What is the OED Online?
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words—past and present—from across the English-speaking world.
OED Online presents the complete OED in its most recent version—including all work to date on the Third Edition. OED Online is updated regularly to provide users with the results of current research and revision.
Try some sample entries in OED Online: dictionary | English | digital | mammoth | galactico | ninja | palfrenier
OED Online also includes:
- The Historical Thesaurus of the OED;
- The full text of the Second Edition of the OED;
- Numerous articles on aspects of English, individual words, the history of the OED, and more.
Take a tour
OED Online has dozens of new features to help you explore the English language and its history. Please view the OED Online Tour for an introduction:
Download the full tour: oed_tour.pps (9 Mb)
The tour is in PowerPoint Show (.pps) format. You will need Microsoft PowerPoint or PowerPoint Viewer to watch it. You can download the free PowerPoint Viewer from the Microsoft Download Center.
You can also see a slide version of the tour using the slide viewer below. View fullscreen by clicking menu » view fullscreen.
The tour is in seven sections. You can download and view each section individually:
- Getting started: oed_tour_s1.pps (1.3 Mb)
- Searching the OED: oed_tour_s2.pps (2.2 Mb)
- Exploring an entry: oed_tour_s3.pps (1.9 Mb)
- The Historical Thesaurus: oed_tour_s4.pps (2.9 Mb)
- Categories: oed_tour_s5.pps (1.3 Mb)
- Timelines: oed_tour_s6.pps (2.1 Mb)
- Sources: oed_tour_s7.pps (1.7 Mb)