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{{Short description|Historical dictionary of the English language}}
{{About|the multi-volume historical dictionary|other dictionaries published by Oxford University Press|Oxford dictionary (disambiguation){{!}}Oxford dictionary}}
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| name = ''Oxford English Dictionary''
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| image_caption = Seven of the twenty volumes of the printed second edition of ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' (1989)
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| pub_date = {{ubl|1884–1928 (first edition)|1989 (second edition)|Third edition in preparation<ref name=Dickson>{{cite news |first=Andrew |last=Dickson |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet |title=Inside the OED: can the world's biggest dictionary survive the internet? |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=23 February 2018 |access-date=13 December 2020 |archive-date=16 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116234943/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet |url-status=live}}</ref>}}
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The '''''Oxford English Dictionary''''' ('''''OED''''') is the principal [[historical dictionary]] of the [[English language]], published by [[Oxford University Press]] (OUP), a [[University of Oxford]] publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first edition in 1884, traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, and provides ongoing descriptions of English language usage in its variations around the world.<ref>{{cite web |title=About |website=Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://public.oed.com/about/ |access-date=13 November 2021 |quote=As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. |archive-date=21 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190821000818/https://public.oed.com/about/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1857, work first began on the dictionary, though the first edition was not published until 1884. It began to be published in unbound [[Serial (literature)|fascicles]] as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 bound volumes.

In 1933, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' fully replaced the former name in all occurrences in its reprinting as 12 volumes with a one-volume supplement. More supplements came over the years until 1989, when the second edition was published, comprising 21,728 pages in 20 volumes.<ref name=Dickson /> Since 2000, compilation of a third edition of the dictionary has been underway, approximately half of which was complete by 2018.<ref name=Dickson />

In 1988, the first electronic version of the dictionary was made available, and the online version has been available since 2000. By April 2014, it was receiving over two million visits per month. The third edition of the dictionary is expected to be available exclusively in electronic form; the CEO of OUP has stated that it is unlikely that it will ever be printed.<ref name=Dickson /><ref>{{cite news |last=Alastair Jamieson |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7970391/Oxford-English-Dictionary-will-not-be-printed-again.html |title=Oxford English Dictionary 'will not be printed again' |access-date=11 August 2012 |first=Alastair |website=The Telegraph |date=29 August 2010 |archive-date=31 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190831072218/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7970391/Oxford-English-Dictionary-will-not-be-printed-again.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Simpson>{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10777079/RIP-for-OED-as-worlds-finest-dictionary-goes-out-of-print.html |title=RIP for OED as world's finest dictionary goes out of print |last=Flanagan |first=Padraic |date=20 April 2014 |work=The Telegraph |access-date=8 June 2014 |archive-date=20 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190820160048/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10777079/RIP-for-OED-as-worlds-finest-dictionary-goes-out-of-print.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

== Historical nature ==
As a historical dictionary, the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' features entries in which the earliest ascertainable recorded sense of a word, whether current or obsolete, is presented first, and each additional sense is presented in historical order according to the date of its earliest ascertainable recorded use.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/the-oxford-english-dictionary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111219193859/http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/the-oxford-english-dictionary |archive-date=19 December 2011 |title=The Oxford English Dictionary |access-date=26 May 2015 |website=Oxford Dictionaries |url-status=dead}}</ref> Following each definition are several brief illustrating quotations presented in chronological order from the earliest ascertainable use of the word in that sense to the last ascertainable use for an obsolete sense, to indicate both its life span and the time since its desuetude, or to a relatively recent use for current ones.

The format of the ''OED''{{'}}s entries has influenced numerous other historical [[lexicography]] projects. The forerunners to the ''OED'', such as the early volumes of the ''[[Deutsches Wörterbuch]]'', had initially provided few quotations from a limited number of sources, whereas the ''OED'' editors preferred larger groups of quite short quotations from a wide selection of authors and publications. This influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest |last=Osselton |first=Noel |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-158346-9 |location=Oxford |chapter=Murray and his European Counterparts |editor-last=Mugglestone |editor-first=Lynda}}</ref>

== Entries and relative size ==
[[File:Murray OED vocabulary types diagram.svg|thumb|right|Diagram of the types of English vocabulary included in the ''OED'', devised by [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]], its first editor]]

According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to "key in" the 59 million words of the ''OED'' second edition, 60 years to proofread them, and 540 [[megabyte]]s to store them electronically.<ref name=facts2004 /> As of 30 November 2005, the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' contained approximately 301,100 main entries. Supplementing the entry [[headword]]s, there are 157,000 bold-type combinations and derivatives;<ref>A bold type combination has a significantly different meaning from the sum of its parts, for instance '''sauna-like''' is unlike an actual sauna. {{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/gen-combinations.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: General explanations: Combinations |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195533/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/gen-combinations.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations;<ref>Italicized combinations are obvious from their parts (for example ''television aerial''), unlike bold combinations. {{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/gen-combinations.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: General explanations: Combinations |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195533/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/gen-combinations.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> 616,500 word-forms in total, including 137,000 [[pronunciation]]s; 249,300 [[etymology|etymologies]]; 577,000 cross-references; and 2,412,400 usage [[quotation]]s. The dictionary's latest, complete print edition (second edition, 1989) was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the ''OED2'' was for the verb ''set'', which required 60,000 words to describe some 580 senses (430 for the bare verb, the rest in [[phrasal verb]]s and idioms). As entries began to be revised for the ''OED3'' in sequence starting from M, the record was progressively broken by the verbs ''make'' in 2000, then ''put'' in 2007, then ''run'' in 2011 with 645 senses.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29winchester.html?_r=0 |title=A Verb for Our Frantic Time |last=Winchester |newspaper=The New York Times |date=28 May 2011 |access-date=26 December 2013 |first=Simon |archive-date=9 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150109123843/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29winchester.html?_r=0 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Simpson |url=http://www.oed.com/news/updates/revisions0712.html |title=December 2007 revisions – Quarterly updates |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |publisher=OED |date=13 December 2007 |access-date=3 August 2010 |first=John |archive-date=9 January 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109203042/http://www2.oed.com/news/updates/revisions0712.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Make, put, run: Writing and rewriting three big verbs in the OED |last=Gilliver |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Gilliver |date=2013 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |volume=34 |doi=10.1353/dic.2013.0009 |issue=34 |pages=10–23 |s2cid=123682722}}</ref>

Despite its considerable size, the ''OED'' is neither the world's largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language. Another earlier large dictionary is the [[Grimm brothers]]' [[Deutsches Wörterbuch|dictionary of the German language]], begun in 1838 and completed in 1961. The first edition of the {{lang|it|[[Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca]]}} is the first great dictionary devoted to a modern European language (Italian) and was published in 1612; the first edition of {{lang|fr|[[Dictionnaire de l'Académie française]]}} dates from 1694. The official dictionary of Spanish is the {{lang|es|[[Diccionario de la lengua española]]}} (produced, edited, and published by the [[Royal Spanish Academy]]), and its first edition was published in 1780. The ''[[Kangxi Dictionary]]'' of Chinese was published in 1716.<ref>{{cite web |title=Kangxi Dictionary |url=http://history.cultural-china.com/en/46H211H789.html |access-date=21 October 2013 |website=cultural-china.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130330200345/http://history.cultural-china.com/en/46H211H789.html |archive-date=30 March 2013 }}</ref> The largest dictionary by number of pages is believed to be the Dutch {{lang|nl|[[Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal]]}}.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.worldslargestdictionary.com/ |title=The world's largest dictionary |access-date=2 July 2021 |archive-date=9 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709183129/https://www.worldslargestdictionary.com/}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Willemyns |first=Roland |title=Dutch: Biography of a Language |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-985871-2 |pages=124–26}}</ref>
{{-}}

== History ==
{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="text-align:center; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em;"
|-
! colspan="4" | Oxford English Dictionary Publications
|-
! scope="col" | Publication<br />date
! scope="col" | Volume<br />range
! scope="col" | Title
! scope="col" | Volume
|-
|1888||A and B||''A New ED''||Vol. 1
|-
|1893||C||''NED''||Vol. 2
|-
|1897||D and E||''NED''||Vol. 3
|-
|1900||F and G||''NED''||Vol. 4
|-
|1901||H to K||''NED''||Vol. 5
|-
|1908||L to N||''NED''||Vol. 6
|-
|1909||O and P||''NED''||Vol. 7
|-
|1914||Q to Sh||''NED''||Vol. 8
|-
|1919||Si to St||''NED''||Vol. 9/1
|-
|1919||Su to Th||''NED''||Vol. 9/2
|-
|1926||Ti to U||''NED''||Vol. 10/1
|-
|1928||V to Z||''NED''||Vol. 10/2
|-
|1928||All||''NED''||10 vols.
|-
|1933||All||''NED''||Suppl.
|-
|1933||All||''Oxford ED''||13 vols.
|-
|1972||A to G||''OED'' Sup.||Vol. 1
|-
|1976||H to N||''OED'' Sup.||Vol. 2
|-
|1982||O to Sa||''OED'' Sup.||Vol. 3
|-
|1986||Se to Z||''OED'' Sup.||Vol. 4
|-
|1989||All||''OED'' 2nd Ed.||20 vols.
|-
|1993||All||''OED Add. Ser.''||Vols. 1–2
|-
|1997||All||''OED Add. Ser.''||Vol. 3
|}

