MODEL
Oxford Dictionary of English
New Oxford Thesaurus of English
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
PW-E500
ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY
OPERATION MANUAL
Page
• Getting Started ........................................................ 2
• Using the Oxford Dictionary of English ................ 14
• Using the New Oxford Thesaurus of English ....... 18
• Using the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations .......... 20
• Using the Super Jump function ............................ 23
• Using the History function .................................... 25
• Using the Calculator function ............................... 26
• Using the Converter function ................................ 27
• Appendices ........................................................... 29
• Introductions to the Dictionaries ........................... 32
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CONTENTS
Getting Started
Using the History function
Using the PW-E500 for the first time ............................................................2
Layout ...........................................................................................................5
Basic Operation ............................................................................................7
Set-up Menu ...............................................................................................11
Inputting Characters ...................................................................................12
How to use the History function .................................................................25
Using the Calculator function
Prior to initiating calculations .....................................................................26
Calculation examples .................................................................................26
Using the Oxford Dictionary of English
Using the Converter function
Looking up a word (Filter search) ..............................................................14
Phrase search.............................................................................................15
Crossword solver ........................................................................................15
Anagram solver ...........................................................................................16
Spellcheck function.....................................................................................16
Further information .....................................................................................17
Currency converter .....................................................................................27
Metric converter ..........................................................................................28
Appendices
Replacing the battery .................................................................................29
Reset procedure if trouble occurs ..............................................................30
Specifications .............................................................................................30
Troubleshooting ..........................................................................................31
Product support ..........................................................................................31
Using the New Oxford Thesaurus of English
Looking up a word (Filter search) ..............................................................18
Phrase search.............................................................................................19
Further information .....................................................................................19
Introductions to the Dictionaries
Oxford Dictionary of English.......................................................................32
New Oxford Thesaurus of English..............................................................45
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations .................................................................50
Using the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Searching by an author name (Filter search) ............................................20
Keyword search ..........................................................................................21
Theme search .............................................................................................22
Random quote ............................................................................................22
Further information .....................................................................................22
Using the Super Jump function
How to use the Super Jump function .........................................................23
1
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6. Open the unit and press
turn the power on.
o
to
Getting Started
The LCD contrast screen will appear.
• Should a different screen appear,
follow the reset procedure on page
30.
Using the PW-E500 for the first time
Be sure to perform the following operations before using the PW-E500 for the first
time.
• If the power cannot be turned on:
1. Set the battery replacement switch on the bottom
of the unit to the ‘REPLACE BATTERY’ position.
• Make sure the battery replacement switch is placed at the ‘NORMAL
OPERATION’ position, then press
o
again.
• If the power still cannot be switched on, try following steps 1 through 6 in the
above procedure again.
2. Remove the battery cover.
7. Adjust the LCD contrast by using
, and press
[
]
e.
The key sound on/off screen will
appear.
3. Insert the one battery. Make sure the battery
polarity is correct.
8. Select
on/off.
Y
or
N
to turn the key sound
The main menu screen will appear.
4. Replace the battery cover.
• The LCD contrast and the key sound
settings can be adjusted later in the
Set-up menu.
5. Set the battery replacement switch to the
‘NORMAL OPERATION’ position.
2
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Turning the power on/off
Key notation used in this manual
The power can be switched on by pressing the keys listed below.
• All keys are framed (A, for instance); exceptions are found in the Calculator
To turn off the power, press
o
.
section, where the numeral entries are shown with real numbers.
• Keys are often assigned with more than one function. The appropriate key/
function will be shown according to the input status.
Key
Display status upon start-up
o
m
Restores the display as it was before the unit was switched off
(Resume function).
<Example 1>
will be shown as either ‘
<Example 2>
will be shown as either ‘
Q
G
’, ‘1’ or ‘1’ depending on the input status.
The main menu screen appears.
d
The main display of each dictionary and/or function appears (Direct-
on function)
t
u
s
a
’ or ‘+’ depending on the input status.
• The functions indicated with green typeface are second functions. Press and
release , then press an appropriate key.
^
<Example 1>
^ l directs to press and release
^ w directs to press and release
^
^
, then press
, then press
l
w
(
f
(<
).
).
Auto power off function
To save the battery, the PW-E500 will automatically turn its power off if no key
operations are detected for a set period of time. The activation interval initial setting
is 5 minutes, but it can be adjusted by following the directions on page 12.
3
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Data contained in the PW-E500
The dictionary data contained in this unit is based on the following dictionaries:
• Oxford Dictionary of English 2e © Oxford University Press 2003
• New Oxford Thesaurus of English © Oxford University Press 2000
• Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 5e © Oxford University Press 1999
* All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by
law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organiza-
tion. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should
be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press.
• The data content of each Dictionary is mostly retained faithful to the original.
However, some sections of the dictionary contents have had to be altered due to
the limitations of the LCD display and for other reasons; these modifications have
been implemented under the provisions of the publisher(s). In some rare cases,
misspellings and/or mistypings may be found; these are ‘errors’ that have been
retained unmodified from the source Dictionaries.
Note:
• For full information on the contents of the dictionaries, see Introductions on
pages 32–54.
• This product does not contain the Appendix data found in the book version of the
Oxford Dictionary of English 2e.
4
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Layout
Display symbols
Display
(Refer to the next page for details)
Dictionary/function
selection key
Menu key
Font size shift key
Clear key
Power on/off key
Back space key
2nd function key
Utility keys for Dictionaries
Escape key
Page scroll key
Cursor keys
Enter key
5
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Key assignments
Display symbols
: Opens the input screen for the Oxford Dictionary of English
This symbol will be displayed when the battery level is low. Promptly
replace the old battery with a new one.
: Opens the input screen for the New Oxford Thesaurus of English
: Opens the input screen for the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
: Opens the input screen for the spell checker
Indicates that the key sound (beep) is set to ON.
Indicates that
^
has been pressed.
These arrows suggest that more contents can be browsed by scrolling up/
down the window.
: Opens the calculator function screen
{ } : Press to scroll up/down per text row.
< > : Press to scroll up/down per visible window.
: Opens the history list of each Dictionary
: Brings up a ‘digest’ view of descriptions
Note:
• In this manual, symbols are not shown in the display examples.
: Initiates a definition search of a term in a detail view of each Dictionary
: Selects a Note icon in the detail view
• Certain symbols may appear on the display only when the LCD contrast is set to
dark. Please ignore these symbols as they are not used by this product.
: 2nd function key
Activates the second function (printed in green) assigned to the next key
pressed.
Operation guidance message
A brief guidance message may appear at the bottom of the screen to help you
utilise functions more effectively.
6
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Selecting a dictionary / function in the main menu
Basic Operation
Inputting words for a dictionary search
Press
m.
The main menu appears.
In this section, the basic search operation is described. For details, refer to the
manual chapter for each dictionary.
• Select an item by its index number
using the number keys (
). The initial screen of the selected
item appears.
• The desired item can also be selected by using the { } keys, followed by
pressing the key.
1
through
<Example>
5
Find definitions of ‘sharpen’ in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. Press
d
to display the input
e
screen for the Oxford Dictionary of
English, then input ‘sharp’. The entries
starting with ‘sharp’ is listed.
2. Enter ‘en’ to complete the spelling. The
list is narrowed down further.
3. While the ‘ ’ indication is visible on the left of ‘sharpen’, press
e.
• Press
• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Note:
f
to go back to the previous view.
• To learn different searching methods from those above, refer to the manual
chapter for each dictionary.
7
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List view: selecting an item; scrolling
Filter search view: selecting an item; scrolling
Press
of the Oxford Dictionary of English, then
press . The list view of the Oxford
d
to display the initial screen
Press
d
, then type
A
, and
B.
‘ab’ is entered, and words starting from
‘ab’ listed.
e
Dictionary of English appears.
Selecting an item or a word
Selecting each entry
Use the corresponding number key to the index number on the left of each item, or
Use } { to place the cursor (indicated as ‘ ’ on the left of the listed items) at
use the
the
{
e
or
key.
}
key to place the cursor on the desired item, followed by pressing
the desired entry, then press
e. The detail view of the entry appears.
Scrolling the view
Scrolling the view
Refer to the section ‘Scrolling the view’ in the previous section, ‘List view: selecting
an item; scrolling’.
‘
’ and/or ‘ ’ may appear on the left side of the screen, indicating that more
information can be browsed by scrolling up/down the view.
1) Press
once.
}
>
once to scroll down one text row. To scroll back one text row, press
{
2) Press
to scroll down a page. Press
<
to scroll the page up.
• Press and hold these keys to continuously scroll the lines/pages.
8
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Detail view: scrolling
Shifting the displayed character size (z)
Press
d
, then type
A
, and
e
.
Press the
12 dot-based (vertical pixel resolution) or 9 dot-based characters can be selected.
For instance, press to display the 12 dot characters to 9 dot characters.
Press again to toggle back the displayed characters to 12 dot-base.
z
key to shift the character size to be displayed.
