Oxford English Dictionary

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

About

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

The OED started life more than 150 years ago. Today, the dictionary is in the process of its first major revision. Updates revise and extend the OED at regular intervals, each time subtly adjusting our image of the English language.

Highlights

• OED Labs – Our goal is to further develop the OED’s offering to actively support the needs of academic research as they evolve in the coming years. Take a look at new ways to access OED data, including the OED Researcher API and the OED Text Visualizer.
• Video guides: Take a look at our short guides to help you get the most out of your OED access.
• Interactive graphic:Whether by sudden invention or unhurried evolution, words come into the English language in all manner of ways. The Oxford English Dictionary’s mission is to record all of these word stories, capturing their development as they continue to unfold.
  Our interactive journey on how OMG made it into the OED explains all.

Webinars and Events

Visit our webinars and events page to explore our wide range of upcoming and recorded events here.

Subscribe

• Personal Subscriptions: We are pleased to offer annual individual OED subscriptions for £100 or $100. Find out more >
• Libraries and institutions: Annual subscriptions are available for institutions. Register now for a free 30-day trial and to request pricing information. For customers within the Americas, please use this form. For customers outside of the Americas, please use this form. If you have any other queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us

The OED today

• What’s new: every three months updates revise existing entries and add new words
• The OED today: discover the 21st century OED and find out more about the revision programme, how to read an entry, and how to use the online OED
• Aspects of English: informative and entertaining commentaries on the English language, written by dictionary editors and specialist authors
• Historical Thesaurus of the OED: now fully incorporated into OED Online, the Historical Thesaurus of the OED arranges the dictionary by meaning. Trace the changing language of the material world, the mind, and society, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the modern day
• Video shorts: a series of videos now live examines how the OED is produced behind the scenes

OED resource centres

• For students and teachers: using the OED for research, study, and teaching
• For librarians: ideas and guides for getting the most from your subscription
• Frequently asked questions: some questions often asked by users of OED Online

History of the OED

• The OED has been the last word on words for over a century. Explore its history

The OED in print

600,000 words … 3.5 million quotations … over 1000 years of English

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

The OED started life more than 150 years ago. Today, the dictionary is in the process of its first major revision. Updates revise and extend the OED at regular intervals, each time subtly adjusting our image of the English language.

Highlights

• OED Labs – Our goal is to further develop the OED’s offering to actively support the needs of academic research as they evolve in the coming years. Take a look at new ways to access OED data, including the OED Researcher API and the OED Text Visualizer.
• Video guides: Take a look at our short guides to help you get the most out of your OED access.
• Interactive graphic:Whether by sudden invention or unhurried evolution, words come into the English language in all manner of ways. The Oxford English Dictionary’s mission is to record all of these word stories, capturing their development as they continue to unfold.
  Our interactive journey on how OMG made it into the OED explains all.

Upcoming events

Panel discussion: The Oxford Dictionary of African American English

When: 22 nd September 2022; 18:00 BST (UTC +1) / 13:00 EDT (UTC -4) / 10:00 PDT (UTC -7)

Oxford Languages and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research have partnered for a three-year research project, whose aim is to compile the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE).

The project is spearheaded by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Editor-in-Chief), Director of the Center and Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard, and is funded in part by grants from the Mellon and Wagner Foundations.

Join some project team members for a panel discussion covering:

• Project overview and aims
• Where we are now
• Why we are compiling ODAAE
• The socio-linguistic importance of African American English

Reserve your place here

Subscribe

• Personal Subscriptions: We are pleased to offer annual individual OED subscriptions for £100 or $100. Find out more >
• Libraries and institutions: Annual subscriptions are available for institutions. Register now for a free 30-day trial and to request pricing information. For customers within the Americas, please use this form. For customers outside of the Americas, please use this form. If you have any other queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us

The OED today

• What’s new: every three months updates revise existing entries and add new words
• The OED today: discover the 21st century OED and find out more about the revision programme, how to read an entry, and how to use the online OED
• Aspects of English: informative and entertaining commentaries on the English language, written by dictionary editors and specialist authors
• Historical Thesaurus of the OED: now fully incorporated into OED Online, the Historical Thesaurus of the OED arranges the dictionary by meaning. Trace the changing language of the material world, the mind, and society, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the modern day
• Video shorts: a series of videos now live examines how the OED is produced behind the scenes

OED resource centres

• For students and teachers: using the OED for research, study, and teaching
• For librarians: ideas and guides for getting the most from your subscription
• Frequently asked questions: some questions often asked by users of OED Online

History of the OED

• The OED has been the last word on words for over a century. Explore its history

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary provides an unsurpassed guide to the English language, documenting 600,000 words through 3.5 million illustrative quotations from over 1,000 years of history across the English-speaking world.

As the world’s foremost historical dictionary of English, the OED’s ongoing mission is to capture the development of all words – past and present – from the moment they enter the language to their most recent usage, subtly adjusting our image of the English language with each update.

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