=== Origins ===
The dictionary began as a [[Philological Society]] project of a small group of intellectuals in London (and unconnected to [[Oxford University]]):<ref name=Winchester1999>{{cite book |title=The Professor and the Madman |url=https://archive.org/details/professormadman00simo |url-access=registration |last=Winchester |first=Simon |year=1999 |publisher=HarperPerennial |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-083978-9}}</ref>{{rp|103–104, 112}} [[Richard Chenevix Trench]], [[Herbert Coleridge]], and [[Frederick James Furnivall|Frederick Furnivall]], who were dissatisfied with the existing English dictionaries. The society expressed interest in compiling a new dictionary as early as 1844,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Thoughts on Writing a History of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' |last=Gilliver |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Gilliver |date=2013 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |doi=10.1353/dic.2013.0011 |volume=34 |pages=175–183 |s2cid=143763718}}</ref> but it was not until June 1857 that they began by forming an "Unregistered Words Committee" to search for words that were unlisted or poorly defined 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:<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://archive.org/details/onsomedeficienci00trenrich |title=On Some Deficiencies in Our English Dictionaries |last=Trench |first=Richard Chenevix |author-link=Richard Chenevix Trench |date=1857 |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |volume=9 |pages=3–8}}</ref>
* 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 society 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, and shifted their idea from covering only words that were not already in English dictionaries to a larger 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.<ref name=Winchester1999 />{{rp|107–108}} Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. Later the same year, the society agreed to the project in principle, with the title ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'' (''NED'').<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|ix–x}}

=== Early editors ===
{{See also|List of contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary}}
[[Richard Chenevix Trench]] (1807–1886) played the key role in the project's first months, but his appointment as [[List of Deans of Westminster|Dean of Westminster]] meant that he could not give the dictionary project the time that it required. He withdrew and [[Herbert Coleridge]] became the first editor.<ref name=Mugglestone>{{Cite book |title=Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary |last=Mugglestone |first=Lynda |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-300-10699-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/lostforwordshidd00mugg}}</ref>{{Rp|8–9}}

[[File:FrederickJamesFurnivall.jpg|frame|left|[[Frederick James Furnivall|Frederick Furnivall]], 1825–1910]]

On 12 May 1860, Coleridge's dictionary plan was published and research was started. His house was the first editorial office. He arrayed 100,000 quotation slips in a 54 pigeon-hole grid.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{Rp|9}} In April 1861, the group published the first sample pages; later that month, Coleridge died of [[tuberculosis]], aged 30.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|x}}

Thereupon Furnivall became editor; he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but temperamentally ill-suited for the work.<ref name=Winchester1999 />{{rp|110}} Many volunteer readers eventually lost interest in the project, as Furnivall failed to keep them motivated. Furthermore, many of the slips were misplaced.

Furnivall believed that, since many printed texts from earlier centuries were not readily available, it would be impossible for volunteers to efficiently locate the quotations that the dictionary needed. As a result, he founded the [[Early English Text Society]] in 1864 and the Chaucer Society in 1868 to publish old manuscripts.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xii}} Furnivall's preparatory efforts lasted 21 years and provided numerous texts for the use and enjoyment of the general public, as well as crucial sources for lexicographers, but they did not actually involve compiling a dictionary. Furnivall recruited more than 800 volunteers to read these texts and record quotations. While enthusiastic, the volunteers were not well trained and often made inconsistent and arbitrary selections. Ultimately, Furnivall handed over nearly two tons of quotation slips and other materials to his successor.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/page/reading/Reading$0020Programme |title=Reading Programme |access-date=7 June 2014 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=13 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613141705/https://www.oed.com/page/reading/Reading$0020Programme}}</ref>

In the 1870s, Furnivall unsuccessfully attempted to recruit both [[Henry Sweet]] and [[Henry Nicol]] to succeed him. He then approached [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]], who accepted the post of editor. In the late 1870s, Furnivall and Murray met with several publishers about publishing the dictionary. In 1878, Oxford University Press agreed with Murray to proceed with the massive project; the agreement was formalized the following year.<ref name=Winchester1999 />{{rp|111–112}} 20 years after its conception, the dictionary project finally had a publisher. It would take another 50 years to complete.

[[File:Dr. William Chester Minor.jpg|thumb|[[William Chester Minor]], 1834–1920]]
Late in his editorship, Murray learned that one especially prolific reader, [[William Chester Minor|W.&nbsp;C. Minor]], was confined to a mental hospital for (in modern terminology) [[schizophrenia]].<ref name=Winchester1999 />{{rp|xiii}}  Minor was a Yale University–trained surgeon and a military officer in the [[American Civil War]] who had been confined to [[Broadmoor Hospital|Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane]] after killing a man in London. He invented his own quotation-tracking system, allowing him to submit slips on specific words in response to editors' requests. The story of how Murray and Minor worked together to advance the ''OED'' was retold in the 1998 book ''[[The Surgeon of Crowthorne]]'' (US title: ''The Professor and the Madman''<ref name=Winchester1999 />), which was the basis for a 2019 film, ''[[The Professor and the Madman (film)|The Professor and the Madman]]'', starring [[Mel Gibson]] and [[Sean Penn]].

=== Oxford editors ===
[[File:James Murray in a scriptorium.jpg|thumb|[[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]] in the Scriptorium at Banbury Road]]
During the 1870s, the [[Philological Society]] was concerned with the process of publishing a dictionary with such an immense scope.<ref name=Dickson /> They had pages printed by publishers, but no publication agreement was reached; both the [[Cambridge University Press]] and the [[Oxford University Press]] were approached. The OUP finally agreed in 1879 (after two years of negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray) to publish the dictionary and to pay Murray, who was both the editor and the [[Philological Society]] president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four volumes, totalling 6,400 pages. They hoped to finish the project in ten years.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{Rp|1}}

[[File:OED quotation slip.jpg|left|thumb|A quotation slip as used in the compilation of the ''OED,'' illustrating the word ''flood'']]
Murray started the project, working in a [[corrugated iron]] outbuilding called the "[[Scriptorium]]" which was lined with wooden planks, bookshelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xiii}} He tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, which were found to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages. For instance, there were ten times as many quotations for ''abusion'' as for ''abuse''.<ref name="caught178" /> He appealed, through newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries, for readers who would report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way".<ref name="caught178">{{cite book |last=Murray |first=K. M. Elizabeth |title=Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://archive.org/details/caughtinwebofwor00murr |url-access=registration |year=1977 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-08919-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/caughtinwebofwor00murr/page/178 178]}}</ref> Murray had American philologist and [[liberal arts college]] professor [[Francis March]] manage the collection in North America; 1,000 quotation slips arrived daily to the Scriptorium and, by 1880, there were 2,500,000.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{Rp|15}}

The first dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884—twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. The full title was ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''; the 352-page volume, words from ''A'' to ''Ant'', cost 12[[shilling|s]] 6[[Penny (British pre-decimal coin)|d]]<ref name=Mugglestone />{{rp|251}} ({{Inflation|UK|0.625|1884|fmt=eq}}). The total sales were only 4,000 copies.<ref name=Winchester2003>{{cite book |last=Winchester |first=Simon |title=The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860702-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/meaningofeveryth00winc}}</ref>{{rp|169}}

The OUP saw that it would take too long to complete the work unless editorial arrangements were revised. Accordingly, new assistants were hired, and two new demands were made on Murray.<ref name=Mugglestone />{{rp|32–33}} The first was that he move from [[Mill Hill]] to [[Oxford]] to work full-time on the project, which he did in 1885. Murray had his Scriptorium re-erected in the back garden of his new property.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xvii}}

[[File:78 Banbury Road Oxford 20060715.jpg|thumb|left|78 Banbury Road, former home of [[James Murray (lexicographer)|James Murray]], marked with an [[Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board|Oxfordshire Blue Plaque]]]]
Murray resisted the second demand: that if he could not meet the schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work in parallel to him, outside his supervision, on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling that he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That turned out not to be so, and [[Philip Lyttelton Gell|Philip Gell]] of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant [[Henry Bradley]] (hired by Murray in 1884), who worked independently in the [[British Museum]] in London beginning in 1888. In 1896, Bradley moved to Oxford University.<ref name=Mugglestone />

Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with his business concerns – containing costs and speeding production – to the point where the project's collapse seemed likely. Newspapers reported the harassment, particularly the ''[[Saturday Review (London)|Saturday Review]]'', and public opinion backed the editors.<ref name=Winchester2003 />{{rp|182–83}} Gell was fired, and the university reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to finish properly.
===Further progress===
Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with ''A–D'', ''H–K'', ''O–P'', and ''T'', nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed ''E–G'', ''L–M'', ''S–Sh'', ''St'', and ''W–We''. By then, two additional editors had been promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. [[William Craigie]] started in 1901 and was responsible for ''N'', ''Q–R'', ''Si–Sq'', ''U–V'', and ''Wo–Wy''.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xix}} The OUP had previously thought London too far from Oxford but, after 1925, Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xix}}<ref name=Mugglestone /> The fourth editor was [[Charles Talbut Onions]], who compiled the remaining ranges starting in 1914: ''Su–Sz'', ''Wh–Wo'', and ''X–Z''.<ref name=Lex-LMugg>{{cite book |last=Mugglestone |first=Lynda |title=Lexicography and the OED: Pioneers in the Untrodden Forest |year=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=245}}</ref>

In 1919–1920, [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] was employed by the ''OED'', researching etymologies of the ''Waggle'' to ''Warlock'' range;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/contributors/#tolkien |title=Contributors: Tolkien |access-date=3 October 2012 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=4 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504010833/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/contributors/#tolkien}}</ref> later he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story ''[[Farmer Giles of Ham]]''.<ref name=Considine>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1998_2/John%20CONSIDINE%20Why%20do%20large%20historical%20dictionaries%20give%20so%20much%20pleasure%20to%20their%20owners%20and%20users.pdf |title=Why do large historical dictionaries give so much pleasure to their owners and users? |last=Considine |first=John |date=1998 |journal=Proceedings of the 8th EURALEX International Congress |access-date=8 June 2014 |pages=579–587 |archive-date=13 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140713043602/http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1998_2/John%20CONSIDINE%20Why%20do%20large%20historical%20dictionaries%20give%20so%20much%20pleasure%20to%20their%20owners%20and%20users.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