The detail view with definitions appears.
z
z
Browsing contents above/below the screen
‘
’ and/or ‘ ’ may appear on the left
side of the screen, indicating that more
information can be browsed by
scrolling up/down the view. Use } {
9 dot-based
• The character size setting will be retained until the next time
• The key is functional in the following views:
12 dot-based (default)
z
is pressed.
or > <
.
z
• The list view, detail view or filter search view of each Dictionary
• The Super Jump window
Scrolling up/down to the previous/next entry header
Press ^ n to show the next entry header. To show the previous entry
• The contents of the Note
header, press ^ w
.
Recalling the terms previously searched (h)
Other useful keys
The history of up to 30 items in each dictionary is automatically stored, and can be
recalled easily by selecting the word in the history list. (For more information, see
page 25.)
f
:
Restores the previous view
b
:
Shows the input screen of each Dictionary or the initial display of a
function
^ l: Shows the list view starting from the previously displayed header
9
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Listing a summary of detail view items (q)
Browsing Notes (r)
The Quick View function suppresses some examples and additional information,
and lists out the main sections and senses (or quotations) from each detail view
entry. Use this function to browse quickly through the summary of an entry.
A Note icon (
) may appear in the detail view. This indicates that a note can
be selected to view extra information (additional information, usage note, etc.) of
the entry.
<Example>
Press
icon will be selected, and use the } { ] [ keys to select the desired icon if
necessary, then press to view the contents.
To exit, press twice. The first push of the
r
to select the icon. If more than one icon is visible, then the topmost
1. In the detail view shown on page 9,
e
press
q.
f
f
key closes the contents view,
The Quick View screen appears.
then the second deselects the icon.
<Example>
Browse the Note contents of ‘earth’ in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. Open the detail view of ‘earth’.
2. While the relevant sense or section is on the screen, select the desired item by
the index number. The detail view of the selected sense/section appears.
2. Use the
visible.
>
key or
}
key to scroll down the view so that a Note icon will be
• Press
q
in the Quick View to display the detail view.
3. Press
selected (reversed).
r. The Note icon will be
Searching a word on the screen (v)
A word or jump icon ( ) in the detail view can be selected for searching. (For more
information, see page 23.)
4. Press
e. The contents of the
Note is displayed.
10
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Note:
Set-up Menu
Using the
r
key will display the following:
Press
m
to display the main menu,
. The set-up menu appears.
• Oxford Dictionary of English
then press
5
• Usage notes
• Additional (boxed) information
• New Oxford Thesaurus of English
• Tables (lists of items relevant to particular headwords)
• Awkward synonyms and confusable terms
• Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Select a desired item to change the setting.
• To delete the history list, see page 25.
• The full set of quotations for the given author (see page 21.)
Setting the key sound on/off
The key sound (a short audible beep when a key is pressed) can be set to on or off.
1. Press
m
,
5
, then
1, to toggle the key sound on or off.
A splash message appears to indicate the change of setting, then the main
menu will be displayed.
11
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Setting the Auto power off activation time
Inputting Characters
This product automatically turns its power off to save the battery. The turn-off time
is set to five minutes by default.
Methods of inputting characters are described in this section.
Character entry
1. Press
m
,
5
, then
2.
A simple example of inputting characters is shown below.
<Example>
The Auto power off setting screen
appears.
Enter a word ‘clear’ for search.
1. Press
2. Type ‘clear’.
On the keyboard, press
d
to open the input screen of the Oxford Dictionary of English.
2. Use the
duration, then press
{
,
}
,
[
e
and
]
keys to place the check mark on the desired
.
C
,
L
,
E,
A
, then
R.
The time will be set, then the main menu will be displayed.
Adjusting the LCD contrast
Select this menu item to adjust the LCD contrast.
Note:
1. Press
2. To adjust the LCD contrast, use the
press to return to the main menu.
m
,
5
, then
3.
• While entering characters, exclude characters such as spaces, hyphens,
apostrophes, slashes, and periods.
[
(Lighter) key or
]
(Darker) key, then
e
<Example>
Starting Auto Demo mode
Word
fast food
weak-kneed
let's
Entry for search
fastfood
weakkneed
lets
Activate the Auto demo for a guided tour through the key features of the product.
1. Press
• Press
menu.
m
,
5
, then
5
, to start the Auto demo mode.
f
or
e
to end the Auto demo mode and return to the main
either/or
a.m.
eitheror
am
12
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• Convert uppercase letters to lowercase.
Modifying entry
<Example>
Deleting unnecessary characters
Word
AC
Entry for search
<Example>
ac
uk
1. Press
d
to open the input screen of the Oxford Dictionary of English.
UK
2. Type ‘external’.
• Spell out the numbers when applicable.
<Example>
Word
4WD
A5
Entry for search
fourwd
3. While the cursor is at the end of the string, press
(
three times to delete ‘nal’.
afive
4. Next, press
cursor under the letter ‘t’.
[
three times to move the
• Enter ‘and’ instead of ‘&’.
• To enter ‘£’, place ‘l’ instead. Likewise, place ‘a’ for ‘@’ instead.
• When searching for a word with accented characters (such as ‘ü’, ‘á’, etc.), enter
their unaccented equivalents via the keypad (such as ‘u’, ‘a’, etc.).
5. Press
(
once to delete a character on the left of cursor. ‘x’ will be deleted.
Adding characters
<Example>
6. In the above example, press
N
to
insert a letter ‘n’ on the left of the
cursor. The search will be narrowed
with the word ‘enter’.
Note:
• Press
b
to delete all characters entered.
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• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
• To search a different word, simply input a new spelling for the word, or press
Using the Oxford Dictionary of
English
In this Dictionary, definitions of a word can be found by entering its spelling.
Features such as Phrase search, Crossword solver, and Anagram solver are also
available.
b
or
d
to go to the dictionary's input screen.
If there is no match found
As you input the spelling of the desired
word, the dictionary will narrow down the
matching candidates. If the match is
narrowed down to none (i.e. no word starting
with the spelling is found in the Dictionary),
the message ‘similar words’ appears.
Looking up a word (Filter search)
A definition of a word can be looked up by inputting its spelling.
<Example>
In this case, press
e
to list the
dictionary entries alphabetically after the entered spelling.
Find the definition of ‘advance’.
Note about entering characters
1. Press
d
to open the Oxford
Dictionary of English.
While entering characters, exclude characters such as spaces, hyphens,
apostrophes, slashes, and periods. See page 12 for details.
The input screen appears.
Note:
• The wildcard character ‘?’ must not be entered in the input field of the Dictionary.
The wildcard character ‘?’ can be used in the Crossword solver (see page 15)
and Random quote function (see page 22).
2. Input the spelling of ‘advance’.
As you type, candidates for matching narrow. If the desired word is found, then
there is no need to type any more letters.
• Up to 24 characters can be entered in the input field of the Dictionary. When
searching words containing 25 characters or more, narrow down the search to
select the words from the list manually.
3. While ‘ ’ appears on the left of ‘advance’, press
word appears.
e. The detail view of the
• To browse contents on the next/previous page, press } { or > <. You
may also find the Quick View function useful.
Browsing Notes
When the
icons appear in the detail view, a note can be selected and
• If a word selected is a close derivative of a headword, it may not have its own
definitions. In these cases, it is helpful to scroll up within the detail view to find
the definitions of the headword itself.
browsed. For details, refer to page 10–11.
Note:
•
In many cases, the
icon only appears at the bottom of an entry, but
• To search for a word in the detail view, use the Super Jump function.
contains important information about usage of the headword as a whole. If unsure
about usage, scroll down to the bottom of the entry to access any relevant notes.
• Press
f
to return to the previous screen.
14
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Phrase search
Crossword solver
To search for idioms or phrasal verbs, enter no more than three words in the input
field. The phrases containing ALL the entered words can be searched for.
Use a wildcard character ‘?’ to search for words with ambiguous spellings. Place the
appropriate number of ‘?’ characters in the places of characters yet to be
determined.
<Example>
<Example>
Search for a phrase containing ‘take’ and ‘care’.
Find a matching word for a query ‘ma???n’.
1. Press
Press
d
to open the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. Press
d
to open the Oxford Dictionary of English.
key twice to place the cursor at the ‘Crossword solver’, then press
}
once to place the cursor at the ‘Phrase search’, then press
e.
Press the
}
The input screen of the Phrase search appears.
e
.
2. Input ‘take’, press
‘care’.
}, followed by
The Crossword solver's input screen appears.
2. Type ‘ma???n’ into the input field. Press the
3. Press to start the search.
?
key three times to enter ‘???’.
To input more than one word, input
each word in the separate input field.
Use the } { keys to move the
cursor. Each input field can accommo-
date up to 24 characters.
e
A list of the wildcard matches appear.
Up to 100 words may be displayed in
the list.
3. Press
e.
A list of phrases containing the words appears.
4. In the list, select a desired word using the number keys.
The detail view with definitions of the selected word appears.
If no matching phrase is found, then a message ‘Not Found!’ will momentarily be
displayed.
4. Select the desired index of the phrase using the number key(s). The definition of
the selected phrase is displayed.
• Press
f
to return to the previous view.
• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
• Press
f
to return to the previous view.
• To initiate another search, simply type in the new spelling or press
return to the input screen of the Crossword solver.
b
to
• Press ^ l to list the index of phrases containing the words.
