New words are the footprints of time. To recite some of the phrases that have become popular in the 1990s--Generation X, Prozac, road rage, shock-jock, voice mail--is to fast-forward through our recent history. Now, in the second edition of The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, readers can savor a smorgasbord of new words and phrases that have been coined--or popularized--in the last ten years.

Here are hundreds of intriguing, informative articles that provide the pronunciations, definitions, sample sentences, origins, and informal histories of over 2,500 new words and phrases. The editors have drawn words from politics, the environmental movement, technology, business, sports, and entertainment; politically charged terms such as tree-hugger, feminazi, and lipstick lesbian, and popular expressions such as ''the ___ from hell'' (waiter from hell, dentist from hell) and ''been there, done that.'' Two-thirds of the articles are new to this edition, and the others--on still-prominent words included in the first edition--have been either revised or newly written. This useful and engaging resource is the first place to turn for information when faced with new words and phrases, and will be a gold mine of language for word lovers everywhere.