OED (Oxford English
Dictionary)
The
most successful dictionary of the English language
Common
clues: 20-vol. reference; Ref. staple; UK
lexicon; Multivolume ref. set; Ref. room offering; Brit. lexicon;
A-to-zed ref.
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
5 times a year
Frequency
in English language:
15330 / 86800
News:
Eating
our words
Video:
The
Oxford English Dictionary, from “The Professor and the
Madman”
“[Criticizing
the OED is extremely difficult because] one is dealing not just
with a dictionary but with a national institution” –
Roy Harris
The
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the
Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most successful
dictionary of the English language (not to be confused with the
one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford
Dictionary of English, of 1998). As of 30 November 2005 OED
included about 301,100 main entries, comprising more than 350
million printed characters. Additional to the headwords of main
entries, it has 157,000 combinations and derivatives in bold
type, and 169,000 phrases and combinations in bold italic type, a
total of 616,500 word-forms. It has 137,000 pronunciations,
249,300 etymologies, 577,000 cross-references, and 2,412,400
illustrative quotations. The latest, complete printed edition of
the dictionary (Second Edition, 1989) was 20 volumes, comprising
21,730 pages, with 291,500 entries.
At
first, the dictionary was unconnected to Oxford University but
was the idea of a small group of intellectuals in London;[5] it
originally was a Philological Society project conceived in London
by Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge, and Frederick
Furnivall, who were dissatisfied with the current English
dictionaries. In June 1857, they formed an "Unregistered
Words Committee" to search for unlisted and undefined words
lacking in current dictionaries. In November, Trench's report was
not a list of unregistered words; instead, it was the study On
Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, which identified
seven distinct shortcomings in contemporary dictionaries:
Incomplete
coverage of obsolete words
Inconsistent
coverage of families of related words
Incorrect
dates for earliest use of words
History
of obsolete senses of words often omitted
Inadequate
distinction among synonyms
Insufficient
use of good illustrative quotations
Space
wasted on inappropriate or redundant content.
The
Philological Society, however, ultimately realized that the
number of unlisted words would be far more than the number of
words in the English dictionaries of the 19th century. The
Society eventually shifted their idea from only words that were
not already in English dictionaries to a more comprehensive
project. Trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive
dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the Society formally
adopted the idea of a comprehensive new dictionary. Volunteer
readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages
illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. In 1858, the
Society agreed to the project in principle, with the title "A
New English Dictionary on Historical Principles" (NED).
In
1933 Oxford University had finally put the Dictionary to rest;
all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. But of
course the English language continued to change, and by the time
20 years had passed, the Dictionary was outdated.
There
were three possible ways to update it. The cheapest would have
been to leave the existing work alone and simply compile a new
supplement, of perhaps one or two volumes; but then anyone
looking for a word or sense and unsure of its age would have to
look in three different places. The most convenient choice for
the user would have been for the entire dictionary to be
re-edited and retypeset, with each change included in its proper
alphabetical place; but of course this would be most expensive,
with perhaps 15 volumes to be produced. The OUP chose a middle
approach: combining the new material with the existing supplement
to form a larger replacement supplement.
When
the print version of the second edition was published in 1989,
the response was enthusiastic. The author Anthony Burgess
declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century,"
as quoted by Dan Fisher for the Los Angeles Times (March 25,
1989). TIME dubbed the book "a scholarly Everest," and
Richard Boston, writing for the London Guardian (March 24, 1989),
called it "one of the wonders of the world."
The
planned Third Edition, or OED3, is intended as a nearly complete
overhaul of the work. Each word is being examined and revised to
improve the accuracy of the definitions, derivations,
pronunciations, and historical quotations—a task requiring
the efforts of a staff consisting of more than 300 scholars,
researchers, readers, and consultants, and projected to cost
about $55 million. The end result is expected to double the
overall length of the text. The style of the dictionary will also
be changing slightly. The original text was more literary, in
that most of the quotations were taken from novels, plays, and
other literary sources. The new edition, however, will make
reference to all manner of printed resources, such as cookbooks,
wills, technical manuals, specialist journals, and rock lyrics.
The pace of inclusion of new words has been increased as well, to
the rate of about 4,000 per year.
While
large, the OED is not the world's largest dictionary; the
distinction is the Dutch's Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, of
similar goals, and completed after twice as long a time.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Oxford English Dictionary".
OED
(194) 14 We >1 08 Brit. lexicon
8
We- >1 02 Multivolume ref.
6
We- >1 05 20-vol. reference
6
We- >1 04 U.K. lexicon
6
Th- >1 94 Brit. ref. work
4
Th- >1 03 Large ref. work ENC
4
Th- >1 08 Ref. set
4
Th >1 07 Multi-volume ref.
3
Mo+ >1 08 Multivolume Brit. reference
3
Tu >1 09 Multivolume ref. work
3
We- >1 06 Ref. tome
3
We CSy 07 British word bk.
3
Th- >1 08 Library ref.
3
Th >1 09 Big ref.
3
Fr+ >1 00 Ref. staple
04
Brit. multivolume set
2
>1 07 Brit. reference work
2
Tu- >1 03 Voluminous ref. work
2
Tu- >1 98 Big dict.
2
Tu >1 09 Brit. word reference
2
Tu >1 98 Massive ref. work
2
We >1 06 Wordsmith's ref.
2
Th- >1 08 Etymologist's ref.
2
Th- >1 08 Multivolume ref. set
2
Th- >1 05 Ref. room offering
|