Discover the story of English
More than 600,000 words, over a thousand years
Welcome to OED Online. If you or your library subscribes, dive straight in to the riches of the English language. If not, click on the images below to learn more about the OED, see What's new, or take a look at Aspects of English, our language feature section.
This year sees the 90th anniversary of the publication of the completed First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Find out more about our birthday celebrations >
Free schools access
To celebrate, we are pleased to offer free access to the OED for any UK state schools and US and Canadian public K-12 schools who are not current subscribers for the duration of the 2018/19 academic year. Find out more here >
Can you help us to record the words, phrases, and expressions used by children and young people? Submit your word >
- What's new: More than 600 new words, senses, and subentries have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in our latest update, including TGIF, burkini, and Dylanesque. Find out more >
- New article: This update sees several words of South African origin being added to the OED. Read more >
- Videos: Oxford Dictionaries
The 2019 OED Internship
We are pleased to announce that we will be running a paid summer internship programme in the summer of 2019, with positions available in our General Editorial team and Science Editorial team. Find out more and apply here>