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The idea for a new dictionary was proposed by the Philological Society of London; at the time it was titled New English Dictionary, but it would become known to the world as the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is the “accepted authority on the evolution of English language over the last millennium” (Oxford).
Work on this great dictionary first began in the 1860s, and many people associate the OED in their minds with the days of Victorian Empire, when there was red all over the map of the world and England and the English language seemed at the centre of the world.
In 1993, the entire collection of twelve volumes of a dictionary of the English language, now renamed The Oxford English Dictionary, was published. It represents the work of generations of editors that have contributed to the masterpiece for over a century.
Far more than a convenient place to look up words and their origins, the Oxford English Dictionary is an irreplaceable part of English culture. It not only provides an important record of the evolution of our language, but also documents the continuing development of our society.
- The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Was Built on Volunteer Labor.
- It Took More Than 70 Years to Complete The First Edition of The OED.
- The OED Started Out Messy. Very Messy.
- OED Co-Founder Frederick Furnivall Was A Controversial Figure.
- Dr. James Murray Helped The OED Clean Up Its Act.
- Murray Built A Shed For The OED's Editors to Work in.
- Only One Word Is Known to Have Gone missing.
- J.R.R. Tolkien Contributed to The Oed, too.
- The Longest Entry in The OED Is For A Three-Letter Word.
- The Most Popular Edition of The OED Was Impossible to Read with The Naked eye.
When the London Philological Society came up with the idea for a new dictionary of the English language in 1857, the editors decided it was necessary to enlist the help of the public and asked avid readers to send examples of sentences that could illuminate the meanings of different words. Every day, volunteers mailed thousands of “quotation slips”...
Originally, the Philological Society predicted that the dictionary would take about 10 years to complete. Twenty-seven years later, the editors had successfully reached the word ant. Knowing it would be a while until a completed book was ready, they began publishing unbound editions of the work-in-progress in 1884. The first full volume was eventua...
Frederick Furnivall, one of the dictionary’s founders, was a visionary—but that vision did not extend to his organizational skills. Under his stewardship as editor, the dictionary was a mess. Quotation slips were stuffed haphazardly into bags and went missing. All of the words starting with pa went AWOL for 12 years and were eventually discovered i...
After founding a controversy-riddled Shakespeare Society, Furnivall fell into a six-year feud with the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. Swinburne (whose mastery of the English language earned him six nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature) mocked Furnivall’s club by calling it “Fartiwell and Co.” and “The Sh*tspeare Society.” Furnivall reach...
Dr. James Murray, a philologist, took the helm as the dictionary’s principal editor in 1879 and remained in that position for the rest of his life (he died in 1915). Murray was a linguistic superstar; he was proficient in Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish, Latin, Dutch, German, Flemish, and Danish and also had a solid grasp of Portuguese, Vaudois, ...
In 1885, to better organize the dictionary, Murray constructed a sunken shedmade of corrugated iron to house the editors and their precious quotation slips. Called the “Scriptorium,” this linguistic workshop contained 1029 pigeonholes that allowed Murray and his subeditors to arrange, sort, and file more than 1000 quotation slips each day.
Only one quotation slip—containing the word bondmaid—is known to have been lost. (It fell down behind some books and the editors never noticed.) Murray was deeply embarrassed by his failure to include the word in the dictionary. “[N]ot one of the 30 people (at least) who saw the work at various stages between MS. and electrotyped pages noticed the ...
In 1919 and 1920, J.R.R. Tolkien worked for the dictionary, where he studied the etymology of Germanic words beginning with the letter w, composing drafts for words like waggle and wampum. “I learned more in those two years than in any other equal period of my life,” Tolkien later said. (Years later, Tolkien spoofed his editors in a comic fable cal...
The most complicated word in the Oxford English Dictionary? Set. In the dictionary’s 1989 edition, the three-letter word contains 430 senses (that is, shades of meaning) and requires a 60,000-word definition. Other short words with endless definitions? Run (396 senses), go (368 senses), and take(343 senses).
Originally, the OED had a limited audience. Not only was a set of books expensive, it was also bulky and took up an entire bookshelf. In 1971, the Oxford University Press decided to publisha smaller, complete version that compressed nine pages into one. The text was so tiny that the two-volume book came with a magnifying glass. It quickly became on...
- Lucas Reilly
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first edition in 1884, traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to ...
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Mar 9, 2017 · The Oxford English Dictionary is recognized the world over, but much of its history isn’t so widely known: as with a respected professor or an admired parent, it’s all too easy simply to make use of its wisdom and authority without giving much thought to how it was acquired.
