Help with using OED Online

About the Help text

These pages contain all the information you will need to use OED Online, including a description of the contents of OED Online and how they are being updated, a list of the latest new entries, details of how to search and browse the Dictionary, and a guide to the Dictionary's text. Also included are the Bibliography to the Second Edition and lists of abbreviations used in the OED.

This Help text is also available in a downloadable version [Acrobat PDF format]

A linked list of contents is always visible on the right-hand side of these pages, and at the bottom are links to the index.

The following resources are available to help readers learn how to get the most out of OED Online.

Quick reference guide
Tour of OED Online
A Worksheet created for university level use

Problems viewing the PDF?

If you have a problem with using OED Online which cannot be answered in these pages, or in the list of Frequently Asked Questions, please contact us.

Help text contents

What does OED Online contain?

This online version of the Oxford English Dictionary contains two separate texts, the complete Second Edition and the New Edition in progress, which are described in this section.

The workplace

This section contains a brief introduction to the layout of the OED Online pages and the buttons which control the basic functions of the online Dictionary.

Searching

This is a detailed guide to searching the online Dictionary, describing the different types of search and the different ways in which results are presented.

Advanced searching

This section describes the Advanced search features added to OED Online in January 2002.

What is an Advanced search?

Example searches

A number of example searches are given here to illustrate the search capabilities of OED Online and the best strategies for finding exactly what you want in the Dictionary.

Example Find Word and Full Text searches

Viewing Dictionary entries

This section describes how to display the various parts of a Dictionary entry, how to browse the Dictionary using entry lists and cross-references, and how to compare original (Second Edition) and revised (New Edition) versions of entries.

Outputting text

Any entry can be e-mailed to a different location or printed out; it is also possible to print out pages of search results.

Understanding the OED

In these pages you will find a guide to OED entries, which explains the conventions used in the Dictionary, keys to the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols (used to represent the pronunciations) and to other Dictionary conventions, and the text of the Bibliography to the Second Edition.

Abbreviations

Many hundreds of different abbreviations are used in the OED, for subject labels, language names, work titles, etc. This section provides lists of the most common abbreviations, arranged in categories, and also includes a collation of language names, which lists all forms in which language names appear in the OED's etymologies, whether abbreviated or in full.

Abbreviations

Technicalities

This section describes how to update and configure your browser so as to optimize the display and functionality of OED Online, and how to end your session using OED Online.

Help text index:

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