Oxford English Dictionary

By James A. H. Murray

Book Id: WPLBN0002097026
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 189.18 MB
Reproduction Date: 8/30/2011

Title:	Oxford English Dictionary
Author:	James A. H. Murray
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Education, Dictionary
Collections:	Authors Community, Education
Historic Publication Date:	1888
Publisher:	Oxford University Press

Member Page:	PG Reading Room
Citation APA MLA Chicago A. H. Murra, B. J. (1888). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to 'key in' text to convert it to machine readable form which consists a total of 59 million words of the OED second edition, 60 years to proofread it, and 540 megabytes to store it electronically. As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained approximately 301,100 main entries. Supplementing the entry headwords, 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 pronunciations; 249,300 etymologies; 577,000 cross-references; and 2,412,400 usage quotations. 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. Despite its impressive size, the OED is neither the world's largest nor earliest 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. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers' dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838 and completed in 1961. The first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, which is the first great dictionary devoted to a modern European language (Italian), was published in 1612; 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 was published even earlier, in 1716.