When the twenty-volume
Oxford English Dictionary
, Second Edition, appeared years ago, the public response was extraordinary. The AP and UPI announced publication over their newswires.
Time
and
Newsweek
ran full-page articles.
The New Yorker
published an extensive essay. Virtually every major paper in American and in Great Britain covered the event. And from every corner, the praise was lavish.
called it "a scholarly Everest."
, "a celebration of language." And Herbert Mitgang, in
The New York Times
, called the new OED "the last word on words" and "the arbiter of the English language as it is read and spoken all over the world."
Now comes the Compact Edition of
OED II
, which captures all the wealth of scholarship found in the original edition in just one volume. The
Compact
is not an abridgement, but a direct photoreduction of the entire 20-volume set, with nine pages of the original on every nine-by-twelve page of the
(a magnifying glass comes with it). As in the
Second Edition
, the
combines in one alphabetical sequence the sixteen volumes of the first
OED
and the four
Supplements
—plus an extra five thousand new words to bring this monumental dictionary completely up to date. And it is monumental, with definitions of 500,000 words, 290,000 main entries, 137,000 pronunciations, 249,300 etymologies, 577,000 cross-references, and over 2,412,000 illustrative quotations. But as large as it is, perhaps its most important feature is its historical focus. The
records not only words and meanings currently in use but also those that have long been considered obsolete. Moreover, under each definition of a word is a chronologically arranged group of quotations that illustrate the word's usage down through the years, beginning with its earliest known appearance. The result is a dictionary that offers unique insight into the way our language has, over the centuries, grown, changed, and been put to use.
More than 100 years in the making,
The Oxford English Dictionary
is now universally acknowledged as the world's greatest dictionary—the supreme arbiter on the usage and meaning of English words, a fascinating guide to the history and evolution of the language, and one of the greatest works of scholarship ever produced.
The Washington Post
has written that "no one who reads or writes seriously can be without the
." Now with the
, the world's greatest dictionary is within the reach of anyone who wants one.