The Oxford dictionary is called the definitive record of the English language. It has a stellar reputation.
The Oxford dictionary has been around for over 100 years. It began in London in 1857. The Philological society determined that current English-language dictionaries weren’t complete. Their plan was to begin from square one. They had no idea what they had begun.
The Oxford dictionary got its official start in 1879 when Oxford University Press began working on it. The New English Dictionary was the name they selected. It was planned to be four volumes, 6400 pages. It would go back as far as 1150 AD. The goal was to finish the work in a decade.
This Oxford dictionary was as far as ant in five years. The schedule needed revising. Part of the reason that it was taking so long was that the English language constantly evolves. They had to keep track of new words as well as the new meanings of old words. And they had seven centuries of words to examine
They toiled at this Oxford dictionary for forty years. Many new editors joined the project. Now the work had 10 volumes. It encompassed over 400,000 words. When finished it was the final source for information about English. It only took 40 years to complete.
As soon as this first version of the Oxford dictionary was finished work began on a new version. A supplement published in 1933 expanded the dictionary to 12 volumes. 1957 was the next major change. A new supplement was finally finished and published from 1972 through 1986 in four volumes.
The Oxford dictionary entered a new age in 1982. It was all moved to an electronic format. They spent over 13 million dollars to make this happen. Five years later the task was finished. In 1989 a second edition was published. It’s 22,000 pages over 20 volumes.
From an idea to online, the Oxford dictionary has made a spectacular journey.
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