{{otheruses4|the multi-volume historical dictionary|other, smaller, dictionaries published by Oxford, including the one-volume ''[[Oxford Dictionary of English]]''|:Category:Oxford dictionaries}}
{{Infobox Book
| name = Oxford English Dictionary (OED2)
| title_orig = A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED)
| image =
| image_caption =
| author = John Simpson & Edmund Weiner (editors)
| illustrator =
| cover_artist =
| country = {{UK}}
| language = [[English language|English]]
| series =
| subject = [[Dictionary#Major English dictionaries|Dictionary]]
| publisher = [[Oxford University Press]]
| pub_date = 1989
| media_type =
| pages = 22000<ref>[http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-English-Dictionary-Vols-1-20/dp/0198611862/ OED2] from [[Amazon.com]]</ref>
| isbn = ISBN 0-19-861186-2
| oclc =
| preceded_by = ''OED1''
| followed_by =
}}
{{OED publication dates}}
The '''''Oxford English Dictionary''''' ('''''OED'''''), published by the [[Oxford University Press]] (OUP), is a comprehensive [[dictionary]] of the [[English language]].<ref>[http://www.oup.com/online/oed/ Oxford University Press]</ref> Two fully-bound print editions of the ''OED'' have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition.<ref>[http://www.oed.com/news/updates/revisions0812.html OED reaches its quarter mark] from the official ''OED'' website</ref>
==Entries and relative size==
According to the publishers, it would take a person 120 years to type the 59 million words of the OED second edition, 60 years to proofread it, and 540 [[megabytes]] to electronically store it.<ref>[http://oed.com/about/facts.html OED Facts]</ref> 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; 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations; 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 430 senses. As entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became ''make'' in 2000, then ''put'' in 2007.<ref>http://www.oed.com/news/updates/revisions0712.html</ref> ''Set'' is expected{{who}} to regain its place as the longest entry once it too is revised.
While large, the ''OED'' is not the world's largest dictionary, nor is it the earliest large dictionary. The Dutch dictionary ''[[Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal]]'', which has similar aims to the ''OED'', is the largest and it took twice as long to complete. The earliest large dictionary was the [[Grimm brothers]]' [[Deutsches Wörterbuch|dictionary of the German language]] which they began in 1838 and which was finished in 1961. The first edition of ''[[Dictionnaire de l'Académie française]]'' dates from 1694, the first edition of the official dictionary of Spanish, the ''[[Diccionario de la lengua española]]'' (produced, edited, and published by the [[Real Academia Española]]) was published in 1780. The [[Kangxi dictionary]] of [[Chinese language|Chinese]] was even earlier, published in 1716.
However, none of these other dictionaries has had as broad a cultural impact as the ''OED''.{{fact|date=January 2009}} The ''OED'''s official policy was to attempt to record a word's most-known usages and variants in ''all'' varieties of English past and present, world-wide. Per the 1933 "Preface":
{{quote|The aim of this Dictionary is to present in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records [ca. AD740] down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology. It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang.}}
It continued:
{{quote|Hence we exclude all words that had become obsolete by 1150 [the end of the [[Old English]] era] ... Dialectal words and forms which occur since 1500 are not admitted, except when they continue the history of the word or sense once in general use, illustrate the history of a word, or have themselves a certain literary currency.}}
The ''OED'' is the focus of much scholarly work about English words. Its headword [[#Spelling|variant spellings]] order list influences ''written'' English in Anglophone countries.{{Fact|date=September 2007}}
==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 partly linguistic, that the English suffix mainly derives from the Greek suffix ''-ιζειν'', (''-izo''), or the Latin ''-izāre''; however, ''-ze'' is also an Americanism in the fact that 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>http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/ize?view=get </ref> See also ''-ise/-ize'' at [[American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize|American and British English spelling differences]].
The sentence "The group analysed labour statistics published by the organization" is an example of OUP practice. This spelling (indicated with the registered [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority|IANA]] language tag '''en-GB-oed''') is used by the [[United Nations]], the [[World Trade Organization]], the [[International Organization for Standardization]], and many British academic publications, such as ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', the ''[[Biochemical Journal]]'', and ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]''.
<!--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.-->
==Criticisms==
Despite its claim of authority on the English language, the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' has been criticized from various angles. Indeed, it has become a target precisely ''because'' of its massiveness, its claims to authority, and, above all, its influence. In his review of the 1982 supplement, 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." <ref name="Harris 1982, p.935">Harris 1982, p.935.</ref> Harris criticizes what he sees as the "black-and-white lexicography" of the ''Dictionary'', by which he means its reliance upon printed language over spoken—and then, only privileged forms of printing. He notes that, while neologisms from respected "literary" authors like [[Samuel Beckett]] and [[Virginia Woolf]] are included, usage of words in newspapers or other, less "respectable" sources holds less sway, though they may actually be more valid in common usage.<ref name="Harris 1982, p.935"/> 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,"<ref name="Harris 1982, p.935"/> 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. <ref>Harris 1982, p.936.</ref> Harris also faults the editors' "donnish conservatism" and their adherence to prudish [[Victorian morality|Victorian]] morals, citing as an example the non-inclusion of "various centuries-old 'four-letter words'" until 1972. <ref name="Harris 1982, p.935"/>
[[Tim Bray]], co-creator of the Extensible Markup Language ([[XML]]), credits the OED as the developing inspiration of that [[markup language]].
