The aim of this work is to help students, translators and the general user, and it is hoped that they will all find this new version of Professor Aquilina's dictionary more suited to their needs. New synonyms have also been added to give the user of this dictionary a wider choice of English words.

Since abridgement was the main exercise in this version, obsolete words, verbal phrases, idioms and expressions, cross references as well as etymological information were left out. However the system of presenting derivatives under the headword was retained but these were put in alphabetical order.

The orthography adopted in this dictionary is the official orthography of Maltese originally devised by the Għaqda tal-Kittieba Maltin/Akkademja tal-Malti in 1924 and later revised in two subsequent updates.