What’s new
June 2017 update
More than 600 new words, phrases, and senses have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary this quarter, including bug chaser, chantoosie, gin daisy, and widdly. You can read about other new and revised meanings in this article by Katherine Connor Martin, Head of US Dictionaries, and explore our timeline of veil words.
As this update also includes revisions to the word come, Denny Hilton, Senior Editor of the OED, explores the evolution of the term to come out in our release notes. You can also brush up on your serve—or your backhand or volley—in our discussion of tennis terms.
Selected Letters of Norman Mailer (2014, edited by J. Michael Lennon) has recently been read as part of the OED’s reading programme, and the letters have provided several antedatings and some interesting insights into the challenges of finding evidence for swear words in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. You can read about this here.
See a full list of new words, subentries, and senses added in this update.
The OED publishes four updates a year. The next update will be added to the dictionary in September 2017.
The OED Appeals
The OED Appeals is a major new online initiative involving the public in tracing the history of English words. Using a dedicated community space on the OED website, editors are soliciting help in unearthing new information about the history and usage of English, including the earliest examples of particular words. The website enables the public to post evidence in direct response to OED editors online, fostering a collective effort to record the English language and find the true roots of our vocabulary.
Find out more about the OED Appeals
Video: An introduction to the OED Appeals
Read a history of the OED’s Appeals to the public
Articles on OED Online
Windows on to words: dive into the OED!
Shapers of English: Tania Styles looks at place names in the OED.
English in time: Eleanor Maier explores how the ‘buster’ suffix has become ubiquitous.
English in use: Penny Silva writes about South African English.
More English in use: Richard Shapiro examines whether Indian cardinal numbers are the most distinctive counting system in English.
Word stories: Denny Hilton on The ‘auto-’ age.
Word of the Day: Sign up to Word of the Day or follow OED Online on .
Videos
Video shorts: a series of videos now live examines how the OED is produced behind the scenes: