Wiktionary:Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a classic British dictionary made on historical principles. The purpose of this page is to document some of its practices since some may find them inspiring or interesting.

Inclusion criteria

OED only includes words with evidence of "sufficiently sustained and widespread use": "Words that have not yet accumulated enough evidence for permanent record in the OED remain on the watch list for continued monitoring, while suggestions for words with sufficiently sustained and widespread use are assigned to an editor."

Attestation

OED uses the language of attestation: "'One-eared' (= having only one ear) is entered as adj.1 in the dictionary, and is attested from the early seventeenth century. This entry illustrates the same form, but apparently as a misreading of one-yeared."

Sources of quotations

OED considers quotations from Usenet and Twitter. Twitter postings were the earliest evidence of use of words tweet and hashtag.

Descriptivism

OED aims to be descriptive, rather than to act as "an arbiter of proper usage". It is not a "a subjective collection of usage ‘dos’ and ‘don'ts’." However, it does indicate which usages are or were regarded as "incorrect".

Combining forms

OED distinguishes affixes from combining forms; pro- is an affix while psycho- is a combining form.

About -otomy vs. -tomy: It lacks -otomy. It has -ocracy, -ology, -ologist, -ological, -olol, -ometer, and -ometry, all as combining forms. It has -osis. It lacks -ocyte, -ogenesis, -ogenic, -oleous, -olysis, -ophil, -ophile, -ophilia, -ophilic, -ophilous, -ophyte and -opore.

Initialisms and acronyms

OED distinguishes initialisms from acronyms. Such items covered include 'NATO, EU, U.S., U.S.A., U.S.S.R., G.D.R., NASA, F.B.I., F.C.C., NBA, NHL, W.H.O., W.M.O., ECB, AMA, and OED but not FAA, FDA, APA and WTO.

Proper nouns

Proper nouns are generally excluded, with some exceptions. A proper noun would sometimes have an entry not covering the direct referent as a sense, having the referent only in the etymology. As per New Yorker article: "James Murray, the dictionary’s first editor, made an early editorial decision that the O.E.D. would not include any proper nouns—this was regarded as the province of the encyclopedia, not the dictionary—and that words formed from proper nouns would likewise be excluded." Per a guide, "Proper names are not systematically covered by the dictionary, though many are entered because the terms themselves are used in extended or allusive meanings, or because they are in some way culturally significant."

Some examples:

• First names and surnames: No Martin and Paula and no Darwin. But it has Jesus and Jesus Christ (noun and interjection).
• Astronomical objects: It has Sirius (star), Mars (planet) and Milky Way.
• Cities: London, Moscow, New York and Paris are etymology-only, with attributive or other use defined. No Amsterdam and no Madrid.
• Continents: Europe is etymology-only, with the European Union as the only sense. American is etymology-only. No Africa, no Asia.
• Rivers: Thames defined. Nile, Rhine and Orinoco are etymology-only.
• Countries: It has U.S., United States and United Kingdom. Canada is etymology-only. But it has China as a country. No Germany, no France, no Italy. Has Holy Roman Empire.
• Organizations: it has United Nations, League of Nations, W.H.O. and Interpol. Has EU but no European Union. Has Ku-Klux-Klan mentioned in Ku-Klux entry. Has Greenpeace. No Red Cross.
• Star Wars has the military defence strategy as the sole sense, having the franchise only in etymology.
• Events: no World War II.

Hyphenated prefixed words

Some included prefixed words:

• anti-: anti-abortion, anti-ageing, anti-aircraft, anti-American, anti-apartheid, ..., anti-Birmingham, anti-black, etc.
• ex-: none; ex-wife is mentioned in the definition of the ex- prefix.
• non-: non-abelian, non-ability, non-abjuror, non-able, non-absolute, non-acceptance, non-Aryan, non-Catholic, non-Christian, non-European, non-German, etc. No non-English, non-French and non-African.
• pre-: pre-acknowledge, pre-acquaint, pre-acquaintance, pre-act, preactivate, pre-Adamic, etc.
• pro-: pro-abortion, pro-Allied, pro-amateur, pro-American, pro-annexation, pro-anaphoral, etc. Some of these are listed in boldface in pro- entry without a definition.

Thus, hyphenation does not prevent OED from including an otherwise sum of parts term.

Hyphenated suffixed words

Suffixed words are not hyphenated in general, but for some of those suffixed with -less and -like.

• -less
  • OED has shell-less and wall-less (to split 3 consonants?). Its -less entry has no hyphenated examples.
• -like
  • OED has none of bulb-like, shell-like, wall-like and Zen-like. One can at least see some words as part of quotations in the -like entry, e.g. Jewish-like, friendly-like, Aristarchus-like, and Delver-like.

Thesaurus

OED has a hierarchically organized historical thesaurus. As per OED, "It can be thought of as a kind of semantic index to the contents of the OED."

Example entry locations:

• society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > district in relation to human occupation > a land or country > [noun] > homeland or native land
• society > society and the community > social relations > association, fellowship, or companionship > a company or body of persons > [noun] corporation

Thus, the subordination relation is not strict hyponymy but is in part thematic.

Each node lists "subcategories". Non-leaf nodes often list no synonyms.

Each leaf and some non-leaf entries list its synonyms with a definition listed under each synonym.

For instance, node "a business or company [noun]" lists synonyms company, society, office, Co, concern, business, establishment, outfit, etc.; and it lists subcategories "profitable", "free of state control", "joint stock", "with limited liability", "multinational company", "large or powerful company", "other types of company", "companies involved in specific business", etc.

Templates

Reference templates:

• {{R:OED Online}} – the most up to date online version. Requires registration or library code.

  {{R:OED Online|id=112003}} – produces “Oxford English Dictionary”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Other templates:

See also

• Wiktionary:Merriam-Webster
• Wiktionary:Public domain sources

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• oed.com – the official website
• How to use the OED, public.oed.co
• Brief Guide to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), siskiyous.edu
• Blog | Oxford English Dictionary, public.oed.com