By early 1894, a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for ''A–B'', five for ''C'', and two for ''E''.<ref name=Craigie /> Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which eventually became a volume break). At this point, it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent instalments: once every three months beginning in 1895 there would be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s 6d. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xx}} Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles.<ref name=Craigie />{{rp|xx}} Also in 1895, the title ''Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else.<ref name=Craigie />{{Rp|xx}}

=== Completion of first edition and first supplement ===
The 125th and last fascicle covered words from ''Wise'' to the end of ''W'' and was published on 19 April 1928, and the full dictionary in bound volumes followed immediately.<ref name=Craigie>{{Cite book |title=A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Introduction, Supplement, and Bibliography |last1=Craigie |first1=W. A. |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1933 |location=Oxford |last2=Onions |first2=C.&nbsp;T.}}</ref>{{rp|xx}} [[William Shakespeare]] is the most-quoted writer in the completed dictionary, with ''[[Hamlet]]'' his most-quoted work. [[George Eliot]] (Mary Ann Evans) is the most-quoted female writer. Collectively, the [[Bible]] is the most-quoted work (in many translations); the most-quoted single work is ''[[Cursor Mundi]]''.<ref name=facts2004>{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/dictionary-facts/ |title=Dictionary Facts |access-date=1 June 2014 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706184512/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/dictionary-facts/}}</ref>

Additional material for a given letter range continued to be gathered after the corresponding fascicle was printed, with a view towards inclusion in a supplement or revised edition. A one-volume supplement of such material was published in 1933, with entries weighted towards the start of the alphabet where the fascicles were decades old.<ref name= Craigie /> The supplement included at least one word (''bondmaid'') accidentally omitted when its slips were misplaced;<ref>Gilliver p. 199; Mugglestone p. 100</ref> many words and senses newly coined (famously ''[[appendicitis]]'', coined in 1886 and missing from the 1885 fascicle, which came to prominence when [[Edward VII]]'s 1902 appendicitis postponed [[Coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra|his coronation]]<ref>Gilliver pp. 289–290; Mugglestone p. 164</ref>); and some previously excluded as too obscure (notoriously ''[[radium]]'', omitted in 1903, months before its discoverers [[Pierre Curie|Pierre]] and [[Marie Curie]] won the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]]<ref>Gilliver pp. 302–303; Mugglestone p. 161</ref>). Also in 1933 the original fascicles of the entire dictionary were re-issued, bound into 12 volumes, under the title "''The Oxford English Dictionary''".<ref name=33reissue>{{cite book |date=1933 |editor1-last=Murray |editor1-first=James A. H. |editor-link1=James Murray (lexicographer) |editor2-last=Bradley |editor2-first=Henry |editor-link2=Henry Bradley |editor3-last=Craigie |editor3-first=W. A. |editor-link3=William Craigie |editor4-last=Onions |editor4-first=C. T. |editor-link4=Charles Talbut Onions |title=The Oxford English Dictionary; being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.147252 |edition=1st |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=0-19-861101-3 |lccn=a33003399 |oclc=2748467 |ol=OL180268M}}</ref> This edition of 13 volumes including the supplement was subsequently reprinted in 1961 and 1970.

=== Second supplement ===
In 1933, Oxford had finally put the dictionary to rest; all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. However, the English language continued to change and, by 20 years later, the dictionary was outdated.<ref name=Supplement1957-1986 />

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 [[typesetting|retypeset]], with each change included in its proper alphabetical place; but this would have been the most expensive option, with perhaps 15 volumes required to be produced. The OUP chose a middle approach: combining the new material with the existing supplement to form a larger replacement supplement.

[[Robert Burchfield]] was hired in 1957 to edit the second supplement;<ref>{{Cite journal |title=The Revolution in English Lexicography |last=Simpson |first=John |date=2002 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |doi=10.1353/dic.2002.0004 |volume=23 |pages=1–15 |s2cid=162931774}}</ref> [[Charles Talbut Onions]] turned 84 that year but was still able to make some contributions as well. The work on the supplement was expected to take about seven years.<ref name=Supplement1957-1986>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-supp-oed.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: The history of the Oxford English Dictionary: A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, 1957–1986 |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195349/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-supp-oed.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> It actually took 29 years, by which time the new supplement ''(OEDS)'' had grown to four volumes, starting with ''A'', ''H'', ''O'', and ''Sea''. They were published in 1972, 1976, 1982, and 1986 respectively, bringing the complete dictionary to 16 volumes, or 17 counting the first supplement.

Burchfield emphasized the inclusion of modern-day language and, through the supplement, the dictionary was expanded to include a wealth of new words from the burgeoning fields of science and technology, as well as popular culture and colloquial speech. Burchfield said that he broadened the scope to include developments of the language in [[English-speaking world|English-speaking regions beyond the United Kingdom]], including North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. Burchfield also removed, for unknown reasons, many entries that had been added to the 1933 supplement.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/nov/30/oed-history-reports-missing-point |title=Focusing on the OED's missing words is missing the point |last=Ogilvie |first=Sarah |date=30 November 2012 |work=The Guardian |access-date=2 October 2014}}</ref> In 2012, an analysis by lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie revealed that many of these entries were foreign [[loan word]]s, despite Burchfield's claim that he included more such words. The proportion was estimated from a sample calculation to amount to 17% of the foreign loan words and words from regional forms of English. Some of these had only a single recorded usage, but many had multiple recorded citations, and it ran against what was thought to be the established ''OED'' editorial practice and a perception that he had opened up the dictionary to "World English".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ogilvie |first=Sarah |url=https://archive.org/details/wordsofworldglob0000ogil/mode/2up |title=Words of the World: A Global History of the Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-107-02183-9 |access-date=28 April 2024 |url-access=registration |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/books/sarah-ogilvie-on-deletions-from-the-oxford-english-dictionary.html |title=Dictionary Dust-Up (Danchi Is Involved) |last=Kaufman |first=Leslie |date=28 November 2012 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=8 June 2014 |archive-date=10 March 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140310180612/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/books/sarah-ogilvie-on-deletions-from-the-oxford-english-dictionary.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/26/former-oed-editor-deleted-words |title=Former OED editor covertly deleted thousands of words, book claims |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=26 November 2012 |work=The Guardian |access-date=8 June 2014 |archive-date=2 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240602225457/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/nov/26/former-oed-editor-deleted-words |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Second edition ===
{{Infobox book|
| name              = Oxford English Dictionary|
| image             = Oxford English Dictionary 2nd.jpg|
| caption           = Second Edition|
| editor            = [[John Simpson (lexicographer)|John Simpson]] and [[Edmund Weiner]]|
| illustrator       = |
| cover_artist      = |
| country           = United Kingdom|
| language          = English|
| series            = |
| subject           = [[List of English dictionaries|Dictionary]]|
| publisher         = [[Oxford University Press]]|
| pub_date          = 30 March 1989|
| media_type        = |
| pages             = 21,730<ref name=facts2004 />|
| isbn              = 978-0-19-861186-8
| dewey             = 423 19
| congress          = PE1625 .O87 1989
| oclc              = 17648714
}}

By the time the new supplement was completed, it was clear that the full text of the dictionary would need to be computerized. This would require retyping it, but from then on it would always be accessible for computer searching—as well as for whatever new editions of the dictionary might be desired, starting with an integration of the supplementary volumes and the main text. Preparation for this process began in 1983, and editorial work started the following year under the administrative direction of Timothy J. Benbow, with [[John Simpson (lexicographer)|John A. Simpson]] and [[Edmund Weiner|Edmund S. C. Weiner]] as co-editors.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: The history of the Oxford English Dictionary: The New Oxford English Dictionary project |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195137/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> In 2016, Simpson published his memoir chronicling his years at the OED: ''The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary – A Memoir'' (New York: Basic Books).

