Oxford English Dictionary Online
Database content
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely acknowledged to be the most authoritative and comprehensive dictionary of English in the world. It also traces the evolution of more than 600,000 words over the last 1,500 years. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. The OED covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. It also offers the best in etymological analysis and in listing of variant spellings and it shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Oxford English Dictionary features:
- Access to the 20-volume Second Edition and the three Additions Series volumes.
- Quarterly updates comprising at least 2,000 new and revised words.
- The ability to select how entries are displayed by turning pronunciations, etymologies, variant spellings and quotations on and off.
- Sophisticated searching capabilities.
- The ability to compare revised entries with entries from the Second Edition to see how the language has changed and how new scholarship has increased understanding of our linguistic and cultural heritage.
- The ability to search for words with wildcards (missing letters can be denoted with a ?), and to search for words on the basis of their definitions.
- "Search OED" icon to add to your toolbar.
Conditions of use
The full content data is provided under licence from the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, copying this copyright material is prohibited without the permission of the copyright owner or its exclusive licensee or agent or by way of a licence from CAL. Should you wish to copy in excess of the permitted limit, see Copyright below.
Patrons of NSLA Consortium subscribing libraries may view the content contained in these databases and may print or download selected content for the purposes of research, private study, criticism or review under the 'fair dealing' provision of the Copyright Act 1968.
Access
For access to the Oxford English Dictionary Online other than from one of the member libraries listed above, contact Oxford University Press.
Copyright
The Conditions of use above describe permitted copying. Inquiries related to copyright should be addressed to: Oxford University Press, onlineproducts@oup.com.
Training & publicity
These resources may be useful for both library staff as well as for the purposes of educating patrons in how to use the product.
- OED Learning Resources
- Accessing OED Online
- Adding OED to your toolbar
- OED fact sheet
- OED brochure
- OED poster
- OED quick user guide
- OED banner