==See also==
* [[Canadian Oxford Dictionary]]
* [[Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English]]
* [[Concise Oxford English Dictionary]]
* [[New Oxford American Dictionary]]
* [[Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary]]
* [[Oxford Dictionary of English]]
* [[Shorter Oxford English Dictionary]]
==Notes and references==
Specific references:
{{reflist|2}}
General references:
{{refbegin}}
*Creaser, Wanda. Review of Willinsky, John, ''Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary''. ''Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature'' 50:1 (1996): 108-109. ''JSTOR''. 7 April 2008. [http://www.jstor.org.floyd.lib.umn.edu/stable/1348362]
*Harris, Roy. "The History Men." ''Times Literary Supplement'' 3 Sept. 1982: 935-936.
* "Cyber-Neologoliferation," by [[James Gleick]], ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', 5 November 2006.
{{refend}}
==Further reading==
* <cite>''Caught in the Web of Words: J. A. H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, by K. M. Elisabeth Murray, Oxford University Press and Yale University Press, 1977; new edition 2001, Yale University Press, trade paperback, ISBN 0-300-08919-8.
* <cite>''Empire of Words: The Reign of the Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, by John Willinsky, Princeton University Press, 1995, hardcover, ISBN 0-691-03719-1.
* <cite>''The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, [[Simon Winchester]], Oxford University Press, 2003, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-860702-4.
* (UK title) <cite>''The Surgeon of Crowthorne''</cite> / (US title) <cite>''The Professor and the Madman''</cite>: <cite>''A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, by Simon Winchester; see ''[[The Surgeon of Crowthorne]]'' for full details of the various editions.
* <cite>''Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, by Lynda Mugglestone, Yale University Press, 2005, hardcover, ISBN 0-300-10699-8.
* <cite>''The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary''</cite>, by Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, Oxford University Press, 2006, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-861069-6.
*<cite>''Treasure-House of the Language: the Living OED'', Charlotte Brewer, Yale University Press, 2007, hardcover, ISBN 978-0-300-12429-3.
* <cite>''Chasing the Sun: Dictionary Makers and the Dictionaries They Made''</cite>, by Jonathon Green, Jonathan Cape, 1996, hardcover, ISBN 0-224-04010-3.
==External links==
*The [http://www.oed.com/ Oxford English Dictionary's official website]
**[http://oed.com/archive/ Archive of documents] (as page images), including
***[[Richard Chenevix Trench|Trench]]'s original [http://dictionary.oed.com/archive/paper-deficiencies/ "Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries"] paper
***[[James Murray (lexicographer)|Murray]]'s original [http://dictionary.oed.com/archive/appeal-1879-04/ appeal for readers]
**Their [http://oed.com/about/facts.html page of OED statistics], and [http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/oed/facts/ another such page].
**Two {{PDFlink|[http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-861186-2.pdf sample pages]|1.54 [[Mebibyte|MiB]]<!-- application/pdf, 1623859 bytes -->}} from the OED.
*[http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/ Examining the OED]: Charlotte Brewer's analysis of the principles and practices used by OED editors
**[http://oed.hertford.ox.ac.uk/main/content/view/24/169/ Bibliography of "[c<nowiki>]</nowiki>ritical assessments of ''OED'' or accounts of its history"], from ''Examining the OED''
*[http://around.com/oed.html The OED Meets Cyberspace]: [[James Gleick]]'s 2006 article.
*''The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles'' Volumes [http://www.archive.org/details/oedvol01 1] [http://www.archive.org/details/oedvol02 2] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed03arch 3] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed04arch 4] [http://www.archive.org/details/oedvol05 5] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed6aarch 6 part 1] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed6barch 6 part 2] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed07arch 7] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed8aarch 8 part 1] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed8barch 8 part 2] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed9aarch 9 part 1] [http://www.archive.org/details/oed9barch 9 part 2] [http://www.archive.org/details/oedxaarch 10 part 1] [http://www.archive.org/details/oedxbarch 10 part 2]
*{{cite podcast |title=History of the Oxford English Dictionary |date=2007-05-27 |publisher=[[Big Ideas (TV series)|Big Ideas]] |website=[[TVOntario]] |host=[[Simon Winchester]] |url=http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BISimonWinchester052707.mp3 |accessdate=2007-12-01}}
