This handbook contains a classified list, with English equivalents, of 1500 words in common use among classical Greek historians, orators and philosophers. One hundred of these words are dealt with at greater length in a Supplement, which also focuses on a number of crucial idioms.

The aim of the book is that learners, drilled in these words over the course of a semester or two, should find that they can read the texts of such authors as Thucydides, Plato and Demosthenes with a high degree of fluency, and without the distraction of consulting dictionaries at every turn. An alphabetical index is provided for reference.