Random House Webster's College Dictionary, 2nd Edition

Random House's 1997 college edition, thoroughly modern and inexpensive, is as current as dictionaries get, including '90s lingo (such as "carjacking," "Ebonics," "lap dance," "Prozac," and "Web site") in their 1500-plus pages and 160,000-plus entries. Their definitions are up-to-date, too, giving the most common meanings first, with less emphasis devoted to etymology, and they have a handy appendix featuring foreign alphabets, writers' guides, holidays, state capitals, books of the Bible, world maps, proofreader's marks, metric equivalents, and the periodic table. With festive red letter tabs and more than 800 illustrations, it's attractive as well as practical.