The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations

by David Grambs

Have you ever found yourself grasping in vain for that ideal descriptive word lost somewhere within the misty recesses of your vocabulary? Or felt frustrated that an oddly shaped structure or pretty setting you wished to portray in writing didn't quite translate clearly to paper?

If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then The Describer's Dictionary is exactly the book you need. Open it, and you have not only just the right words but—bringing them to life—stellar literary examples of descriptive writing as well.


The Dictionary concern itself with the observable, from shapes to buildings to human beings. "Referably" organized, the book uses a handy reverse, definition-to-term format that makes it easy to zero in on the term you're seeking. For example, look up "Noses" to find "aquiline," "leptorrhine," and "snub-nosed." And as an inspiration to any writer—showing how it's done by the best—hundreds of colorful and evocative descriptive passages from such diverse authors as Dickens, Darwin, and Updike appear on facing pages, making this a singularly and richly different kind of reference book.


The craft of description lives in literature, conversation, journalism, and personal letters. For help in painting pictures with the English language, The Desciber's Dictionary is one of the most indispensable reference tools you can own.

Genres: Writing, Reference, Nonfiction, Language, Dictionaries, Linguistics, Literature

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Karin Slaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know what to say.

[D.J. Adamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it’s because I am getting older...but, my mind is constantly searching for just the right word or phrase and the database is too full. That’s why the book in its prior editions has been part of my library, and I have just purchased this 2014 Edition in paperback. I was using it too frequently for Kindle.
This is a jewel. If you are like me, the word or words remain on your tongue and you just can’t spit them out, pull this book off your shelf.
--Reviewed in Le Coeur de l'Artiste

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of this book a little better than the execution. Half lists of words (mostly adjectives) that authors can use to make really good descriptions, half examples of descriptions by both well-known and little-known authors.

I really liked the words. There is some dead wood at the beginning (any adjective has the suffix -iform added), but it got really good and the ending had some really good stuff that I anticipate using in the future.

The quotations, although really good at points, depending on the quote, wasn't quite as good throughout a lot. Either there was a lot of deadwood, or maybe it was just damaged by being ripped from its native habitat (which is no fault of the author's). Maybe this explains Dickens.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most used reference books on my shelf! This is a great resource for helping me get out of common-word ruts, or adding a dash of flair to an otherwise bland passage. And the quotes at the end of each section, using words and phrases listed as possible synonyms is wonderful to help get the creative mind going.

Honestly, kudos to this book. I love it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite writer's reference book

[Malcolm Ivey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loaded. And not just with descriptive synonyms but with passages from literary classics to kick-start the creative juices. Perfect for writers."

[Carol Bakker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the format of this book. On the left page are literary quotations, a sort of commonplace journal of descriptions. On the right page is a sort of reverse dictionary/thesaurus: the definition and then the word(s), e.g. grove or thicket of small trees — copse, coppice. It's the kind of book that rewards reading one page at a time.

I can't imagine needing one word to describe horseshoe-shaped, but if I did hippocrepiform is the word.

In the author's bio a phrase captured me: David Grambs ... has been a hunter and gatherer of words since ... #kindred

Reading intersections always delight me; I read two quotations from books I've read in the last month: Erskine Childers and James Michener.

OK. I nerded out and wrote down all the authors quoted that I've read, in the order I found them in the book. A little autodidact affirmation. This is for my own jollification so if you skip it, my feelings won't be hurt.