[[File:OED-LEXX-Bungler.jpg|right|framed|Editing an entry of the ''NOED'' using [[LEXX (text editor)|LEXX]]]]
[[File:OED markup corrections.jpg|left|thumb|A printout of the SGML markup used in the computerization of the ''OED'', showing pencil annotations used to mark corrections]]
Thus began the ''New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED)'' project. In the United States, more than 120 typists of the International Computaprint Corporation (now [[Reed Tech]]) started keying in over 350,000,000 characters, their work checked by 55 proof-readers in England.<ref name=":5" /> Retyping the text alone was not sufficient; all the information represented by the complex [[typography]] of the original dictionary had to be retained, which was done by [[markup (computer programming)|marking up]] the content in [[SGML]].<ref name=":5" /> A specialized [[Search engine (computing)|search engine]] and display software were also needed to access it. Under a 1985 agreement, some of this software work was done at the [[University of Waterloo]], Canada, at the ''Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary'', led by [[Frank Tompa]] and [[Gaston Gonnet]]; this search technology went on to become the basis for the [[Open Text Corporation]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://db.uwaterloo.ca/OED/ |title=UW Centre for the New OED and Text Research |date=10 November 2005 |access-date=4 June 2014 |last=Tompa |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Tompa |archive-date=12 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912011713/http://db.uwaterloo.ca/OED/}}</ref> Computer hardware, database and other software, development managers, and programmers for the project were donated by the British subsidiary of [[IBM]]; the colour syntax-directed editor for the project, [[LEXX (text editor)|LEXX]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/0/bc33186c36e05a9e85256bfa0067f698?OpenDocument |title=LEXX |access-date=3 July 2004 |archive-date=12 February 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060212114851/http://domino.research.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/0/bc33186c36e05a9e85256bfa0067f698?OpenDocument}}{{subscription required}}</ref> was written by [[Mike Cowlishaw]] of IBM.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=LEXX – A Programmable Structured Editor |last=Cowlishaw |first=Mike F. |author-link=Mike Cowlishaw |date=1987 |journal=IBM Journal of Research and Development |doi=10.1147/rd.311.0073 |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=73–80 |s2cid=207600673 |url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f337/6dc837706144926d864c4faa40d522a3c074.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200228090750/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f337/6dc837706144926d864c4faa40d522a3c074.pdf |archive-date=28 February 2020}}</ref> The [[University of Waterloo]], in Canada, volunteered to design the database. [[A. Walton Litz]], an English professor at [[Princeton University]] who served on the Oxford University Press advisory council, was quoted in [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] as saying "I've never been associated with a project, I've never even heard of a project, that was so incredibly complicated and that met every deadline."<ref name="Gray1989-3-27">{{Cite magazine |url=https://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,957301,00.html |title=A Scholarly Everest Gets Bigger |last=Gray |first=Paul |date=27 March 1989 |magazine=Time |access-date=7 June 2014 |archive-date=3 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503012629/http://content.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,957301,00.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

By 1989, the ''NOED'' project had achieved its primary goals, and the editors, working online, had successfully combined the original text, Burchfield's supplement, and a small amount of newer material, into a single unified dictionary. The word "new" was again dropped from the name, and the second edition of the ''OED'', or the ''OED2'', was published. The first edition [[retronym]]ically became the ''OED1''.

The ''Oxford English Dictionary 2'' was printed in 20 volumes.<ref name=Dickson /> Up to a very late stage, all the volumes of the first edition were started on initial letter boundaries. For the second edition, there was no attempt to start them on letter boundaries, and they were made roughly equal in size. The 20 volumes started with ''A'', ''B.B.C.'', ''Cham'', ''Creel'', ''Dvandva'', ''Follow'', ''Hat'', ''Interval'', ''Look'', ''Moul'', ''Ow'', ''Poise'', ''Quemadero'', ''Rob'', ''Ser'', ''Soot'', ''Su'', ''Thru'', ''Unemancipated'', and ''Wave''.

The content of the ''OED2'' is mostly just a reorganization of the earlier corpus, but the retypesetting provided an opportunity for two long-needed format changes. The [[headword]] of each entry was no longer capitalized, allowing the user to readily see those words that actually require a capital letter.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-features.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: Introduction: Special features of the Second Edition |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195244/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-features.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> Murray had devised his own notation for pronunciation, there being no standard available at the time, whereas the ''OED2'' adopted the modern [[International Phonetic Alphabet]].<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-phonetic.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: Introduction: The translation of the phonetic system |date=1989 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516195327/http://www.oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/intro-phonetic.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> Unlike the earlier edition, all foreign alphabets except Greek were [[Transliteration|transliterated]].<ref name=":1" />

Following page 832 of Volume XX, ''Wave-Zyxt'', there is a 143-page separately paginated bibliography, a conflation of the OED 1st edition's published with the 1933 Supplement and that in Volume IV of the Supplement published in 1986.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/OXD1989ENEN/20-%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary%20%281989%29/page/n843/mode/2up |title=The Oxford English Dictionary Volume XX Wave-—Zyx |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |year=1989 |isbn=0-19-861232-X |editor-last=Simpson |editor-first=J. A. |editor-link=John Simpson (lexicographer) |publication-place=Oxford |page=[3 of Bibliography's pagination] |chapter=Note to the Bibliography |access-date=7 April 2024 |editor-last2=Weiner |editor-first2=E.S.C. |editor-link2=Edmund Weiner |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

The British quiz show ''[[Countdown (game show)|Countdown]]'' awarded the leather-bound complete version to the [[List of Countdown champions|champions of each series]] between its inception in 1982 and Series 63 in 2010.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Countdown |title=Countdown |access-date=2 June 2014 |website=UKGameshows |archive-date=16 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116000720/http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Countdown |url-status=live}}</ref> The prize was axed{{clarify|date=June 2025}} after Series 83, completed in June 2021, as it was considered out of date.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://wiki.apterous.org/Series_83 |title=Series 83 |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=The Countdown Wiki |archive-date=24 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624111026/https://wiki.apterous.org/Series_83 |url-status=live}}</ref>

When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. Author [[Anthony Burgess]] declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century", as quoted by the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Fisher |first=Dan |title=20-Volume English set costs $2,500; New Oxford Dictionary – Improving on the ultimate |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=25 March 1989 |quote=Here's novelist Anthony Burgess calling it 'the greatest publishing event of the century'. It is to be marked by a half-day seminar and lunch at that bluest of blue-blood London hostelries, Claridge's. The guest list of 250 dignitaries is a literary 'Who's Who'.}}</ref> ''Time'' dubbed the book "a scholarly [[Everest]]",<ref name=Gray1989-3-27 /> and [[Richard Boston]], writing for ''[[The Guardian]]'', called it "one of the [[wonders of the world]]".<ref>{{cite news |last=Boston |first=Richard |title=The new, 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary: Oxford's A to Z – The origin |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |date=24 March 1989 |author-link=Richard Boston |quote=The ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' and the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' are indeed yet mighty, but not quite what they used to be, whereas the OED has gone from strength to strength and is one of the wonders of the world.}}</ref>

=== Additions series ===
The supplements and their integration into the second edition were a great improvement to the ''OED'' as a whole, but it was recognized that most of the entries were still fundamentally unaltered from the first edition. Much of the information in the dictionary published in 1989 was already decades out of date, though the supplements had made good progress towards incorporating new vocabulary. Yet many definitions contained disproven scientific theories, outdated historical information, and moral values that were no longer widely accepted.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |url=http://oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed-3.html |title=Preface to the Second Edition: The history of the Oxford English Dictionary: The New Oxford English Dictionary project |date=1989 |access-date=16 December 2003 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031216002745/http://oed.com/archive/oed2-preface/hist-new-oed-3.html |archive-date=16 December 2003}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/28/159/index.html |title=Which edition contains what? |date=28 December 2011 |access-date=7 June 2014 |website=Examining the OED |last=Brewer |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Brewer |archive-date=28 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428032907/http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/28/159/index.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Furthermore, the supplements had failed to recognize many words in the existing volumes as obsolete by the time of the second edition's publication, meaning that thousands of words were marked as current despite no recent evidence of their use.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/29/160/index.html |title=Review of OED3 |date=28 December 2011 |access-date=7 June 2014 |website=Examining the OED |last=Brewer |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Brewer |archive-date=28 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140428063559/http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/29/160/index.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

Accordingly, it was recognized that work on a third edition would have to begin to rectify these problems.<ref name=":3" /> The first attempt to produce a new edition came with the ''Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series,'' a new set of supplements to complement the ''OED2'' with the intention of producing a third edition from them.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/archive/additions-1/introduction.html |title=Preface to the Additions Series (vol. 1): Introduction |date=1993 |access-date=16 May 2008 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516214647/http://www.oed.com/archive/additions-1/introduction.html |archive-date=16 May 2008}}</ref> The previous supplements appeared in alphabetical instalments, whereas the new series had a full A–Z range of entries within each individual volume, with a complete alphabetical index at the end of all words revised so far, each listed with the volume number which contained the revised entry.<ref name=":4" />

However, in the end only three ''Additions'' volumes were published this way, two in 1993 and one in 1997,<ref>{{Cite book |title=Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-861292-6 |location=Oxford |volume=1}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-861299-5 |location=Oxford |volume=2}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-19-860027-5 |location=Oxford |volume=3}}</ref> each containing about 3,000 new definitions.<ref name=facts2004 /> The possibilities of the [[World Wide Web]] and new computer technology in general meant that the processes of researching the dictionary and of publishing new and revised entries could be vastly improved. New text search databases offered vastly more material for the editors of the dictionary to work with, and with publication on the Web as a possibility, the editors could publish revised entries much more quickly and easily than ever before.<ref name=Simpson2011>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVVJmnSJrDc |title=The Making of the OED, 3rd ed. |date=31 January 2011 |access-date=7 June 2014 |last=Simpson |first=John |website=[[YouTube]] |type=video |archive-date=15 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515030754/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVVJmnSJrDc |url-status=live}}</ref> A new approach was called for, and for this reason it was decided to embark on a new, complete revision of the dictionary.
* ''Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series'' Volume 1 ({{ISBN|978-0-19-861292-6}}): Includes over 20,000 illustrative quotations showing the evolution of each word or meaning.
:*?th impression (1994-02-10)
* ''Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series'' Volume 2 ({{ISBN|978-0-19-861299-5}})
:*?th impression (1994-02-10)
* ''Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series'' Volume 3 ({{ISBN|978-0-19-860027-5}}): Contains 3,000 new words and meanings from around the English-speaking world. Published by Clarendon Press.
:*?th impression (1997-10-09)

