I'll bet the Massachusetts carpenter who broke Scrabble score records (see the extremely detailed Slate article) has a favorite dictionary! My favorite is the American Heritage Desk Dictionary. I recently replaced my paperback copy with a hardcover that cost only $13.95! You can't beat the price!
The reason I like the American Heritage Dictionary is that it contains word origins. I don't know about you, but I like to see how certain words changed from Latin or Greek or Sanskrit or whatever into our commonly used words. Look at the word "pencil" it came from the Latin word peniculus meaning a "small brush."
If you're REALLY interested in word origins, borrow a copy of John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins [422 AYT].
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