Sir Walter Scott
Jan Morris
Robert Graves
John Updike
H.G. Wells
Rumer Godden
Erskine Childers
John McPhee
Charles Darwin
Barry Lopez
Tom Clancy
H. Rider Haggard
C.S. Lewis
Tobias Smollet
Katherine Mansfield
Louis L'Amour
Mary Shelley
E.E. Cummings
Wallace Stegner
Mark Helprin
Joseph Heller
Joseph Conrad
Amy Tan
Aldous Huxley
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Colleen McCullough
Ian McEwan
Louisa May Alcott
Cormac McCarthy
Lewis Thomas
Marilynne Robinson
Laurence Sterne
Mary Renault
Isak Dineson
Herman Melville
Rudyard Kipling
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Charles Dickens
Robert Louis Stevenson
Mark Twain
Nevil Shute
George Orwell
Ernest Hemingway
Bram Stoker
J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ruskin
Walter M. Miller Jr.
Ray Bradbury
Annie Dillard
Gerald Durrell
Henry Adams
Daphne du Maurier
Washington Irving
P.D. James
Raymond Chandler
Paul Theroux
Harper Lee
Rebecca West
Stephen Crane
Sinclair Lewis
Arthur Conan Doyle
Louis Auchincloss
John Steinbeck
Chaim Potok
Bruce Chatwin
James Fenimore Cooper
Thomas Hardy
Willa Cather
Jack London
Marjorie Kinan Rawlings
James Michener
Margaret Mitchell
John Muir
William Faulkner
William Golding
Edgar Allen Poe
Henry David Thoreau
Carson McCullers
Bret Harte
Thor Heyerdahl
Zane Grey
Patrick O'Brian
James Baldwin
E.M. Forster
James Agee
Christopher Morley
Truman Capote
Charlotte Brontë
O. Henry
Daniel Defoe
Thomas Wolfe
W. Somerset Maugham
Sherwood Anderson
Wilkie Collins
Emily Brontë
Edith Wharton
F. Scott Fitzgerald
James Joyce
William Thackery
Oscar Wilde
Evelyn Waugh
Graham Greene
George Eliot

[Bunny Huynh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect dictionary for a describer as the title declared!
I love to describe everything around my living areas and am usually stuck on choosing the right words or a fancier one for a beautiful sentence. This book gives me exactly what I need. The best part is I don't need the Internet while reading, which often can be very distracting.

[R.Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to read this book

This is not a book in which I read every word cover to cover, but instead skimmed, stopped to read and contemplate, underline for future reference, and move on. Thus I have a book that I will be able to refer to in my own writing endeavors. Having read this on a Kindle, I will be able to print out my own underlined notes for easy access. Perfect!

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

All you need to know is straight from the back cover: "from such diverse authors as Dickens, Darwin, and Updike"

The quotations are often redundant, irrelevant, laughable, or awful.

An example of describing someone as attractive: "The tan of a savage"

Bye, book.

[Priya Chand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and useful guide on description with writing! I highly recommend!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every author needs this dictionary.

[Lisa]

Ever found yourself grasping in vain for that ideal descriptive word lost somewhere within the misty recesses of your vocabulary? Or felt frustrated that an oddly shaped structure or pretty setting you wished to portray in writing didn't quite translate clearly to paper? If you've ever stalled trying to depict the look of an object or animal or the looks of a particular person, The Describer's Dictionary is exactly the book you n e e d . Open it, and you have not only just the right words but - bringing them to life - stellar literary examples of descriptive writing as well. The Dictionary concerns itself with the observable, from discrete shapes and patterns to buildings, terrain, furry and unfurry creatures, and human beings. "Referably" organized, the book uses a handy reverse, definition-to-term format that makes it easy for you to zero in on the term or terms you're seeking. For example, for a word that denotes an object's proper or harmonious dimensions, flip to the "Shapes" category and there you'll find "proportional," "proportionate," "commensurate," and "eurythmic." In some instances, where meanings are self-evident, simple listings of apt words are provided. As an inspiration to any writer - showing how it's done by the best - hundreds of colorful and evocative descriptive passages appear on facing pages, making this a singularly and richly different kind of reference book. The quotations are first-rate examples of how the book's terminology can be used. The excerpts are drawn from the best American and British novelists, naturalists, and other nonfiction writers, from Dickens to Updike, from Darwin to McPhee. The Describer's Dictionary - uniquely focused on the physical and free of the categorical and multiple-meaning confusions of a thesaurus - is a must for anyone wanting to have at hand just the right words to describe exactly what is being observed or depicted.

[Rachel]

Have you ever found yourself grasping in vain for that ideal descriptive word lost somewhere within the misty recesses of your vocabulary? Or felt frustrated that an oddly shaped structure or pretty setting you wished to portray in writing didn't quite translate clearly to paper?
If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then The Describer's Dictionary is exactly the book you need. Open it, and you have not only just the right words but—bringing them to life—stellar literary examples of descriptive writing as well.