=== Third edition ===
Beginning with the launch of the first ''OED Online'' site in 2000, the editors of the dictionary began a major revision project to create a completely revised third edition of the dictionary (''OED3''), expected to be completed in 2037<ref name='deadline2037'>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] |title=Deadline 2037: The Making of the Next Oxford English Dictionary |date=27 January 2014 |access-date=27 August 2019 |last=Rachman |first=Tom |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/deadline-2037-the-making-of-the-next-oxford-english-dictionary-1.1667328 |archive-date=18 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200318050317/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/deadline-2037-the-making-of-the-next-oxford-english-dictionary-1.1667328 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cogscilibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-unregistered-words-to-oed3.html |title=From Unregistered Words to OED3 |date=26 August 2007 |access-date=23 October 2007 |work=CogSci Librarian |via=BlogSpot |last=Willen Brown |first=Stephanie |archive-date=10 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071010030822/http://cogscilibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-unregistered-words-to-oed3.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite podcast |title=History of the Oxford English Dictionary |date=27 May 2007 |publisher=[[Big Ideas (TV series)|Big Ideas]] |work=[[TVOntario]] |host=[[Simon Winchester|Winchester, Simon]] |url=http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BISimonWinchester052707.mp3 |format=[[MP3]] |access-date=1 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216045839/http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BISimonWinchester052707.mp3 |archive-date=16 February 2008 }}</ref> at a projected cost of about [[Pounds sterling|£]]34 million.<ref name="OED_History">{{Cite web |url=https://www.oed.com/information/about-the-oed/history-of-the-oed/ |url-status=live |title=History of the OED |access-date=7 March 2024 |website=Oxford English Dictionary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706194110/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/ |archive-date=6 July 2014}}{{void|Fabrickator|comment|link to the updated version of the OED website while leaving in the archive links to the old website in case pertinent content is omitted from the live site}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref name="Dickson" />

Revisions were started at the letter ''M'', with new material appearing every three months on the ''OED Online'' website. The editors chose to start the revision project from the middle of the dictionary in order that the overall quality of entries be made more even, since the later entries in the ''OED1'' generally tended to be better than the earlier ones. However, in March 2008, the editors announced that they would alternate each quarter between moving forward in the alphabet as before and updating "key English words from across the alphabet, along with the other words which make up the alphabetical cluster surrounding them".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/previous-updates/march-2008-update/ |title=March 2008 Update |access-date=1 June 2014 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=20 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120000310/http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50090566}}</ref> With the relaunch of the ''OED Online'' website in December 2010, alphabetical revision was abandoned altogether.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/429/158/index.html |title=OED Online and OED3 |date=12 February 2012 |access-date=7 June 2014 |work=Examining the OED |publisher=Hertford College, University of Oxford |last=Brewer |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Brewer |archive-date=15 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715020601/http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/429/158/index.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

The revision is expected roughly to double the dictionary in size.<ref name="Simpson" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/preface-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/ |title=Preface to the Third Edition of the OED |date=March 2000 |access-date=1 June 2014 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |last=Simpson |first=John |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706205358/http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/preface-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/}}</ref> Apart from general updates to include information on new words and other changes in the language, the third edition brings many other improvements, including changes in formatting and stylistic conventions for easier reading and computerized searching, more etymological information, and a general change of focus away from individual words towards more general coverage of the language as a whole.<ref name=Simpson2011 /><ref>{{Cite journal |title=Root and Branch: Revising the Etymological Component of the Oxford English Dictionary |last=Durkin |first=Philip N. R. |date=1999 |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |doi=10.1111/1467-968X.00044 |volume=97 |issue=1 |pages=1–49 |doi-access=}}</ref> While the original text drew its quotations mainly from literary sources such as novels, plays, and poetry, with additional material from newspapers and academic journals, the new edition will reference more kinds of material that were unavailable to the editors of previous editions, such as wills, inventories, account books, diaries, journals, and letters.<ref name=":2" />

[[John Simpson (lexicographer)|John Simpson]] was the first chief editor of the ''OED3''. He retired in 2013 and was replaced by [[Michael Proffitt]], who is the eighth chief editor of the dictionary.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/oed-editor-retirement-announcement/ |title=John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, to Retire |date=23 April 2013 |access-date=7 June 2014 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=13 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013210659/http://public.oed.com/oed-editor-retirement-announcement/}}</ref>

The production of the new edition exploits computer technology, particularly since the inauguration in June 2005 of the "Perfect [[all singing, all dancing (idiom)|All-Singing All-Dancing]] [[text editor|Editorial]] and [[annotation|Notation]] [[application software|Application]]", or "Pasadena". With this [[XML]]-based system, lexicographers can spend less effort on presentation issues such as the numbering of definitions. This system has also simplified the use of the quotations database, and enabled staff in New York to work directly on the dictionary in the same way as their Oxford-based counterparts.<ref>{{cite news |last=Thompson |first=Liz |title=Pasadena: A Brand New System for the ''OED'' |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/186412378/336536-Oxford-English-Dictionary-News-2005-12 |work=Oxford English Dictionary News |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=4 |date=December 2005 |access-date=6 January 2014 |archive-date=6 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106151050/http://www.scribd.com/doc/186412378/336536-Oxford-English-Dictionary-News-2005-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Other important computer uses include internet searches for evidence of current usage and email submissions of quotations by readers and the general public.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/rewriting-the-oed/collecting-the-evidence/ |title=Collecting the Evidence |access-date=8 June 2014 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=21 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521234730/http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/rewriting-the-oed/collecting-the-evidence/}}</ref>

==== New entries and words ====
''Wordhunt'' was a 2005 appeal to the general public for help in providing citations for 50 selected recent words, and produced [[antedating (lexicography)|antedatings]] for many. The results were reported in a BBC TV series, ''[[Balderdash and Piffle]]''. The ''OED''{{'}}s readers contribute quotations: the department currently receives about 200,000 a year.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/reading-programme/ |title=Reading Programme |access-date=8 June 2014 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706192833/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/reading-programme/}}</ref>

''OED'' currently contains over 500,000 entries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://public.oed.com/about/ |access-date=9 June 2020 |work=Oxford English Dictionary Online |archive-date=21 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190821000818/https://public.oed.com/about/ |url-status=live}}</ref> The online ''OED'' is updated on a quarterly basis, with the addition of new words and senses, and the revision of existing entries.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.oed.com/information/updates/ |title=Updates |work=Oxford English Dictionary |access-date=12 August 2024}}</ref>

== Formats ==

=== Compact editions ===
[[File:Compact Oxford English Dictionary.jpg|thumb|Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, with included magnifying glass]]
[[File:Compact Oxford English Dictionary 2.jpg|thumb|A view inside the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, showing the four pages per page format]]
In 1971, the 13-volume ''OED1'' (1933) was reprinted as a two-volume ''Compact Edition'', by photographically reducing each page to one-half its linear dimensions; each compact edition page held four ''OED1'' pages in a [[N-up|four-up]] ("4-up") format. The two-volume letters were ''A'' and ''P''; the first supplement was at the second volume's end. The ''Compact Edition'' included, in a small slip-case drawer, a  [[Bausch & Lomb]] magnifying glass to help in reading reduced type. Many copies were inexpensively distributed through [[Book sales club|book clubs]]. In 1987, the second supplement was published as a third volume to the ''Compact Edition''.

The 20-volume ''OED2'' (1989) was republished in 1991 as a compact edition ({{ISBN|978-0-19-861258-2}}). The format was re-sized to one-third of original linear dimensions, a nine-up ("9-up") format requiring a stronger magnifying glass (included), but allowing publication of a single-volume dictionary. This version include definitions of 500,000 words, in  290,000 main entries, with 137,000 pronunciations, 249,300 etymologies, 577,000 cross-references, and 2,412,000 illustrative quotations. It is accompanied ''A User's Guide to the "Oxford English Dictionary"'' by Donna Lee Berg.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Compact Oxford English Dictionary |edition=2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1991 |isbn=978-0-19-861258-2}}</ref> After this version was published, however, book club offers commonly continued to sell the two-volume 1971 ''Compact Edition''.<ref name=Considine />

<gallery widths="220px" heights="200px">
File:Compact OED.jpg|The ''Compact Oxford English Dictionary'' (second edition, 1991)
File:Compact OED entry.jpg|Part of an entry in the 1991 compact edition, with a centimetre scale showing the very small type sizes used
</gallery>

=== Electronic versions ===
[[File:OED2-CD-1.png|thumb|A screenshot of the first version of the ''OED'' second edition CD-ROM software]]
[[File:OED2 4ed CD.png|thumb|''OED2'' 4th Edition CD-ROM]]

Once the dictionary was digitized and online, it was also available to be published on [[CD-ROM]]. The text of the first edition was made available in 1987.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=30204378 |title=Report on a New OED Project: A Study of the History of New Words in the New OED |last=Logan |first=H.&nbsp;M. |date=1989 |journal=Computers and the Humanities |doi=10.1007/BF02176644 |volume=23 |issue=4–5 |pages=385–395 |s2cid=46572232}}</ref> Afterward, three versions of the second edition were issued. Version 1 (1992) was identical in content to the printed second edition, and the CD itself was not copy-protected. Version 2 (1999) included the ''Oxford English Dictionary Additions'' of 1993 and 1997. These CD-ROM editions are for [[Microsoft Windows]] only.