• To search for a new phrase, simply begin inputting new words, or press
to go back to the input screen to start a new search.
b
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Anagram solver
Spellcheck function
A word or series of letters can be entered to find any matching anagrams found in
the Oxford Dictionary of English.
The spellcheck function can be helpful when the exact spelling of a query word is
not known.
<Example>
<Example>
Find anagrams for ‘dear’.
You are not sure whether ‘liason’ or ‘liaison’ is correct.
1. Press
d
to open the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. Press
s
to open the input screen
of the spellcheck function.
Press the
}
three times to place the cursor at the ‘Anagram solver’, then press
e
. The input screen of the Anagram solver appears.
2. Place ‘dear’ in the input field, then
press to initiate the search.
e
Up to 100 words may be displayed in
the list.
2. Enter ‘liason’.
3. In the list of matches, use the number keys to select a word.
The detail view with definitions of the selected word appears.
3. Press
e
to initiate the spellcheck
• Press
f
to return to the previous view.
function.
• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Words with similar spellings will be
listed.
• To initiate another search, simply type in the new spelling or press
return to the input screen of the Anagram solver.
b
to
• While ‘Searching... Press [ENTER] to
break’ is visible, press
e
to
stop the search. Note that if the search is interrupted, the list of possible
results may not include all the closest matches.
• If the word is typed with the correct spelling, it will appear at the top of the
displayed list.
• If two or more words with an identical spelling are found in the list, then the
relevant headword will also be displayed, after an arrow symbol.
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4. In the list, select a desired word using the number keys (press
1, in this
example). The detail view with descriptions of the word is displayed.
• If a word selected is not in its original form, and cannot be found as a
headword, then the detail view of the word's original form will be displayed. It
may be necessary to scroll down within the detail view to find the desired
word form.
• Press
• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Note:
f
to go back to the previous view.
• Up to 100 words may be displayed in the list.
If the list of words do not appear as expected:
• Searching words with particular spellings may take more time to complete than
others.
• If no word is given, a message ‘Not Found!’ will momentarily be displayed,
followed by the input screen of the spellcheck function. In this case you may wish
to start the search again with a new spelling for the word.
Further information
For further information on using this dictionary, refer to the Introduction on pages
32-45.
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• To search a word in the detail view, use the Super Jump function.
• Press to return to the previous screen.
f
Using the New Oxford
Thesaurus of English
Input a word in this Thesaurus to find its synonyms, as well as antonyms and other
related terms in the detail view.
• Press ^ l to list the headwords in the New Oxford Thesaurus of
English.
• To search a different word, simply begin inputting a new word, or press
or t to go to the input screen of the New Oxford Thesaurus of English.
b
If there is no match found
Looking up a word (Filter search)
Find a set of related words by inputting the spelling of a given word.
<Example>
The same view / message appears as for the Oxford Dictionary of English. See
page 14 for details.
Note about entering characters
Find a set of relative words for ‘make’.
While entering characters, exclude characters such as spaces, hyphens,
apostrophes, slashes, and periods. See page 12 for details.
1. Press
t
to open the New Oxford
Thesaurus of English.
Note:
The spelling input screen of the
Thesaurus appears.
• Up to 24 characters can be entered in the input field. When searching words
containing 25 characters or more, narrow down the search to select the words
from the list manually.
Browsing Notes
2. Input ‘make’.
As you type, options are narrowed. If
the desired word is found, then you do
not need to type any more letters.
When the
icons appear in the detail view, a note can be selected and
browsed. For details, refer to page 10-11.
Note:
• In many cases, the
icon only appears at the bottom of an entry, but
contains important information about usage of the headword as a whole. If
unsure about usage, scroll down to the bottom of the entry to access any
relevant notes.
3. While ‘ ’ appears on the left of ‘make’,
press
e. The detail view of the
word ‘make’ appears.
• To browse contents on the next/
previous page, press } { or
>
<
. You may also find the Quick
View function useful.
18
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Phrase search
Further information
To search for idioms or phrasal verbs, enter no more than three words in the input
field. The phrases containing ALL the entered words can be searched for.
For further information on using this thesaurus, refer to the Introduction on pages
45-50.
<Example>
Search for a phrase containing ‘make’ and ‘up’, and find its synonyms.
1. Press
Press
t
to open the New Oxford Thesaurus of English.
}
once to place the cursor at the ‘Phrase search’, then press
e.
The input screen of the Phrase search appears.
2. Input ‘make’, press
‘up’.
}, followed by
To input more than one word, input
each word in the separate input field.
Use the } { keys to move the
cursor. Each input field can accommo-
date up to 24 characters.
3. Press
e.
A list of phrases containing the words appears.
If no matching phrase is found, then a message ‘Not Found!’ will momentarily be
displayed.
4. Select the desired index of the phrase using the number key(s). The detail view
of the selected phrase is displayed.
• Press
f
to return to the previous view.
• Press ^ l to list the index of phrases containing the words.
• To search for a new phrase, simply begin inputting new words, or press
to go back to the input screen to start a new search.
b
19
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• To browse contents on the next/previous page, press } { or > <. You
may also find the Quick View function useful.
Using the Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations
Input an author’s surname in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to find his/her
quotations. A search can also be initiated by keywords and themes, or it is possible
to display quotations at random.
• To search a word in the detail view, or to search for an item indicated under
the , use the Super Jump function.
• Press
f
to return to the previous screen.
• Press ^ l to list the headings in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
• To search a different word, simply begin inputting a new spelling for the word,
or press
b
or
u
to go to the input screen of the Oxford Dictionary
of Quotations.
Searching by an author name (Filter search)
Find a set of related quotations by inputting the spelling of an author.
<Example>
If there is no match found
The matching headers narrows down as you type. If the match is narrowed down to
none, a message ‘similar words’ will be displayed. Press
that alphabetically follow the entered string.
e
to list the headers
List a set of quotations by ‘William Shakespeare’.
1. Press
u
to open the Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations.
Note about entering characters
The name input screen of the Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations appears.
While entering characters, exclude characters such as spaces, hyphens,
apostrophes, slashes, and periods. See page 12 for details.
Note:
• The names of collections or compilations, such as the ‘Bible’ or ‘Anonymous’, can
be used for a search.
2. Start to input the word ‘shakespeare’.
As you type, the match narrows. If the
desired word is found, then you do not
need to type any more letters.
• Instead of inputting an author's surname, you might wish to try entering his/her
known pseudonym or nickname (See pages 53-54 for details).
• Some authors may appear in a joint entry with a common co-author or associate,
as well as their own individual entry. In these cases, the author's name is listed
twice in search results, ordered according to the first name in the joint entry. The
detail view automatically scrolls down so the search term is at the top - if this is
part of a larger entry, the up arrow will appear top left.
• In this example, the rows headed by
‘ ’ contain subheadings within the
entry for ‘William Shakespeare’.
3. While ‘ ’ appears to the left of ‘William
Shakespeare’, press
e. The
detail view of the entry ‘William
Shakespeare’ appears.
20
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4. Select the desired quotation using the
number keys (press , in this
example). The details of the selected
quotation appear.
Keyword search
1
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations can accept up to three keywords for a search.
The quotations containing ALL the entered keywords can be searched for.
<Example>
• The Quick View function cannot be
activated from this screen.
Find quotations that incorporate ‘man’ and ‘woman’.
1. Press
u
to open the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
• The name of the author and the Note icon (
second row.
) will appear on the first or
Press the
}
key to place the cursor at the ‘Keyword search’, then press
e
.
While the Note icon is visible on the screen, press
r
and
e
to
view the full set of quotations of the author (the same result can be viewed by
initiating the search by entering the name of the author).
The input screen of the Keyword search appears.
2. Input ‘man’, press the
input ‘woman’.
}
key, then
• Press
f
to return to the previous screen.
• Press ^ l to list the search results.
Up to 24 characters can be entered in
each input field. To jump the cursor
from one input field to another, use the
{ } keys.
• To initiate a new search, simply start typing, or press
screen of the keyword search.
b
to go to the input
3. Press
e.
The search results of the Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations are listed. If
no match is found, a message ‘Not
Found!’ will momentarily be displayed.
Note:
• The list consists of essential words in the quotations that include the given
keyword. Even if more than two keywords are given, the list will consist of
essential words in the quotations that include the first keyword.
•
Singular and plural nouns must be searched for separately. Words such as ‘man’
and ‘men’, as well as ‘lover’ and ‘lovers’, are to be searched as two different words.
• To search for compound words such as ‘Holy Ghost’, ‘middle class’, and ‘self-
made’, modify the entry by eliminating space and hyphen (i.e. ‘holyghost’,
‘middleclass’, and ‘selfmade’), to form a single keyword.
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Theme search
Random quote
Quotations organized under a particular theme, such as business, politics or love,
can be searched.
Random quote can be requested by pressing the
?
at the initial screen of the
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations or in the detail view of the author.
<Example>
<Example>
Find a quotation with ‘Age’ as its theme.
1. Press
u
to open the initial screen of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
1. Press
Dictionary of Quotations.
Press twice to set the cursor at
‘Themes’, then press
A list of themes appear. To scroll up/
down the view, use } { and/or
u
to open the Oxford
2. Press
quotation is displayed.
