In "More Words of Science," Isaac Asimov exhibits, as he did in his 1959 "Words of Science" (to which this book is a sequel), the same deep attention to the science of words as he does to science. Dr. Asimov's knowledge of his subjects embraces their etymology, lending, in most cases, a simple clarity to even the more complex definitions….

From ablation to zpg, a full page is devoted to each definition. This page-length treatment permits a scope and style most dictionaries, including children's encyclopedias, do not attempt. Asimov's mode explores both the development of the term he explains and of the idea, process, theory, hardware, organ, cell, behavior or astral body he has selected, defining these subjects' importance to us. Latin and Greek roots for words (often more informative than their modern derivatives) as well as words simply examined as they are, from modern foreign languages, form part of each definition. A full amount of knowledge is packed into each of these small essays.

The need for a sequel to the 1959 edition is made evident in the new words that have followed in the traces of myriad developments since that date, or come into more common use, or acquired new meanings….

In all, there is excellent balance struck among the disciplines of biology, anthropology, astronomy, chemistry and physics. Not much, if anything, has suffered neglect. This is an excellent work of modern-day reference, surely—but, more than that, a book that can be read, enjoyably, simply for the sake of reading and learning.