A pioneering work in the culinary field, it was the first cookbook to provide level measurements and easy-to-follow directions.

    It reproduces material from Greek and Roman, medieval European, Islamic, Renaissance, baroque, and early nineteenth-century art, architecture, and design — in all, presenting artists, crafters, and students with more than 3,000 designs.Featured design elements include networks, Gothic tracery, geometric designs, akanthos leaves, lotus ornamentation, animal ornamentation, grotesque figures, fret bands, chains, interlacements, rosettes, undulations, spirals, link borders, cresting borders, finials, crockets, gargoyles, foliations, panels, repeated ornaments, and hundreds of other elements. Other plates show decorated pottery vases, religious utensils, weapons, furniture, lamps, jewelry, and other artifacts, in addition to heraldic motifs and ornamental letters.

    Each entry gives a list of synonyms, followed by a paragraph that briefly explains or exemplifies the subtle distinctions between the listed words. The entries sometimes close with a few words on the prepositions that follow selected synonyms, but more often with a list of antonyms. By "synonyms" we usually understand words that coincide or nearly coincide in some part of their meaning, & may hence within certain limits be used interchangeably, while outside of those limits they may differ very greatly in meaning & use. It's the office of a work on synonyms to point out these correspondences & differences, that language may have the flexibility that comes from freedom of selection within the common limits, with the perspicuity & precision that result from exact choice of the fittest words to express each shade of meaning outside of the common limits.