The Dictionary concern itself with the observable, from shapes to buildings to human beings. "Referably" organized, the book uses a handy reverse, definition-to-term format that makes it easy to zero in on the term you're seeking. For example, look up "Noses" to find "aquiline," "leptorrhine," and "snub-nosed." And as an inspiration to any writer—showing how it's done by the best—hundreds of colorful and evocative descriptive passages from such diverse authors as Dickens, Darwin, and Updike appear on facing pages, making this a singularly and richly different kind of reference book.

The craft of description lives in literature, conversation, journalism, and personal letters. For help in painting pictures with the English language, The Desciber's Dictionary is one of the most indispensable reference tools you can own.

[Anna Erishkigal · Rating 5 out of 5]

As one of those writers who built an entire room onto her house to store all the books with scribbles in the margins, post-it notes, bookmarks, and dog-eared books marking my favorite passages, when the time comes to edit my -own- works, it can be very time consuming (and so much more fun than eradicating adverbs) to sit down in the library and reintroduce myself to my old friends, searching for just the right inspiration to spice up that clunky character description or scene. This book collects many of the best of those descriptions into a convenient form, broken into general categories of description, as well as a thesaurus type listing of many less-used descriptive words. It was what I wanted after reading the reviews, and I am very happy with this concise collection which will give inspiration without making me forget I need to be editing, and not re-reading Atlas Shrugged.

[Ellan Bethia Otero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for both terms and literary examples of their use by talented authors.

The terms are broken down into categories and subcategories, such as THINGS which include: Shapes, Patterns and Edges, Surfaces and Textures, etc. Literary examples are drawn from authors such as Lara Vinca Masini (Gaudi), Jean M, Auel (The Mammoth Hunters), Aubry Burl (Rings of Stone), Charles Dickens (The Old Curiosity Shop), and Herman Melville (Moby-Dick) to list the authors from page 124 alone.

Well worth a place on any reader's or writer's shelf.

[Brianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is as it says "A Describer's Dictionary". The examples of writing that it pulls from force you to look at ordinary objects in different ways. Moreover, it has been a great guide for future reading as I am able to view snippets of description from numerous authors and then research each of their works in turn. "The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms and Literary Quotations" is clear and concise with a well organized index.

It sits on the right side of my desk for inspiration or reference.

[David H. Millar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Describer's Dictionary bu Author David Grambs is a reference book, so for me it's use is in being able to "dip In" to specific subject areas as and when I need them. That said, it is quite readable and I found myself leafing through the book and saying "Must mark that" at quite a few places. I suspect that The Describer's Dictionary will find a permanent place on my desk alongside Roget's Thesaurus, and Strunk and White's "Elements of Style." An excellent book for writers.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Describers Dictionary is a good idea and proves to be a useful tool to a point. I liked the paragraphs taken from other author’s works showing the use of descriptive words, the problem with this book is its lack of descriptive words. This book could have been a bit larger offering more sections with many more words to choose from.

A good Thesaurus would be much more helpful.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't find it quite as useful as I'd hoped. I didn't think the synonym/ homonym sections of it were that strong, but the illustrative paragraphs that are used to demonstrate beautiful writing are superb.

This is definitely a book for browsing through and reading a bit at a time. Not something you sit down with for a few hours.

[Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting concept, fairly well-executed. Many of the words, however, are useless because no one knows what they mean. Unless you're an antiquarian, you simply can't do that because people won't understand it. It's that simple. However, I did pick up quite a few words for my hoard.

[Rivka D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thing is the best. I love it. A must-have for anyone who uses words (whether it be writing or speaking). Some of the quotes are a little...gross, must say, but the majority of them are penned brilliance.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must have for writer's everywhere, at least I think so anyway. It's brilliant!!!

[Liaken · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good idea, not as accessible as I would wish.

[Read Around · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this book! Use it all the time.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty excellent reference to keep on hand for writers.

[Louie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's very useful but could have more examples. I think it would be a good book to have on the shelf for writing but not the only one for this purpose.

[Leticia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read the whole book, but I am using it as reference. It is a very good basic reference book for writing descriptions, but some sections like, for example, the eye section, could be longer.

[Marjorie Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent reference book, for when you know what you want to say, but can't think of the word. I added it to my writer's shelf of reference books.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent resource for writers.