• Press several times to
?. A randomly selected
}
?
e
.
sequentially initiate the Random
quotes.
>
• Press
f
to return to the initial
<
.
screen of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
2. Use the number key to select ‘Age’.
• The name of the author and the Note icon (
second row.
While the Note icon is visible on the screen, press
view the full set of quotations of the author (the same result can be viewed by
initiating the search by entering the name of the author).
) will appear on the first or
and to
A list of quotations under the theme
‘Age’ is displayed.
r
e
Further information
3. Select a desired quotation using the number keys. The details of the selected
quotation appear.
For further information on using this dictionary, refer to the Introduction on pages
50-54.
• The Quick View function cannot be activated from this screen.
• The name of the author and the Note icon (
second row.
) will appear on the first or
While the Note icon is visible on the screen, press
r
and
e
to
view the full set of quotations of the author (the same result can be viewed by
initiating the search by entering the name of the author).
• Press
f
to return to the previous screen.
• Press ^ l to view a list of quotations under the theme.
22
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5. Use the number keys to select a desired word in the list (Press
example).
1
in this
Using the Super Jump function
Use the Super Jump function to select any word in the detail view of each
dictionary, then initiate a search based on the selected word.
The definition of the selected word is displayed in the Super Jump window.
• Press to go back to the previous view.
• When ‘ ’ and/or ‘ ’ appears on the left side of the window, } { or
f
>
<
can be used to scroll the window.
How to use the Super Jump function
<Example>
6. Press
of the selected word.
e to jump to the definition
The detail view of the selected word
appears.
Initiate a Super Jump search via the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. In the Oxford Dictionary of English, show the detail view of the word ‘function’.
• Press
view.
f
to display the previous
2. Press
v. The cursor
appears to select the first word in the
view.
Note:
• A Super Jump search from any of the dictionaries will return matching entries
in the following dictionaries:
• Oxford Dictionary of English
• New Oxford Thesaurus of English
3. Use the } { ] [ keys to move the cursor (and its selection of word) to a
desired word.
• For items marked with a Jump icon ( ) found in the Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations, the Super Jump executes a cross-reference upon selection.
• The pressing of
4. While the desired word is selected,
press
v
moves the cursor to the next.
e
.
The Super Jump window appears to
display selectable items.
• A list of matching words is displayed.
If the selected word is in a variant or
inflected form, the original spelling may be displayed instead.
• If only one match is found, or if an item indicated by the Jump icon ( ) is
selected, then the description of the item will be displayed in the Super Jump
window instead.
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Specifying a Dictionary to jump to
In step 4 above, press
Dictionary to jump to.
d
or
t
instead of pressing
e, to specify the
Note icon in the Super Jump window
When the Note icon appears in the Super Jump window, press
to view the contents.
r
and
e
About the detail view after the Jump
• The behaviour and function of the detail view is the same as the detail view after
an ordinary search.
• Press
• A chain of multiple Super Jump actions can be backtracked up to 10 times by
pressing the key.
b
at the detail view to go back to the Dictionary's input screen.
f
24
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Deleting a history item
Using the History function
1. Display the history list on the screen.
2. Use the
}
or
{
key to place the cursor on the word to be deleted. The reverse
Use the History function to recall a headword or phrase previously searched in the
Dictionaries.
colour indicates the selected item.
3. Press
4. Press
(
. A confirmation dialog for deletion appears.
. The selected word is deleted.
Y
How to use the History function
<Example>
Deleting the history list of a Dictionary
Recall the search history in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
1. Press
2. Press
m
, then
5
to open the Set-up menu.
1. Press
2. Press
d
to open the Oxford Dictionary of English.
. The history view
4
to select ‘Deleting history’.
h
3. Use the number keys to select the history list you wish to delete. A confirmation
dialog for deletion appears.
appears, with the most recent search
placed at the top of the list.
• To delete all history lists, select ‘ALL’.
When ‘ ’ and/or ‘ ’ appears on the
• Selecting ‘only DICT’ or ‘only THES’ will also delete the history list of each
phrase search.
left side of the window, } { or
>
<
can be used to scroll the window.
4. Press
Y. The selected history is deleted and the main menu appears.
3. Use the number keys to select a desired word in the list.
The detail view of the selected word appears.
Note:
• Each Dictionary has its own history list. Additionally, phrase search history list of
each of the Oxford Dictionary of English and the New Oxford Thesaurus of
English is made.
• To view the history list, press
h
at the initial screen of each Dictionary,
and the initial screen of each phrase search.
• Truncated words in the list are indicated with trailing ‘...’ at the end.
• Each history list can contain up to 30 items.
• The items selected by the Random quote in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
will also be added in the history.
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Calculation examples
Using the Calculator function
Example
Operation
Display
–8.
(–24) 4 – 2 =
÷
! - 24
/
4
-
2
=
The built-in calculator in the Electronic Dictionary can perform twelve-digit
arithmetic calculations with memory function. To access the Calculator function,
34 + 57 =
45 + 57 =
34
45
+
57
=
=
The second figure (57)
becomes the constant.
91.
press
a.
102.
(Subtraction and division are performed in
the same way as above.)
Prior to initiating calculations
68
68
×
×
25 =
40 =
68
*
25
40
=
=
The first figure (68)
1,700.
2,720.
20.
• Before performing any calculation, press @ @ b to clear the
memory and the display.
becomes the constant.
• To start a calculation with a negative number, place a subtraction sign by
What is 10% of 200?
200
*
10
%
pressing
-
at the beginning of the calculation.
What percentage is 9 of 36?
9
/
36
%
25.
• If you wish to correct a wrong entry, press
!
and re-enter the figure.
200 + (200
500 – (500
(43)2 =
×
×
10 %) =
20 %) =
200
500
+
-
10
20
%
220.
• In the calculation examples found in this section, indications and icons that may
appear on the screen (‘=’, ‘M+’, ‘M-’, ‘+’, ‘-’, ‘x’, and ‘÷’) are abbreviated or are not
shown. These icons appear to show you the interim result of calculations. For
example, the ‘=’ icon appears on the screen when
icons such as ‘M+’ and ‘+’ appear after each corresponding key has been
pressed.
%
400.
4
8
* = = * =
/ =
4,096.
1/8
0.125
M
125.
M
=
or
%
is pressed, while
25
×
÷
5 =
3 =
@ @ 25
*
5
$
–) 84
84
68
/
+
3
#
28.
M
• An ‘M’ is shown when a value other than 0 is put in the memory. To clear the
+) 68 + 17 =
(Total) =
17
$
85.
M
content of the memory, press
also functions as
@
twice. Note that the pressing of
$
or
#
=
.
@
182.
M
• Press to enter ‘=’. To input ‘.’ (decimal point), press
• An error message ‘E’ is displayed if:
.
@ @ 12
135 * @ =
@ /
@ @ b
+
14
$
26.
M
135
×
(12 + 14) =
5 =
3,510.
M
• the integer section of a calculation result exceeds 12 digits
• the memory exceeds 12 digits
(12 + 14)
÷
5
=
5.2
0.
E
• an attempt is made to divide a number by zero.
123456789098
*
145
=
123456789098
×
145 =
17.9012344192
17.9012344192
Press
!
to clear the error condition.
!
(17.9012344192
×
1012 = 17901234419200)
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3. Use the { } keys to place the cursor at the desired input field, then input the
currency name and its rate. In this example, press and input ‘0.7’.
}
Using the Converter function
The Converter function consists of two converters: the Currency converter, and the
Metric converter.
• The currency name field of currency converter is temporarily pre-defined, as
seen in the above example.
• When inputting the desired currency name, press
b
to clear the input field
and use no more than four letters. Use the [ ] keys to set the cursor on
the left/right of the currently selected input field.
Currency converter
Setting a currency rate
• In the left input field, enter the base currency name. In the input field on the
right, place the currency name of which you wish to set the conversion rate.
• Up to 10 digits (excluding the decimal point) can be entered in the currency
rate input field.
One conversion rate can be set.
<Example>
4. Press
e. The currency name and its rate are set.
=
Set the following rate: £1 = C0.7
1. Press m 4 1 to access the
Currency converter.
Converting currencies
The conversion calculation can be performed using the previously set conversion
rate.
<Example>
=
=
Convert C175 to pounds (£) when setting the rate: £1 = C0.7.
1. Press m 4 1 to display the currency converter.
2. Press
<. The input fields for the
currency name and rate appear.
2. Input ‘175’.You may input a simple formula, such as ‘35
×
5 =’, instead.
=
3. Press
displayed.
• Pressing
[
to execute the conversion from C to £. The converted value of £250 is
]
executes a pound-to-euro conversion. In this case, the converted
=
value of C122.5 will be displayed.
• The
and
arrows on the screen indicate the direction of conversion.
• To initiate conversion of a different value, just enter the value to be converted,
or press
conversion.
• Press
!
to clear the value in the input field prior to entering the new
f
to return to the Converter menu.
27
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Units capable of being converted
Metric converter
Conversions between different units of measurement (length, mass, etc.) can be
performed.
