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.
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.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP
The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android.
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.
INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES?
Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com
n. 1. Something produced by human or mechanical effort or by a natural process, as: a. An item that is made or refined and marketed: farm products; soaps, detergents, and similar products; travel products such as vacation trips. b. Such items considered as a group: sold a lot of product in May. c. A preparation, such as a gel, used for styling hair: began to use product soon after he became famous. d. A substance resulting from a chemical or nuclear reaction. 2. a. A direct result; a consequence: "Is history the product of impersonal social and economic forces?" (Anthony Lewis). b. A person whose characteristics or abilities are the result of certain influences or kinds of experience: "She is the product of an America in which explicit displays of pride in intellect are considered unseemly" (Yuval Levin). 3. Mathematics a. The number or quantity obtained by multiplying two or more numbers together. b. A scalar product. c. A vector product. [Middle English, result of multiplication, produced, from Medieval Latin prōductum, result of multiplication, from neuter past participle of Latin prōdūcere, to bring forth; see PRODUCE.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
