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I know people like curling up quietly with a novel, but I cannot bear the process of leafing through a standard dictionary to find a new word. It's too long, it interrupts my enjoyment. 
So I read in a comfortable chair in front of the screen and use either a computer software dictionary of an Internet dictionary.

Computer software dictionaries.
By these I mean a product you install off CD. Two to recommend:-
Collins French-English Talking Dictionary
Oxford-Hachette French English Dictionary

Online Dictionaries
I study French on-line, so my desktop has a shortcut to an excellent general-purpose dictionary. It's part of Radio France International' s site. Here.
As well as French-English equivalencies, it has verbs and synonymes, as well as definitions in French

But the great, great reference dictionary is:-

Impossible to praise this too highly. The paper version in the University library runs to thirteen folio volumes. The on-line version is one of the best pieces of programming I've come across  Click on the banner above to try it.

Why so enthusiastic? After all, it's a french-only dictionary, not French-English.

1.  It contains a mass of old and new words, especially argot which is so hard to find.

2. Even better, the search facility is free-text. That means you can enter expressions and the system will find all the text matches in the dictionary. Simply magic.

That should keep you going...
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