Version 3.0 was released in 2002 with additional words from the ''OED3'' and software improvements. Version 3.1.1 (2007) added support for hard disk installation, so that the user does not have to insert the CD to use the dictionary. It has been reported that this version will work on operating systems other than Windows, using [[Emulator|emulation programs]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/oed.shtml#mac3 |title=v3.x under Macintosh OSX and Linux |date=21 December 2013 |access-date=7 June 2014 |website=Oxford English Dictionary (OED) on CD-ROM in a 16-, 32-, or 64-bit Windows environment |last=Holmgren |first=R.&nbsp;J. |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706090900/http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/oed.shtml#mac3}}</ref><ref>{{Cite newsgroup |title=Oxford English Dictionary News |author=Bernie |newsgroup=alt.english.usage |message-id=07ymc.5870$pa7.1359@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/alt.english.usage/0RsDHF76nZc |access-date=7 June 2014 |archive-date=6 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106225751/http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?hl=en&enc_user=Z0svgBAAAABVyP0f3-0_oPcXXKH8wWhj#!topic/alt.english.usage/0RsDHF76nZc |url-status=live}}</ref> Version 4.0 of the CD was released in June 2009 and has applications for both Windows (7 and later) and MacOS X (10.4 and later).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199563838.do |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629055729/http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199563838.do |archive-date=29 June 2009 |title=The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM Version 4.0 Windows/Mac Individual User Version |access-date=26 December 2013 |website=Oxford University Press}}</ref> This version uses the CD drive for installation, running only from the hard drive.

On 14 March 2000, the ''Oxford English Dictionary Online'' (''OED Online'') became available to subscribers.<ref>{{cite journal |last=New |date=23 March 2000 |title='The world's greatest dictionary' goes online |journal=Ariadne |issn=1361-3200 |url=http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/oed-online/ |access-date=18 March 2007 |first=Juliet |archive-date=5 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405041413/http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/oed-online/}}</ref> The online database containing the ''OED2'' is updated quarterly with revisions that will be included in the ''OED3'' (see above). The online edition is the most up-to-date version of the dictionary available. The ''OED'' website is not optimized for mobile devices, but the developers have stated that there are plans to provide an API to facilitate the development of interfaces for querying the ''OED''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://blog.webometrics.org.uk/2009/08/looking-forward-to-an-oxford-english-dictionary-api/ |title=Looking Forward to an Oxford English Dictionary API |work=Webometric Thoughts |date=21 August 2009 |access-date=7 June 2014 |archive-date=6 June 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606202140/http://blog.webometrics.org.uk/2009/08/looking-forward-to-an-oxford-english-dictionary-api/}}</ref>

The price for an individual to use this edition is £100 or US$100 a year; consequently, most subscribers are large organizations such as universities. Some public libraries and companies have also subscribed, including public libraries in the United Kingdom, where access is funded by the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kite |first=Lorien |date=15 November 2013 |title=The Evolving Role of the Oxford English Dictionary |url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dfdfba02-4c70-11e3-958f-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=22 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150622160556/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dfdfba02-4c70-11e3-958f-00144feabdc0.html |url-status=live |newspaper=[[Financial Times]] |issn=0307-1766 |access-date=22 June 2015}}</ref> and public libraries in New Zealand.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/online/library/#subscribe |title=How do I know if my public library subscribes? |access-date=6 January 2013 |website=Oxford University Press |archive-date=15 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131115035054/http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/online/library/#subscribe |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://epic.org.nz/the-databases/by-vendor/OUP |title=Oxford University Press Databases available through EPIC |access-date=7 June 2014 |website=EPIC |archive-date=7 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140707120753/http://epic.org.nz/the-databases/by-vendor/OUP}}</ref> Individuals who belong to a library which subscribes to the service are able to use the service from their own homes without charge.

* ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second edition on CD-ROM Version 3.1:
:*Upgrade version for 3.0 ({{ISBN|978-0-19-522216-6}}):
::*?th impression (2005-08-18)
* ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second edition on CD-ROM Version 4.0: Includes 500,000 words with 2.5 million source quotations, 7,000 new words and meanings. Includes Vocabulary from OED 2nd Edition and all 3 Additions volumes. Supports Windows 2000-7 and Mac OS X 10.4–10.5). Flash-based dictionary.
:*Full version ({{ISBN|0-19-956383-7}}/{{ISBN|978-0-19-956383-8}})
::*?th impression (2009-06-04)
:*Upgrade version for 2.0 and above ({{ISBN|0-19-956594-5}}/{{ISBN|978-0-19-956594-8}}): Supports Windows only.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/oed.shtml#oed40 |title=Current OED Version 4.0 |access-date=6 January 2014 |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706090900/http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/oed.shtml#oed40}}</ref>
::*?th impression (2009-07-15)
:*Print+CD-ROM version ({{ISBN|978-0-19-957315-8}}): Supports Windows Vista and Mac OS).
::*?th impression (2009-11-16)

== Relationship to other Oxford dictionaries ==
[[File:Oxford University Press dictionaries, 2018 (cropped).jpg|thumb|A selection of various Oxford English Dictionaries: pocket, paperback, compact and concise versions.]]

The ''OED''{{'}}s utility and renown as a historical dictionary have led to numerous offspring projects and other dictionaries bearing the Oxford name, though not all are directly related to the ''OED'' itself.

The ''[[Shorter Oxford English Dictionary]],'' originally started in 1902 and completed in 1933,<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1986/032_Lesley%20S.%20Burnett%20-Making%20it%20short_%20The%20Shorter%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary.pdf |title=Making it short: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary |last=Burnett |first=Lesley S. |date=1986 |journal=ZuriLEX '86 Proceedings |access-date=7 June 2014 |pages=229–233 |archive-date=14 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140514002457/http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex1986/032_Lesley%20S.%20Burnett%20-Making%20it%20short_%20The%20Shorter%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> is an abridgement of the full work that retains the historical focus, but does not include any words which were obsolete before 1700 except those used by [[Shakespeare]], [[John Milton|Milton]], [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]], and the [[King James Bible]].<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Shortening the ''OED'': Experience with a Grammar-Defined Database |last1=Blake |first1=G. Elizabeth |date=1992 |journal=ACM Transactions on Information Systems |doi=10.1145/146760.146764 |last2=Bray |first2=Tim |last3=Tompa |first3=Frank Wm |author-link3=Frank Tompa |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=213–232 |s2cid=16859602 |doi-access=free}}</ref> A completely new edition was produced from the ''OED2'' and published in 1993,<ref>{{Cite book |title=The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-861134-9 |location=Oxford |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Lesley |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/newshorteroxford00lesl}}</ref> with revisions in 2002 and 2007.

The [[Concise Oxford English Dictionary|''Concise Oxford Dictionary'']] is a different work, which aims to cover current English only, without the historical focus. The original edition, mostly based on the ''OED1'', was edited by [[Francis George Fowler]] and [[Henry Watson Fowler]] and published in 1911, before the main work was completed.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary: The Classic First Edition |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-969612-3 |postscript=,}} facsimile reprint.</ref> Revised editions appeared throughout the twentieth century to keep it up to date with changes in English usage.

''The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English'' was originally conceived by F. G. Fowler and H. W. Fowler to be compressed, compact, and concise.  Its primary source is the Oxford English Dictionary, and it is nominally an abridgement of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. It was first published in 1924.<ref>Thompson, Della. ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.545900 The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English]'', 8th Edition. Oxford University Press. 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-19-860045-9}}.</ref>

In 1998 the ''[[New Oxford Dictionary of English]]'' (''NODE'') was published. While also aiming to cover current English, ''NODE'' was not based on the ''OED''. Instead, it was an entirely new dictionary produced with the aid of [[corpus linguistics]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/re-oed1.htm |title=Review: Oxford Dictionary of English |date=18 September 2010 |access-date=29 July 2014 |website=World Wide Words |last=Quinion |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Quinion |archive-date=2 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140702013509/http://worldwidewords.org/reviews/re-oed1.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> Once ''NODE'' was published, a similarly brand-new edition of the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' followed, this time based on an abridgement of ''NODE'' rather than the ''OED''; ''NODE'' (under the new title of the ''Oxford Dictionary of English'', or ''ODE'') continues to be principal source for Oxford's product line of current-English dictionaries, including the ''[[New Oxford American Dictionary]]'', with the ''OED'' now only serving as the basis for scholarly historical dictionaries.

== Spelling ==
{{Main|Oxford spelling}}

The ''OED'' lists British headword spellings (e.g., ''labour'', ''centre'') with variants following (''labor'', ''center'', etc.). For the suffix more commonly spelt <!-- spelt: British spelling of participle --> ''-ise'' in British English, [[OUP]] policy dictates a preference for the spelling ''-ize'', e.g., ''realize'' vs. ''realise'' and ''globalization'' vs. ''globalisation''. The rationale is etymological, in that the English suffix is mainly derived from the Greek suffix ''-ιζειν'', (''-izein''), or the Latin ''-izāre''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/100447 |title=-ize, suffix |access-date=1 June 2014 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |url-access=subscription |archive-date=6 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106195022/http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/100447 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, ''-ze'' is also sometimes treated as an [[American English#Morphology|Americanism]] insofar as the ''-ze'' suffix has crept into words where it did not originally belong, as with ''analyse'' (British English), which is spelt ''analyze'' in American English.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/ize?view=get |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060403135949/http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/ize?view=get |archive-date=3 April 2006 |title=Verbs ending in -ize, -ise, -yze, and -yse: Oxford Dictionaries Online |publisher=Askoxford.com |access-date=3 August 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>See also ''-ise/-ize'' at [[American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)|American and British English spelling differences]].</ref><!--Since 2006, the online OED version does not include the ''-ise'' variant spellings in the entry headwords, illustrating the editorial favouring of the ''-ize'' suffix.-->

