
JeremiahII ChroniclesII Thessalonians
EzekielEzraI Timothy
HoseaNehemiahII Timothy
JoelTobitTitus
AmosJudithPhilemon
ObadiahEstherHebrews
JonahI MaccabeesJames
MicahII MaccabeesI Peter
NahumJobII Peter
HabakkukPsalmsI John
ZephaniahProverbsII John
HaggaiEcclesiastesIII John
ZechariahSong of Songs (Song of Solomon)Jude
MalachiWisdom of SolomonRevelation
The WritingsEcclesiasticus 
PsalmsIsaiah 
ProverbsJeremiah 
JobLamentations 
Song of SongsBaruch 
RuthEzekiel 
LamentationsDaniel 
EcclesiastesHosea 
EstherJoel 
DanielAmos 
EzraObadiah 
NehemiahJonah 
I ChroniclesMicah 
II ChroniclesNahum 
 Habakkuk 
 Zephaniah 
 Haggai 
 Zechariah 
 Malachi 

Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company


The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.