About OED Online

The Oxford English Dictionary, the world's leading authority on the history and development of the English language since 1150, is now available online.

In addition to offering unparalleled access to the wealth of material contained in the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary and 3-volume Additions Series, online publication enables the ‘treasure-house’ of the English language to move with the times as never before.

For the first time since it was completed in 1928, the Oxford English Dictionary is being completely revised; every word and every sense is being fully reviewed, and new words added, to take account of the latest changes in language and scholarship.

New material from the £34 million (US$55 million) revision programme, which began in 1993, is released quarterly, offering online subscribers a unique opportunity to follow the progress of the revision project.

Features and benefits of OED Online

Unprecedented access to the 20-volume Second Edition and the three Additions Series volumes, plus between one and two thousand new and revised entries every quarter
Select how entries are displayed by turning pronunciations, etymologies, variant spellings, and quotations on and off
Everything from simple word look-ups to sophisticated Boolean searching, using any of the fields in the Dictionary, can be done with speed and ease
Find a term when you know the meaning but have forgotten the word
Use wildcards if you are unsure of a spelling, or if you want to search for words with common characteristics
Search for quotations from a specified year, or from a particular author and/or work
Search for words which have come into English via a particular language
Search pronunciations as well as accented and other special characters
Search for first cited date, authors, and works
Search for words with a particular part of speech
Perform case-sensitive searches
Restrict a search to a previous results set
Compare revised entries with entries from the Second Edition to see how the language has changed and how new scholarship has increased the understanding of our linguistic and cultural heritage

For more details, read our brochure [Acrobat PDF format] or take our fully-illustrated free tour.