The following conversion formulae can be utilised.
length1:
inch
feet
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
⇔
cm
m
<Example>
Convert 40 feet to metres.
length2:
length3:
yard
mile
m
1. Press m 4 2 to access the Metric converter.
2. Use { } to select ‘Converter
[length2]’.
length4:
km
g
weight1:
ounce
pound
°F
weight2:
kg
temperature:
volume:
°C
pint
mile2
litre
km2
hectare
surface area1:
surface area2:
3. Input ‘40’.You may input a simple formula, such as ‘25 + 15 =’, instead.
acre
4. Press
• Press
‘40’ will be taken as the metric value to be converted to feet.
• The and arrows on the screen indicate the direction of conversion.
• To initiate conversion of a different value, just enter the value to be converted,
or press to clear the value in the input field prior to entering the new
conversion.
• Use the
• Press
]
. The value in feet is converted to the metric value.
[
to convert from the metric value to feet. In this case, the given value
!
}
or
{
key to select one of the other Metric converters.
f
to return to the Converter menu.
28
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When to replace the battery
Appendices
Replace the battery immediately in the following cases:
• When
is displayed.
Replacing the battery
Battery used
• When the message ‘Replace the battery’ appears upon turning the power on.
Note:
• If the battery replacement cannot be done, then the History list, as well as the
Calculator's memory, and the Currency converter configuration may be cleared
shortly. Also, the Set-up menu configuration may be reset.
• Use only the specified alkaline battery.
Type
Size / Model
Size “AAA” / LR03
Quantity
1
Alkaline battery
Replacement procedure
1. Switch off the power by pressing
o.
Precautions
2. Set the battery replacement switch located on the
bottom of the unit to the ‘REPLACE BATTERY’
position.
• Fluid from a leaking battery accidentally entering an eye could result in serious
injury. Should this occur, wash with clean water and immediately consult a
doctor.
• Should fluid from a leaking battery come in contact with your skin or clothes,
immediately wash with clean water.
3. Remove the battery cover.
• If the product is not to be used for some time, to avoid damage to the unit from a
leaking battery, remove it and store in a safe place.
4. Remove the used battery and insert the one new
battery. Make sure the battery polarity is correctly
orientated.
• Do not leave an exhausted battery inside the product. It may leak and damage
the product.
• Keep batteries out of the reach of children.
5. Replace the battery cover.
• Incorrect handling of batteries may introduce risk of explosion.
• Do not throw batteries into a fire as they may explode.
• Make sure the new battery is the correct type before fitting.
• When installing, orientate the battery correctly as indicated in the unit.
6. Set the battery replacement switch to the ‘NORMAL OPERATION’ position.
7. Open the unit and press
o
to turn the power on.
The LCD contrast screen appears.
• If the power cannot be switched on, try following steps 2 through 7 in the
above procedure again. Should this fail, then follow the reset procedure on the
following page.
• The battery packaged with this product may be partially exhausted during the
shipment and/or storage period, and may need to be replaced sooner than
expected.
8. Follow the instructions on the screen to adjust the LCD contrast, as well as to set
the key sound on/off configuration (see steps 7 through 8 of the procedure on
page 2.)
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Reset procedure if trouble occurs
Specifications
Exposure to a strong physical shock or powerful electrical fields may render the
keys inoperable, to the point that the power cannot be switched on. If such case is
suspected, try following the procedure below.
Model:
PW-E500
Product name:
Display:
Electronic Dictionary
159
×
80 dot matrix LCD
Reset procedures
Number of entries:
• Oxford Dictionary of English:
Approx. 355,000 words, phrases, and definitions
1. Press the RESET switch located on the bottom of
the unit, with the tip of a ball-point pen or similar
object. Do not use an object with a breakable or
sharp tip.
• New Oxford Thesaurus of English:
Approx. 600,000 alternative and opposite words
The message ‘Do you want to initialize?’ appears.
• Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:
Approx. 20,000 quotations, comprehensively indexed
Approx. 3,200 authors
2. Press
Y
to initialize the unit.
Calculator function:
12-digit calculation of addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division, percentage, memory
calculation, etc.
• A message ‘Initialized!’ is momentarily displayed, followed by the LCD contrast
adjustment screen.
• If
N
is selected, then the unit will not be initialized.
Converter function:
Power consumption:
Operating temperature:
Power supply:
12-digit conversion of currency and measurement
0.11 W
3. Follow the instructions on the screen to adjust the LCD contrast, as well as to set
the key sound on/off configuration (see steps 7 through 8 of the procedure on
page 2.)
0°C - 40°C (32°F - 104°F)
–
1.5 V … (DC): Alkaline battery LR03 (size “AAA”)
×
1
Note:
Battery life:
Approx. 200 hours
If data is continuously displayed at 25°C (77°F)
• The reset procedure will clear the History list, Calculator's memory, and
configuration of the Currency converter, as well as to reset the Set-up
menu configuration.To avoid these, you may press
above.
N
at step two of the
Note: May vary according to various usage conditions
Weight (including battery): Approx. 148 g (0.33 lb)
• Occasionally when corruption of data etc. occurs, the reset procedure may
Dimensions (when closed): 125 mm (W)
×
×
79.4 mm (D)
3-1/8" (D)
×
16.8 mm (H)
automatically be initiated upon pressing of the RESET switch or the
key. When this occurs, the message ‘Initialized!’ will be displayed, followed by the
LCD contrast screen. Follow the instructions on the LCD contrast, as well as to
set the key sound on/off configuration.
o
4-29/32" (W)
×
21/32" (H)
Accessories:
Alkaline battery LR03 (size “AAA”)
operation manual
×
1,
30
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Troubleshooting
Product support
Refer to the list of possible symptoms, and solutions may be found here.
If you have read this operation manual, but you still require product support, you
can:
The unit cannot be switched on.
Visit our web site
• Check if the battery is not drained. See page 29.
• Check the battery replacement switch; it should be set at the ‘NORMAL
OPERATION’ position. See page 2.
Or Telephone
08705 274277
• Check the polarity of the battery. See page 2.
• Verify the LCD contrast setting; the power may be switched on, but the
message on the screen may not be visible. See page 12.
• If the above settings appear normal, then press the RESET switch. See page
30.
The screen is dark or light.
• Adjust the LCD contrast. See page 12.
The key sound cannot be heard.
• The key sound may be set to OFF. See page 11.
The unit does not respond to a key press.
• Press the RESET switch. See page 30.
The unit shuts off automatically.
• The Auto power off function is in action. The activation interval of the Auto
power off function can be adjusted. See page 12.
The desired word cannot be found.
• A variant form of the word may have been entered. Enter the original form.
31
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nose
CORE SENSE
Introductions to the
Dictionaries
the part projecting above the mouth on the face of a person or animal,
containing the nostrils and used for breathing and smelling.
Oxford Dictionary of English
SUBSENSE
SUBSENSE
SUBSENSE
the sense of smell,
especially a dog’s ability to
track something by its scent: something:
a dog with a keen nose. he has a nose for a
good script.
figurative an instinctive
talent for detecting
the aroma of a particular
substance, especially
wine.
Introduction
The Oxford Dictionary of English has been compiled according to principles which
are quite different from those of traditional dictionaries. New types of evidence are
now available in sufficient quantity to allow lexicographers to construct a picture of
the language that is more accurate than has been possible before. The approach to
structuring and organizing within individual dictionary entries has been rethought,
as has the approach to the selection and presentation of information in every
aspect of the dictionary: definitions, choice of examples, grammar, word histories,
and every other category. New approaches have been adopted in response to a
reappraisal of the workings of language in general and its relationship to the
presentation of information in a dictionary in particular. The aim of this introduction
is to give the user background information for using this dictionary and, in
particular, to explain some of the thinking behind these new approaches.
Within each part of speech the first definition given is the core sense. The general
principle on which the senses in the Oxford Dictionary of English are organized is
that each word has at least one core meaning, to which a number of subsenses
may be attached. If there is more than one core sense (see below), this is
introduced by a bold sense number. Core meanings represent typical, central uses
of the word in question in modern standard English, as established by research on
and analysis of the Oxford English Corpus and other citation databases. The core
meaning is the one accepted by native speakers as the most literal and central in
ordinary modern usage. This is not necessarily the same as the oldest meaning,
because word meanings change over time. Nor is it necessarily the most frequent
meaning, because sometimes the most frequently used modern sense of a word is
a figurative one.
Structure: Core Sense and Subsense
The first part of speech is the primary one for that word: thus, for bag and balloon
the senses of the noun are given before those for the verb, while for babble and
bake the senses of the verb are given before those of the noun.
The core sense also acts as a gateway to other, related subsenses. These
subsenses are grouped under the core sense, each one being introduced by a solid
square symbol.
There is a logical relationship between each subsense and the core sense under
which it appears. The organization of senses according to this logical relationship is
designed to help the user, not only in being able to navigate the entry more easily
and find relevant senses more readily, but also in building up an understanding of
how senses in the language relate to one another and how the language is
constructed on this model. The main types of relationship of core sense to
subsense are as follows:
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(a) figurative extension of the core sense, e.g.
(c) other extension or shift in meaning, retaining one or more
elements of the core sense, e.g.
HEADWORD: logjam
CORE SENSE: a crowded mass of logs blocking a river.
SUBSENSE: figurative a situation that seems irresolvable:
HEADWORD: bamboo
CORE SENSE: [mass noun] a giant woody grass which is grown chiefly in the
tropics.
EXAMPLE: the president can use his power to break the logjam over
this issue.
SUBSENSE: the hollow jointed stem of this plant, used as a cane or to make
furniture and implements.
SUBSENSE: figurative a backlog:
EXAMPLE: keeping a diary may ease the logjam of work.
HEADWORD: management
CORE SENSE: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.
HEADWORD: bankrupt
SUBSENSE: [treated as sing. or pl.] the people managing a company or
organization, regarded collectively:
CORE SENSE: (of a person or organization) declared in law as unable to pay
their debts:
EXAMPLE: management were extremely cooperative.
SUBSENSE: figurative completely lacking in a particular good quality:
EXAMPLE: their cause is morally bankrupt.
HEADWORD: ambassador
CORE SENSE: an accredited diplomat sent by a state as its permanent
representative in a foreign country.
(b) specialized case of the core sense, e.g.
HEADWORD: ball1
SUBSENSE: a representative or promoter of a specified activity:
EXAMPLE: he is a good ambassador for the industry.
CORE SENSE: a single throw, kick, or hit of the ball in a game, in particular:
SUBSENSE: Cricket a delivery of the ball by the bowler to the batsman.
Many entries have just one core sense. However some entries are more complex
and have different strands of meaning, each constituting a core sense. In this case,
each core sense is introduced by a bold sense number, and each potentially has its
own block of subsenses relating to it.
SUBSENSE: Baseball a pitch delivered outside the strike zone which the
batter does not attempt to hit.
HEADWORD: basement
CORE SENSE: the floor of a building which is partly or entirely below ground
level.
SUBSENSE: Geology the oldest formation of rocks underlying a particular
area.
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Specialist Vocabulary
Encyclopedic Material
One of the most important uses of a dictionary is to provide explanations of terms
in specialized fields which are unfamiliar to a general user.Yet in many traditional
dictionaries the definitions have been written by specialists as if for other
specialists, and as a result the definitions are often opaque and difficult for the
general user to understand.
Some British dictionaries do not include entries for the names of people and places
and other proper names. The argument for this is based on a distinction between
‘words’ and ‘facts’, by which dictionaries are about ‘words’ while encyclopedias and
other reference works are about ‘facts’. The distinction is an interesting theoretical
one but in practice there is a considerable overlap: names such as Shakespeare
and England are as much part of the language as words such as drama or
language, and belong in a large dictionary.
One of the primary aims of the Oxford Dictionary of English has been to break
down the barriers to understanding specialist vocabulary. The challenge has been,
on the one hand, to give information which is comprehensible, relevant, and
readable, suitable for the general user, while on the other hand maintaining the high
level of technical information and accuracy suitable for the more specialist user.
The Oxford Dictionary of English includes all those terms forming part of the
enduring common knowledge of English speakers, regardless of whether they are
classified as ‘words’ or ‘names’. The information given is the kind of information that
people are likely to need from a dictionary, however that information may be
traditionally classified. Both the style of definitions in the Oxford Dictionary of
English and the inclusion of additional material in separate blocks reflect this
approach.
This has been achieved in some cases, notably entries for plants and animals and
chemical substances, by separating out technical information, eg Latin names,
chemical formulae, from the rest of the definition (shown immediately after a bullet).
For examples, see balloonfish and benzopyrene.
The Oxford Dictionary of English includes more than 4,500 place-name entries,
4,000 biographical entries, and just under 3,000 other proper names. The entries
are designed to provide not just the basic facts (such as birth and death dates, full
name, and nationality), but also a brief context giving information about, for
example, a person's life and why he or she is important.
In other cases, it is achieved by giving additional explanatory information within the
definition itself, typically in a separate sentence. For examples, see curling and
cuttlebone.
As elsewhere, the purpose is to give information which is relevant and interesting,
aiming not just to define the word but also to describe and explain its context in the
real world. Additional information of this type, where it is substantial, is given in the
For a few really important encyclopedic entries - for example, countries - a fuller
treatment is given and additional information is given in a separate note (
).
form of separate note (
). For examples, see earth and Eocene.
An especially important feature of the Oxford Dictionary of English is the coverage
of animals and plants. In-depth research and a thorough review have been carried
out for animals and plants throughout the world and, as a result, a large number of
entries have been included which have never before been included in general
dictionaries. The style and presentation of these entries follow the general
principles for specialist vocabulary in the Oxford Dictionary of English: the entries
not only give the technical information, but also describe, in everyday English, the
appearance and other characteristics (of behaviour, medicinal or culinary use,
mythological significance, reason for the name, etc.) and the typical habitat and
distribution. For examples, see mesosaur, kowari and hiba.
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Where possible, the syntactic behaviour of a word is presented directly: for
example, if a verb is normally found in a particular sense followed by a certain
preposition, this is indicated before the definition, in bold. For an example, see
build (build on).
Grammar
In recent years grammar has begun to enjoy greater prominence than in previous
decades. It is once again being taught explicitly in state schools throughout Britain
and elsewhere. In addition there is a recognition that different meanings of a word
are closely associated with different lexical and syntactic patterns. The Oxford
Dictionary of English records and exemplifies the most important of these patterns
at the relevant senses of each word, thus giving guidance on language use as well
as word meaning.
In other cases, collocations which are typical of the word in use, though not
obligatory, are shown highlighted within the example sentence. For examples, see
cushy (a cushy number) and end (ended up in, end up with).
Great efforts have been made to use a minimum of specialist terminology.
Nevertheless, a small number of terms are essential in explaining the grammar of a
word. The less familiar terms are explained below. All terms are, of course, defined
and explained under their own entries in the dictionary.
For example, with the word bomb, it is possible to distinguish the main senses of
the verb simply on the basis of the grammar: whether the verb takes a direct object,
no direct object, or no direct object plus an obligatory adverbial:
Terms relating to nouns
CORE SENSE: attack *(a place or object)* with a bomb or bombs:
EXAMPLE: they bombed *the city* at dawn.
GRAMMAR: [with obj.]
Nouns and senses of nouns are generally categorized in this dictionary as being
either [mass noun] or [count noun]. A mass noun is one which is not ordinarily
found in the plural and is not used in the singular with the indefinite article ‘a’ (it is
normal to talk about ‘bacon’, for example, but not ‘a bacon’ or ‘three bacons’), while
a count noun is one which can be used with the indefinite article ‘a’ and can take a
plural (e.g. shirt, shirts).
(the asterisks match the direct object in the example with the bracketed item in
the definition)
CORE SENSE: Brit. informal move very quickly:
EXAMPLE: we were bombing *down the motorway* at breakneck speed.
GRAMMAR: [no obj., with adverbial of direction]
(asterisks show adverbial in example)
For examples of mass nouns, see bacon, badminton and banking. By default all
nouns in this dictionary are to be regarded as count nouns unless stated otherwise.
The label [count noun] is used to mark those nouns and senses of nouns which
can take a plural where this is in contrast with an already stated mass noun. For
examples, compare the core sense and subsenses at ballet and brokerage.
CORE SENSE:informal (of a film, play, or other event) fail badly:
EXAMPLE: it just became another big-budget film that bombed.
GRAMMAR: [no obj.]
However, there are particular groups of mass noun that can take a plural form in
certain circumstances, for instance when referring to different types of something
such as food (as in the panel tasted a range of cheeses). For reasons of space,
such uses are recorded in the Oxford Dictionary of English only when they are
particularly important. Some categories of mass noun that can take a plural
(although this may not be explicitly stated in the dictionary) are given below. The
Oxford Dictionary of English is the official dictionary of the television word game
Countdown, and the following list may be helpful for people who enjoy the
programme:
This has particular relevance for a dictionary such as the Oxford Dictionary of
English, where the aim is to present information in such a way that it helps to
explain the structure of the language itself, not just the meanings of individual
senses. For this reason, special attention has been paid to the grammar of each
word, and grammatical structures are given explicitly.
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1 Types or varieties of:
Other terms relating to nouns
• food and drink, e.g. yogurt/yogurts, pasta/pastas, rum/rums.
• plants: e.g. clover/clovers, barley/barleys.
[as modifier]: used to mark a noun which can be placed before another noun in
order to modify its meaning. For examples see boom and bedside.
[treated as sing.]: used to mark a noun which is plural in form but is used with a
singular verb, e.g.‘mumps’ in mumps is one of the major childhood diseases or
‘genetics’ in genetics has played a major role in this work.
• fabric: e.g. gingham/ginghams, silk/silks.
• certain languages or subjects: e.g. English/Englishes, music/musics.
• metals and alloys: e.g. steel/steels, solder/solders.
• rocks: e.g. granite/granites, lava/lavas, clay/clays.
• chemical compounds: e.g. fluoride/fluorides, hydride/hydrides.
[treated as sing. or pl.]: used to mark a noun which can be used with either a
singular or a plural verb without any change in meaning or in the form of the
headword (often called collective nouns, because they typically denote groups of
people considered collectively), e.g. the government are committed to this policy or
the government is trying to gag its critics.
• other substances or materials: e.g. rind/rinds, soil/soils, sealskin/sealskins,
suncream/suncream.
[in sing.]: used to mark a noun which is used as a count noun but is never or rarely
found in the plural, e.g. ear in an ear for rhythm and melody.
2 Portions or units of something, especially food and drink: e.g. lager (glasses/
bottles of lager = lagers), paella (portions of paella = paellas).
3 Shades of colours: e.g. pink/pinks, scarlet/scarlets, grey/greys.
Terms relating to verbs
4 An instance of:
[with obj.]: used to mark a verb which takes a direct object, i.e. is transitive (the
type of direct object being shown in brackets in the definition). For example, see
belabour.
• an action or process: e.g. completion (an instance of completing a property
sale = completions), genocide (act of genocide = genocides), lambing (an act
of lambing = lambings).
[no obj.]: used to mark a verb which takes no direct object, i.e. is intransitive. For
example, see bristle.
• a surgical operation: e.g. circumcision/circumcisions.
[with adverbial]: used to mark a verb which takes an obligatory adverbial, typically
a prepositional phrase, without which the sentence in which the verb occurs would
sound unnatural or odd, e.g. barge into under barge.
• an emotion, pain, or feeling: e.g. backache/backaches, grief (an instance or
cause of grief = griefs).
5 An area of land of a specified type: e.g. bogland/boglands, terrain/terrains.
Terms relating to adjectives
[attrib.]: used to mark an adjective which is normally used attributively, i.e. comes
before the noun which it modifies, e.g. certain in a certain man (not the man is
certain, which means something very different). Note that attributive use is
standard for many adjectives, especially those in specialist or technical fields: the
[attrib.] label is not used in such cases.
[predic.]: used to mark an adjective which is normally used predicatively, i.e. comes
after the verb, e.g. ajar in the door was ajar (not the ajar door).
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[postpositive]: used to mark an adjective which is used postpositively, i.e. it
typically comes immediately after the noun which it modifies. Such uses are
unusual in English and generally arise because the adjective has been adopted
from a language where postpositive use is standard, e.g. galore in there were
prizes galore for everything.
Programme (see below). By using concordancing techniques, each word can be
viewed almost instantaneously in the immediate contexts in which it is used.
Whereas compilers of previous dictionaries were able to base their work on only a
limited selection of citations, lexicographers on the Oxford Dictionary of English
analysed hundreds of real examples of each word to see how real language
behaves today.
Terms relating to adverbs
Concordances show at a glance that some combinations of words (called
‘collocations’) occur together much more often than others. For example,
concordance entries might show that ‘end in’, ‘end the’, and ‘end up’ all occur quite
often. But are any of these combinations important enough to be given special
treatment in the dictionary?
[sentence adverb]: used to mark an adverb which stands outside a sentence or
clause, providing commentary on it as a whole or showing the speaker’s or writer’s
attitude to what is being said, rather than the manner in which something was done.
Sentence adverbs most frequently express the speaker's or writer's point of view,
although they may also be used to set a context by stating a field of reference, e.g.
certainly.
Recent research has focused on identifying combinations that are not merely
frequent but also statistically significant. In the Oxford English Corpus, the two
words ‘end the’ occur very frequently together but they do not form a statistically
significant unit, since the word ‘the’ is the commonest in the language. The
combinations end up and end in, on the other hand, are shown to be more
significant and tell the lexicographer something about the way the verb end
behaves in normal use. Of course, a dictionary for general use cannot go into
detailed statistical analysis of word combinations, but it can present examples that
are typical of normal usage. In the Oxford Dictionary of English particularly
significant or important patterns are highlighted, in bold, e.g. end in, end up under
end.
[as submodifier]: used to mark an adverb which is used to modify an adjective or
another adverb, e.g. comparatively.
Evidence and Illustrative Examples
The information presented in the dictionary about individual words is based on
close analysis of how words behave in real, natural language. Behind every
dictionary entry are examples of the word in use - often hundreds and thousands of
them - which have been analysed to give information about typical usage, about
distribution (whether typically British or typically US, for example), about register
(whether informal or derogatory, for example), about currency (whether archaic or
dated, for example), and about subject field (whether used only in Medicine,
Finance, Chemistry, or Sport, for example).
For further details, see the section on Grammar.
2. Oxford Reading Programme
1. Oxford English Corpus
The citation database created by the Oxford Reading Programme is an ongoing
research project in which readers around the world select citations from a huge
variety of specialist and non-specialist sources in all varieties of English. This
database currently stands at around 77 million words and is growing at a rate of 7
million words a year.
The Oxford Dictionary of English was compiled using the Oxford English Corpus,
and new material added to this second edition has been derived from this source.
The Oxford English Corpus is the name for the Oxford University Press holdings of
language databases amounting to hundreds of million words of written and spoken
English in machine-readable form, available for computational analysis. Among
these language resources are the British National Corpus (100 million words), a
new corpus of comparable size, and the database of the Oxford Reading
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3. Specialist reading
Word Histories
A general corpus does not, by definition, contain large quantities of specialized
terminology. For this reason, a directed reading programme was set up specially
for the Oxford Dictionary of English, enabling additional research and collection of
citations in a number of neglected fields, for example food and cooking, health and
fitness, boats and sailing, photography, genetics, martial arts, and complementary
medicine.
The etymologies in standard dictionaries explain the language from which a word
was brought into English, the period at which it is first recorded in English, and the
development of modern word forms. While the Oxford Dictionary of English does
this, it also goes further. It explains sense development as well as morphological (or
form) development. Information is presented clearly and with a minimum of
technical terminology, and the perspective taken is that of the general user who
would like to know about word origins but who is not a philological specialist. In this
context, the history of how and why a particular meaning developed from an
apparently quite different older meaning is likely to be at least as interesting as, for
example, what the original form was in Latin or Greek.
4. Examples
The Oxford Dictionary of English contains many more examples of words in use
than any other comparable dictionary. Generally, they are there to show typical uses
of the word or sense. All examples are authentic, in that they represent actual
usage. In the past, dictionaries have used made-up examples, partly because not
enough authentic text was available and partly through an assumption that invented
examples were somehow better in that they could be tailored to the precise needs
of the dictionary entry. Such a view finds little favour today, and it is now generally
recognized that the ‘naturalness’ provided by authentic examples is of the utmost
importance in providing an accurate picture of language in use.
For example, the word history for the word oaf shows how the present meaning
developed from the meaning ‘elf’, while the entry for conker shows how the word
may be related both to ‘conch’ and ‘conquer’ (explaining how the original game of
conkers was played with snail shells rather than the nut of the horse chestnut).
Additional special features of the Oxford Dictionary of English include ‘internal
etymologies’ and ‘folk etymologies’. Internal etymologies are given within entries to
explain the origin of particular senses, phrases, or idioms. For example, how did the
figurative use of red herring come about? Why do we call something a flash in the
pan? See the internal etymologies under red herring and flash.
The Oxford Dictionary of English presents the information in a straightforward,
user-friendly fashion immediately following the relevant definition.
In a similar vein, folk etymologies - those explanations which are unfounded but
nevertheless well known to many people - have traditionally simply been ignored in
dictionaries. The Oxford Dictionary of English gives an account of widely held but
often erroneous folk etymologies for the benefit of the general user, explaining
competing theories and assessing their relative merits where applicable. See the
folk etymologies at posh and snob.
Researching word histories is similar in some respects to archaeology: the
evidence is often partial or not there at all, and etymologists must make informed
decisions using the evidence available, however inadequate it may be. From time to
time new evidence becomes available, and the known history of a word may need
to be reconsidered. In this, the Oxford Dictionary of English has been able to draw
on the extensive expertise and ongoing research of the Oxford English Dictionary.
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This is not to imply that the issues are straightforward or that there are simple
solutions, however. Much of the debate about use of language is highly political and
controversy is, occasionally, inevitable. Changing social attitudes have stigmatized
long-established uses such as the word ‘man’ to denote the human race in general,
for example, and have highlighted the absence of a gender-neutral singular
pronoun meaning both ‘he’ and ‘she’ (for which purpose ‘they’ is increasingly being
used). Similarly, words such as ‘race’ and ‘native’ are now associated with particular
problems of sensitivity in use, and the ways that disability is referred to have come
under close examination. The usage notes in the Oxford Dictionary of English offer
information and practical advice on such issues. For examples, see man, native
and disabled.
Usage Notes (
)
Interest in questions of good usage is widespread among English speakers
everywhere, and many issues are hotly debated. In the Oxford Dictionary of
English, traditional issues have been reappraised, and guidance is given on various
points, old and new. The aim is to help people to use the language more
accurately, more clearly, and more elegantly, and to give information and offer
reassurance in the face of some of the more baffling assertions about ‘correctness’
that are sometimes made.
This reappraisal has involved looking carefully at evidence of actual usage (in the
Oxford English Corpus, the citations collected by the Oxford Reading Programme,
and other sources) in order to find out where mistakes are actually being made,
and where confusion and ambiguity actually arise. The issues on which journalists
and others tend to comment have been reassessed and a judgement made about
whether their comments are justified.
