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The Oxford English Dictionary

The Basics

England got in on the dictionary game a little late. There were dictionaries of the national language on the continent, compiled by august state institutions, but it took until the 18th century before the great novelist and critic Dr Samuel Johnson was invited to assemble an English equivalent.

OED (silhouette white)
Johnson's Dictionary was the standard reference work for many years, although work on it was fairly haphazard and it contains many inaccuracies. The project for a fully comprehensive volume, to be compiled by lexicographers and other experts in the field, was only conceived by the Philological Society of London in the mid-19th century. It was a labour of love, appearing in successive segments between 1884 and 1928. Barely was it "complete" than the unending work of updating it had to begin.

The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 20 volumes, including more than 300,000 main entries. A new edition, produced under the general editorship of John Simpson, is in progress.