== Reception and criticism ==
British prime minister [[Stanley Baldwin]] described the ''OED'' as a "national treasure".<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f90b88dc-462f-11e2-b780-00144feabdc0.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f90b88dc-462f-11e2-b780-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription |title=Well-chosen words |website=Financial Times |date=21 December 2012 |language=en-GB |access-date=3 June 2018 |last1=Skapinker |first1=Michael |author-link1=Michael Skapinker}}</ref> Author [[Anu Garg]], founder of Wordsmith.org, has called it a "lex icon".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wordsmith.org/awad/article-globeandmail.html |title=Globe & Mail |publisher=Wordsmith |date=11 February 2002 |access-date=3 August 2010 |archive-date=21 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100821094029/http://wordsmith.org/awad/article-globeandmail.html |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Tim Bray]], co-creator of Extensible Markup Language ([[XML]]), credits the ''OED'' as the developing inspiration of that [[markup language]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/09/SemanticMarkup |title=On Semantics and Markup |date=9 April 2003 |access-date=4 June 2014 |website=ongoing by Tim Bray |last=Bray |first=Tim |archive-date=9 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140709030701/http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/04/09/SemanticMarkup |url-status=live}}</ref>

However, despite its claims of authority,<ref name="OED_History" /> the dictionary has been criticized since the 1960s because of its scope, its claims to authority, its British-centredness and relative neglect of World Englishes,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/13/ubc_prof_wants_to_bring_canadian_english_out_of_the_boondocks.html |title=UBC prof lobbies Oxford English dictionary to be less British |last=Luk |first=Vivian |agency=[[Canadian Press]] |newspaper=[[Toronto Star]] |date=13 August 2013 |access-date=9 February 2016 |archive-date=7 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160207151400/http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/08/13/ubc_prof_wants_to_bring_canadian_english_out_of_the_boondocks.html |url-status=live}}</ref> its implied but unacknowledged focus on literary language and, above all, its influence. The ''OED'', as a commercial product, has always had to steer a line between scholarship and marketing. In his review of the 1982 supplement,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Review of RW Burchfield A Supplement to the OED Volume 3: O–Scz |last=Harris |first=Roy |date=1982 |journal=TLS |volume=3 |pages=935–936}}</ref> University of Oxford linguist [[Roy Harris (linguist)|Roy Harris]] writes that criticizing the ''OED'' is extremely difficult because "one is dealing not just with a dictionary but with a national institution", one that "has become, like the English monarchy, virtually immune from criticism in principle". He further notes that neologisms from respected "literary" authors such as [[Samuel Beckett]] and [[Virginia Woolf]] are included, whereas usage of words in newspapers or other less "respectable" sources hold less sway, even though they may be commonly used. He writes that the ''OED''{{'}}s "[b]lack-and-white lexicography is also black-and-white in that it takes upon itself to pronounce authoritatively on the rights and wrongs of usage", faulting the dictionary's [[prescriptive grammar|prescriptive]] rather than [[descriptive grammar|descriptive]] usage.

To Harris, this prescriptive classification of certain usages as "erroneous" and the complete omission of various forms and usages cumulatively represent the "social bias[es]" of the (presumably well-educated and wealthy) compilers. However, the ''Guide to the Third Edition of the OED'' has stated that "''Oxford English Dictionary'' is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary" and that the dictionary "is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive".<ref>{{cite web |title=Guide to the Third Edition of the OED |url=http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/guide-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906013834/http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/guide-to-the-third-edition-of-the-oed/ |archive-date=6 September 2015 |access-date=30 August 2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |quote=The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is not an arbiter of proper usage, despite its widespread reputation to the contrary. The Dictionary is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, its content should be viewed as an objective reflection of English language usage, not a subjective collection of usage 'dos' and 'don'ts.}}</ref> The identification of "erroneous and catachrestic" usages is being removed from third edition entries, sometimes in favour of usage notes describing the attitudes to language which have previously led to these classifications.<ref name="Brewer2005">{{cite journal |last1=Brewer |first1=Charlotte |author-link1=Charlotte Brewer |title=Authority and Personality in the Oxford English Dictionary |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |date=December 2005 |volume=103 |issue=3 |pages=298–299 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-968X.2005.00154.x}}</ref> Another avenue of criticism is the dictionary's non-inclusion of [[etymology|etymologies]] for words of [[AAVE]] or African language origin such as ''[[wikt:jazz|jazz]]'', ''[[wikt:dig#Etymology 2|dig]]'' or ''[[wikt:badmouth|badmouth]]'' (the latter two are possibly of [[Wolof language|Wolof]] and [[Mandinka language|Mandinka]] languages, respectively).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rickford |first1=John |last2=Rickford |first2=Russell |author-link2=Russell J. Rickford |year=2000 |title=Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English |place=New York |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=0-471-39957-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/spokensoulstoryo00john}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smitherman |first=Geneva |author-link=Geneva Smitherman |year=1977 |title=Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America |place=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin}}<!-- No, there's neither a "g" nor an apostrophe for the words in the main title --></ref> As of 2022, OUP is preparing a specialized ''Oxford Dictionary of African American English'' in collaboration with [[Harvard University]]'s [[Hutchins Center for African and African American Research]], with literary critic [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]] being the project's editor-in-chief.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://public.oed.com/oxford-dictionary-of-african-american-english/ |title=The Oxford Dictionary of African American English |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=<!--Not stated--> |website=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher= |access-date=13 August 2022 |quote= |archive-date=13 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813110139/https://public.oed.com/oxford-dictionary-of-african-american-english/}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.themarysue.com/henry-louis-gates-jr-spearheading-official-aave-dictionary-with-oxford-dictionary/ |title=Henry Louis Gates Jr. Spearheading Official AAVE Dictionary With Oxford Dictionary |last=Shotwell |first=Alyssa |date=28 July 2022 |website=The Mary Sue |publisher=Gamurs Group |quote= |access-date=13 August 2022 |archive-date=13 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813110139/https://www.themarysue.com/henry-louis-gates-jr-spearheading-official-aave-dictionary-with-oxford-dictionary/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish [[Victorian morals]], citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old '[[four-letter words]]{{'"}} until 1972. However, no English dictionary included such [[profanity]], for fear of possible prosecution under British obscenity laws, until after the conclusion of the [[R v Penguin Books Ltd.|''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' obscenity trial]] in 1960. The ''[[Penguin English Dictionary]]'' of 1965 was the first dictionary that included the word ''[[fuck]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fuck_v?tab=etymology |title=fuck, v. |orig-date=Original date March 2008 |date=September 2024 |access-date=14 October 2024 |website=Oxford English Dictionary Online |url-access=subscription |archive-date=3 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503013537/http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/75197 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Joseph Wright (linguist)|Joseph Wright]]'s ''English Dialect Dictionary'' had included ''[[shit]]'' in 1905.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi05wrig |title=The English dialect dictionary, being the complete vocabulary of all dialect words still in use, or known to have been in use during the last two hundred years; |first=Joseph |last=Wright |date=1 February 1898 |publisher=London [etc.] : H. Frowde; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons |via=the Internet Archive}}</ref>

The ''OED''{{'}}s claims of authority have also been questioned by linguists such as Pius ten Hacken, who notes that the dictionary actively strives toward definitiveness and authority but can only achieve those goals in a limited sense, given the difficulties of defining the scope of what it includes.<ref>{{Cite journal |url=http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex2012/pp834-845%20ten%20Hacken.pdf |title=In what sense is the OED the definitive record of the English language? |last=ten Hacken |first=Pius |date=2012 |journal=Proceedings of the 15th EURALEX International Congress |access-date=28 July 2014 |pages=834–845 |archive-date=11 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140811102246/http://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex2012/pp834-845%20ten%20Hacken.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

Founding editor James Murray was also reluctant to include scientific terms, despite their documentation, unless he felt that they were widely enough used. In 1902, he declined to add the word ''[[radium]]'' to the dictionary.<ref>[[John Gross|Gross, John]], ''The Oxford Book of Parodies'', Oxford University Press, 2010, pg. 319</ref>

== Research using the OED ==
The ''OED'' has been used to support research in fields such as linguistics, psycholinguistics, and psychology. Examples include the extension of word meanings via metaphor,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Xu |first1=Yang |last2=Malt |first2=Barbara |last3=Srinivasan |first3=Mahesh |title=Evolution of word meanings through metaphorical mapping: Systematicity over the past millennium |journal=Cognitive Psychology |date=2017 |volume=96 |pages=41–53|doi=10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.05.005 |pmid=28601710 |url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt2nc375jw/qt2nc375jw.pdf?t=ornbyk }}</ref> the evolution of measurement terms like "foot" from concrete to abstract meanings,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cooperrider |first1=Kenny |last2=Gentner |first2=Dedre |title=The career of measurement |journal=Cognition |date=2019 |volume=191 |page=103942|doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2019.04.011 |pmid=31302322 |doi-access=free }}</ref> and the identification of systematic patterns in [[Blend word|word blends]] (e.g., "brunch" from a blend of "breakfast" and "lunch").<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kelly |first=Michael H. |title=To 'brunch' or to '{{not a typo|brench}}': Some aspects of blend structure |journal=[[Linguistics (journal)|Linguistics]] |date=1998 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=579–590 |doi=10.1515/ling.1998.36.3.579 |s2cid=144604219}}</ref>

==The ''OED'' in popular culture==
The 2020 novel ''[[The Dictionary of Lost Words]]'' by [[Pip Williams (author)|Pip Williams]] centres on the creation of the ''OED'', the fictional narrator spending much time in the Scriptorium as a child, the daughter of a fictional widowed lexicographer, and later becoming an assistant there. It has been adapted for the stage, and a television series is planned.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Keen |first1=Suzie |title=Bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words set to become a television series - InDaily |url=https://www.indaily.com.au/inreview/film/2022/11/10/bestseller-the-dictionary-of-lost-words-set-to-become-a-television-series |access-date=7 March 2025 |work=www.indaily.com.au |date=10 November 2022 |language=en |archive-date=13 November 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241113015339/https://www.indaily.com.au/inreview/film/2022/11/10/bestseller-the-dictionary-of-lost-words-set-to-become-a-television-series |url-status=live }}</ref>

