After compiling the indexing information, Fenn decided to create a pocket dictionary for students of Chinese as a foreign language, and was assisted by Chin Hsien-Tseng.

Courtenay H. Fenn's foreword expresses his satisfaction in giving the public a dictionary "the lack of which he has personally felt keenly for the more than thirty years of his sojourn in 'The Land of Sinim'",[2] using the Biblical name Sinim (Hebrew for "inhabitants of the land of sin") that some scholars associate with Greek Sinae "China".

Their preface explains the addition of 150 new phrases, deletion of a few obsolete ones, correction of some errors, and inclusion of two tables: "Chinese Ordinals" and "Standard Methods of Showing Pronunciations, including tones".

At the beginning of World War II, the shortage of Chinese and Japanese dictionaries became an urgent matter for English-speaking Allies.

In response to the "urgent need" for publishing the revised Harvard edition, Fenn's dictionary was basically left unchanged.

Harvard University Press continued reprinting Fenn's and Mathews' popular Chinese-English dictionaries after the war.

The Chinese character 道 (composed of radical 162 辵 or 辶 "walk" and a shǒu 首 "head" phonetic) for dào "way; path; say; the Dao" or dǎo "guide; lead; conduct; instruct; direct" makes a good sample entry for illustrating a dictionary because it has two pronunciations and complex semantics.

The cross-referenced dǎo entry gives "道3 | 辵 radical 162 | 首 phonetic 855 | 過|兒 Narrow passage | tao3 | A"—indicating the 3rd "low dipping" tone, same radical and phonetic, a guòdàor or (Beijing pronunciation) guòdǎor (過道兒 "passageway; corridor") usage example, alternate dàopronunciation, and same usage frequency group A. Footnotes