Oxford English Dictionary (2024)

FAQs

How reliable is the Oxford English Dictionary? ›

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely accepted as the most complete record of the English language ever assembled. Unlike typical language dictionaries, which only define words in terms of their current uses and meanings, the OED is a historical dictionary.

The Oxford 5000 is an expanded core word list for advanced learners of English. As well as the Oxford 3000 core word list, it includes an additional 2,000 words that are aligned to the CEFR, guiding advanced learners at B2-C1 level on the most useful high-level words to learn to expand their vocabulary.

It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and usage of 500,000 words and phrases past and present, from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings.

Squoze is apparently the most common of a number of dialectal variants of the past tense of squeeze. It is attested in both British and American dialect: The OED Supplement shows it in American English since 1844.

However, Merriam-Webster is the largest and most reputable of the U.S. dictionary publishers, regardless of the type of dictionary (general, geographical, biographical, or a thesaurus). Some of the additional reliable American publishers are Oxford University Press, Random House, Macmillan, and American Heritage.

While the Oxford English Dictionary gives you the meaning of the word as well as its origin, the Cambridge Dictionary gives a more practical explanation along with an example of how to use the word in a sentence.

ODE is the flagship native-speaker desk dictionary from Oxford Dictionaries for British English. It has a much longer headword list than OALD and definitions written to a much higher level; also fewer, shorter examples. OALD is what it sounds like, an English dictionary for advanced learners.

The London Philological Society began the OED in 1884, eight years before Tolkien was born. It was a massive collaboration. Tolkien contributed to the W-Section, published in 1928.

What is the longest word in the world? ›

The longest word entered in most standard English dictionaries is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis with 45 letters. Our definition is "a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust." The entry for this word can be found in our Medical Dictionary.

The first word in Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (G.C. Merriam, 1963), is “a”, the second is “an”, and the third is “aardvark”.

/ˌɪnkəˈrɛkt/ 1not accurate or true incorrect information/spelling His version of what happened is incorrect. Thesaurus. false. mistaken.

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"Squoze" is a facetious past participle of the verb 'to squeeze'. The name SQUOZE was later borrowed for similar schemes used on DEC machines; they had a 40-character alphabet (50 in octal) and were called DEC RADIX 50 and MOD40, but sometimes nicknamed DEC Squoze.

The Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries have long been considered as the two most credible and trustworthy for British English. In terms of popularity, the Oxford dictionary is the more popular of the two in the UK and is generally cited as the ultimate authority on the language.

The New Oxford American Dictionary is the American version of the Oxford Dictionary of English, with substantial editing and uses a diacritical respelling scheme rather than the IPA system.

The attraction of the Oxford Dictionary of English is that it has a good selection of proper nouns, though not as many as the old Collins, and has a clearer presentation of words and phrases than Chambers.

Oxford Languages is the world's leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages.