LING 1100.105: Language, Thought, and Reality: English Outside the Box (Spring 2009)  Tags: linguistics_language_literature  

Strategies:

1.Browse the reference collection by call number. The call number range for english language dictionaries is PE 1620...

2. Ask a Librarian for suggestions (recommended), or search for a published guide on the topic, e.g., Language Dictionaries Online: A Guide

Please note: The library home page is currently being updated. Some of the links that used to be available from the home page are not appearing. 

For Humanities and Social Science topics, please check the Research Guides on the Olin & Uris home page or Ask a Librarian! We're happy to help.

Reference Sources For background information

Selected Resources:

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. (including M-W Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus)

The online equivalent of the print version of this standard college dictionary and thesaurus. Audio pronunciations of all headwords. Site also has Word of the Day feature with the definition, example sentence, audio pronunciation, and word history section. You can subscribe to the e-mail version or just check the site. Current year archived.

Oxford American Dictionary of Current English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

As the title implies, limited to words in use now; archaic, obsolete, and obscure words or word senses are excluded.

The Oxford English Dictionary.

The premier historical dictionary of the English language. Entries for each sense of the word are illustrated with quotations from the full extent of written English.
The extensive Help section includes links to the abbreviations used and bibliography of the Second Edition.
"The OED presents in alphabetical series the words that have formed the English vocabulary from the time of the earliest records down to the present day, with all the relevant facts concerning their form, sense-history, pronunciation, and etymology. It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectical usage and slang. This online edition contains the complete A to Z sequence of the Second Edition, its three-volume Additions Series, and also draft material from the revision programme, which represents the latest progress towards the Third Edition." More about the OED.

Oxford Reference Online: English Language Reference

Access to The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, A New Dictionary of Eponyms, The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English, The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, and Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Word Spy

(Library Gateway)

An excellent source of newly coined words, existing words that have been revived, and older words that are being used in new ways. Like the OED, Word Spy provides illustrative quotations of the words cited.