== See also ==
* ''[[Australian Oxford Dictionary]]''
* ''[[Canadian Oxford Dictionary]]''
* ''[[Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English]]''
* ''[[Concise Oxford English Dictionary]]''
* ''[[New Oxford American Dictionary]]''
* ''[[Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary]]''
* ''[[Shorter Oxford English Dictionary]]''
* ''[[A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles]]''
* ''[[The Australian National Dictionary]]''
* ''[[Dictionary of American Regional English]]''

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
<!---Alphabetical order--->
* {{cite web |last=Brewer |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Brewer |title=Oxford English Dictionary Research |website=Examining the OED |date=8 October 2019 |url=https://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk |quote=The project sets out to investigate the principles and practice behind the Oxford English Dictionary...}}
* {{Cite book |title=Treasure-House of the Language: the Living OED |first=Charlotte |last=Brewer |author-link=Charlotte Brewer |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2007 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-300-12429-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite web |last=Dickson |first=Andrew |title=Inside the OED: can the world's biggest dictionary survive the internet? |website=the Guardian |date=23 February 2018 |url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary |first=Peter |last=Gilliver |author-link=Peter Gilliver |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2016 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-19-928362-0 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary |first1=Peter |last1=Gilliver |author1-link=Peter Gilliver |first2=Jeremy |last2=Marshall |first3=Edmund |last3=Weiner |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-19-861069-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/ringofwordstolki00gill |ref=none}}
* {{cite web |last=Gleick |first=James |author-link=James Gleick |title=Cyber-Neologoliferation |website=James Gleick |date=5 November 2006 |url=https://around.com/oed.html |quote=First published in ''The New York Times Magazine'' 5 November 2006 |access-date=16 April 2020 |archive-date=20 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420225104/https://around.com/oed.html}}
* {{Cite book |title=Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made |first1=Jonathon |last1=Green |author-link=Jonathon Green |first2=Jonathan |last2=Cape |year=1996 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-224-04010-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/chasingsundictio00gree |ref=none}}
* {{cite web |first=Anna |last=Kelsey-Sugg |title=In a backyard 'scriptorium', this man set about defining every word in the English language |website=ABC News (Radio National) |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=9 April 2020 |url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/history-of-the-oxford-english-dictionary/12010628}}
* {{cite AV media |first=Fiona |last=McPherson |year=2013 |title=The Oxford English Dictionary: From Victorian venture to the digital age endeavour |url=https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/oxford-english-dictionary-victorian-venture-digital-age-endeavour |format=mp4}} (McPherson is Senior Editor of OED)
* {{Cite book |title=Words of the World: a global history of the Oxford English Dictionary |first=Sarah |last=Ogilvie |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2013 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-1-107-60569-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/wordsofworldglob0000ogil/mode/2up |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Dictionary People |title-link=The Dictionary People |first=Sarah |last=Ogilvie |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-78474-493-9}}
* {{Cite book |title=Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary |first=John |last=Willinsky |author-link=John Willinsky |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1995 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-691-03719-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/empireofwordsrei00will |ref=none}}
* {{Cite podcast |title=History of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' |date=27 May 2007 |publisher=[[Big Ideas (TV series)|Big Ideas]] |website=[[TVOntario]] |author-link=Simon Winchester |first=Simon |last=Winchester |url=http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BISimonWinchester052707.mp3 |format=podcast |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080216045839/http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BISimonWinchester052707.mp3 |archive-date=16 February 2008 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Winchester |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Winchester |title=The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary |title-link=The Professor and the Madman |pages=[https://archive.org/details/professormadmant00winc/page/579 579] |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=1998 |volume=79 |issue=6 |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-06-017596-2 |pmc=2566457 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Winchester |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Winchester |year=2003 |title=The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary |title-link=The Meaning of Everything |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |type=hardcover |isbn=978-0-19-860702-1 |ref=none}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website}}
** [http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/archived-documents/ Archive of documents], including
*** [[Richard Chenevix Trench|Trench]]'s original [http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/archived-documents/on-some-deficiencies/ "On some deficiencies in our English Dictionaries"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508224510/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/archived-documents/on-some-deficiencies/|date=8 May 2016 }} paper
*** [[James Murray (lexicographer)|Murray]]'s original [http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/archived-documents/april-1879-appeal/april-1879-appeal/ appeal for readers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508224459/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/archived-documents/april-1879-appeal/april-1879-appeal/|date=8 May 2016 }}
** Their [http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/dictionary-facts page of ''OED'' statistics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508062143/http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/dictionary-facts|date=8 May 2016 }}, and [https://web.archive.org/web/20010716155413/http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/oed/facts/ another such page].
** Two {{cite web |url=http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/13/9780198611868.pdf |title=sample pages}}&nbsp;{{small|(1.54&nbsp;MB)}} from the OED.
* Oxford University Press pages: [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-english-dictionary-9780198611868 Second Edition], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-additions-series-9780198612926 Additions Series Volume 1], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-additions-series-9780198612995 Additions Series Volume 2], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-additions-series-volume-iii-9780198600275 Additions Series Volume 3], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-compact-oxford-english-dictionary-9780198612582 ''The Compact Oxford English Dictionary'' New Edition], [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-20-vol-print-set-and-cd-rom-9780199573158 20-volume printed set+CD-ROM]{{dead link|date=February 2022|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes }}, [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-cd-rom-upgrade-9780195222166 CD 3.1 upgrade]{{dead link|date=February 2022|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes }}, [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-on-cd-rom-40-9780199563838 CD 4.0 full]{{dead link|date=February 2022|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes }}, [http://global.oup.com/academic/product/oxford-english-dictionary-on-cd-rom-40-upgrade-9780199565948 CD 4.0 upgrade]{{dead link|date=February 2022|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes }}

=== 1st edition ===
; [[Internet Archive]]

:'''''1888–1933 Issue'''''
:Full title of each volume: ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society''
::{| class="wikitable"
! Vol. !! Year !! Letters !! Links
|-
| 1 || 1888 || A, B || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.211152/page/n5/mode/2up  Vol. 1]
|-
| 2 || 1893 || C || [https://archive.org/details/oed02arch Vol. 2]
|-
| 3 || 1897 || D, E ||  [https://archive.org/details/oed03arch Vol. 3] [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.31134 (version 2)]
|-
| 4 || 1901 || F, G || [https://archive.org/details/oed04arch Vol. 4] [https://archive.org/details/newenglishdictio04murruoft (version 2)] [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.31135 (version 3)]
|-
| 5 || 1901 || H–K || [https://archive.org/details/newenglishdict05murrmiss Vol. 5]
|-
| 6p1 || 1908 || L || [https://archive.org/details/oed6aarch  Vol. 6, part 1]
|-
| 6p2 || 1908 || M, N || [https://archive.org/details/oed6barch Vol. 6, part 2]
|-
| 7 || 1909 || O, P || [https://archive.org/details/newenglishdic07murruoft Vol.7]
|-
| 8p1 || 1914 || Q, R || [https://archive.org/details/oed8aarch Vol. 8, part 1]
|-
| 8p2 || 1914 || S–Sh || [https://archive.org/details/oed8barch Vol.8, part 2]
|-
| 9p1 || 1919 || Si–St || [https://archive.org/details/oed9aarch Vol. 9, part 1]
|-
| 9p2 || 1919 || Su–Th || [https://archive.org/details/oed9barch Vol. 9, part 2]
|-
| 10p1 || 1926 || Ti–U || [https://archive.org/details/oedxaarch Vol. 10, part 1]
|-
| 10p2 || 1928 || V–Z || [https://archive.org/details/oedxbarch Vol. 10, part 2]
|-
| Sup. || 1933 || A–Z|| [https://archive.org/details/newenglishdictio00murruoft Supplement]
|}

:'''''1933 Corrected re-issue'''''

:Full title of each volume: ''The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Corrected Re-issue with an Introduction, Supplement and Bibliography, of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society''

::{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Vol. !! Letters !! Links
|-
| 1|| A–B || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99992 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. 1(a-b)]
|-
| 2 || C || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271839 The Oxford English Dictionary Volume Ii]
|-
| 3 || D–E || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271840 The Oxford English Dictionary Volume Iii]
|-
| 4 || F–G || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271841 The Oxford English Dictionary Volume Iv]
|-
| 5 || H–K || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.147246 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol.-v H-k]
|-
| 6 || L–M || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271836 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. Vi]
|-
| 7 || N–Poy || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99996 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. 7(n-poy)]
|-
| 8 || Poy–Ry || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.120831 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol.-viii Poy-ry]
|-
| 9 || S–Soldo || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271834 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. Ix]
|-
| 10 || Sole–Sz || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.120833 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol.-x Sole-sz]
|-
| 11 || T–U || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271837 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. Xi]
|-
| 12 || V–Z || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.271838 The Oxford English Dictionary Vol. Xii]
|-
| Sup. || A–Z || [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.120834 The Oxford English Dictionary Supplement And Bibliography]
|}

; [[HathiTrust]]
* Some volumes (only available from within the US):
** [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009779263 University of Virginia copy]
** [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009038919 Princeton University copy]
** [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001183289 University of Michigan copy]

=== 2nd edition ===
; [https://archive.org/details/OXD1989ENEN/01%20-%20Oxford%20English%20Dictionary%20%281989%29/mode/2up 1989 2nd edition] at the [[Internet Archive]]

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