Standard English
Unless otherwise stated, the words and senses recorded in this dictionary are all
part of standard English; that is, they are in normal use in both speech and writing
everywhere in the world, at many different levels of formality, ranging from official
documents to casual conversation. Some words, however, are appropriate only in
particular contexts, and these are labelled accordingly. The technical term for a
particular level of use in language is register.
From the 15th century onwards, traditionalists have been objecting to particular
senses of certain English words and phrases, for example ‘aggravate’, ‘due to’, and
‘hopefully’. Certain grammatical structures, too, have been singled out for adverse
comment, notably the split infinitive and the use of a preposition at the end of a
clause. Some of these objections are founded on very dubious arguments, for
example the notion that English grammatical structures should precisely parallel
those of Latin or that meaning change of any kind is inherently suspect. For
examples of notes on such issues, see preposition, due and aggravate.
The Oxford Dictionary of English uses the following register labels:
formal:
normally used only in writing, in contexts such as official documents.
informal:
normally used only in contexts such as conversations or letters
among friends.
The usage notes in the Oxford Dictionary of English take the view that English is
English, not Latin, and that English is, like all languages, subject to change. Good
usage is usage that gets the writer's message across, not usage that conforms to
some arbitrary rules that fly in the face of historical fact or current evidence. The
editors of the Oxford Dictionary of English are well aware that the prescriptions of
pundits in the past have had remarkably little practical effect on the way the
language is actually used. A good dictionary reports the language as it is, not as
the editors (or anyone else) would wish it to be, and the usage notes must give
guidance that accords with observed facts about present-day usage.
dated:
no longer used by the majority of English speakers, but still
encountered occasionally, especially among the older generation.
archaic:
very old-fashioned language, not in ordinary use at all today, but
sometimes used to give a deliberately old-fashioned effect or found
in works of the past that are still widely read.
historical:
still used today, but only to refer to some practice or artefact that is
no longer part of the modern world, e.g. baldric and almoner.
literary:
found only or mainly in literature written in an ‘elevated' style.
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technical:
normally used only in technical and specialist language, though not
necessarily restricted to any specific subject field.
The scope of a dictionary such as the Oxford Dictionary of English, given the
breadth of material it aims to cover, must be limited in the main to the vocabulary of
the standard language throughout the world rather than local dialectal variation.
Nevertheless, the Oxford Dictionary of English includes thousands of regionalisms
encountered in standard contexts in the different English-speaking areas of the
world. For examples, see bakkie, larrikin, ale, history-sheeter, sufferation.
rare:
not in normal use.
humorous: used with the intention of sounding funny or playful.
dialect:
not used in the standard language, but still widely used in certain
local regions of the English-speaking world. A distinction is made
between traditional dialect, which is generally to do with rural society
and agricultural practices which have mostly died out, and
contemporary dialect, where speakers may not even be aware that
the term is in fact a regionalism. The Oxford Dictionary of English
aims to include the main contemporary dialect terms, but does not
set out to record traditional dialect.
The underlying approach has been to get away from the traditional, parochial
notion that ‘correct’ English is spoken only in England and more particularly only in
Oxford or London. A network of consultants in all parts of the English-speaking
world has assisted in this by giving information and answering queries - by email,
on a regular, often daily basis - on all aspects of the language in a particular region.
Often, the aim has been to find out whether a particular word, sense, or expression,
well known and standard in British English, is used anywhere else. The picture that
emerges is one of complex interactions among an overlapping set of regional
standards.
offensive:
language that is likely to cause offence, particularly racial offence,
whether the speaker intends it or not.
derogatory: language intended to convey a low opinion or cause personal
The vast majority of words and senses in the Oxford Dictionary of English are
common to all the major regional standard varieties of English, but where important
local differences exist, the Oxford Dictionary of English records them. There are
more than 14,000 geographical labels on words and senses in this dictionary, but
this contrasts with more than ten times that number which are not labelled at all.
offence.
euphemistic: mild or indirect language used to avoid making direct reference to
something unpleasant or taboo.
vulgar slang: informal language that may cause offence, often because it refers to
the bodily functions of sexual activity or excretion, which are still
widely regarded as taboo.
The complexity of the overall picture has necessarily been simplified, principally for
reasons of space and clarity of presentation. For example, a label such as ‘chiefly
Brit.’ implies but does not state that a term is not standard in American English,
though it may nevertheless be found in some local varieties in the US. In addition,
the label ‘US’ implies that the use is typically US (and probably originated in the
US) and is not standard in British English, but it might be found in other varieties
such as Australian or South African English. The label ‘Brit.’, on the other hand,
implies that the use is found typically in standard British English but is not found in
standard American English, though it may be found elsewhere.
World English
English is spoken as a first language by more than 300 million people throughout
the world, and used as a second language by many millions more. It is the
language of international communication in trade, diplomacy, sport, science,
technology, and countless other fields.
The main regional standards are British, US and Canadian, Australian and New
Zealand, South African, Indian, West Indian, and SE Asian. Within each of these
regional varieties, a number of highly differentiated local dialects may be found. For
example, within British English, Scottish and Irish English have a long history and a
number of distinctive features, which have in turn influenced particular North
American and other varieties.
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Spelling
-ise or ize?
It is often said that English spelling is both irregular and illogical, and it is certainly
true that it is only indirectly related to contemporary pronunciation. English spelling
reflects not modern pronunciation but the pronunciation of the 14th century, as
used by Chaucer. This traditional spelling was reinforced in the 16th and 17th
centuries, in particular through the influence of the works of Shakespeare and the
Authorized Version of the Bible. However, in the two centuries between Chaucer
and Shakespeare English pronunciation had undergone huge changes, but spelling
had failed to follow.
Many verbs end with the suffix –ize or ise. The form –ize has been in use in
English since the 16th century, and, despite what some people think, is not an
Americanism. The alternative form –ise is found more commonly in British than in
American English. For most verbs of this class either –ize or –ise is acceptable; this
dictionary has used –ize spellings, with –ise given as an equally correct, alternative
spelling. For some words, however, -ise is obligatory: first, where it forms part of a
larger word element, such as –mise (= sending) in compromise, and –prise (=
taking) in surprise; and second, in verbs corresponding to nouns with –s- in the
stem, such as advertise and televise.
In the 18th century, standard spelling became almost completely fixed. The
dictionaries written in this period, particularly Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the
English Language (1755), helped establish this national standard, which, with only
minor change and variation, is the standard accepted in English today. The complex
history of the English language, together with the absence of any ruling body
imposing ‘spelling reform’, has ensured that many idiosyncrasies and anomalies in
standard spelling have not only arisen but have also been preserved.
Hyphenation
Although standard spelling in English is fixed, the use of hyphenation is not. In
standard English a few general rules are followed, and these are outlined below.
Hyphenation of noun compounds: There is no hard-and-fast rule saying whether,
for example, airstream, air stream, or air-stream is correct. All forms are found in
use: all are recorded in the Oxford English Corpus and other standard texts.
However, there is a broad tendency to avoid hyphenation for noun compounds in
modern English (except when used to show grammatical function: see below). Thus
there is, for example, a preference for airstream rather than air-stream and for air
raid rather than air-raid. Although this is a tendency in both British and US English
there is an additional preference in US English for the form to be one word and in
British English for the form to be two words, e.g. buck tooth tends to be the
commonest form in British English, while bucktooth tends to be the commonest
form in US English. To save space and avoid confusion, only one of the three
potential forms of each noun compound (the standard British one) is used as the
headword form in the Oxford Dictionary of English. This does not, however, imply
that other forms are incorrect or not used.
The Oxford Dictionary of English gives advice and information on spelling,
particularly those cases which are irregular or which otherwise cause difficulty for
native speakers. The main categories are summarized below.
Variant spellings
The main form of each word given in the Oxford Dictionary of English is always the
standard British spelling. If there is a standard variant, e.g. a standard US spelling
variant, this is indicated at the top of the entry and is cross-referred if its alphabeti-
cal position is more than three entries distant from the main entry. For examples,
compare filo/phyllo and aluminium/aluminum.
Other variants, such as archaic, old-fashioned, or informal spellings, are cross-
referred to the main entry, but are not themselves listed at the parent entry. For
example, compare Esquimau/Eskimo.
Grammatical function: Hyphens are also used to perform certain grammatical
functions. When a noun compound made up of two separate words (e.g. credit
card) is placed before another noun and used to modify it, the general rule is that
the noun compound becomes hyphenated, e.g. I used my credit card but credit-card
debt. This sort of regular alternation is seen in example sentences in the Oxford
Dictionary of English but is not otherwise explicitly mentioned in the dictionary
entries.
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A similar alternation is found in compound adjectives such as well intentioned.
When used predicatively (i.e. after the verb), such adjectives are unhyphenated, but
when used attributively (i.e. before the noun), they are hyphenated: his remarks
were well intentioned but a well-intentioned remark.
Verbs
The following forms are regarded as regular and are therefore not shown in the
dictionary:
• third person singular present forms adding -s to the stem (or -es to stems ending
A general rule governing verb compounds means that, where a noun compound is
two words (e.g. beta test), any verb derived from it is normally hyphenated (to
beta-test: the system was beta-tested). Similarly, verbal nouns and adjectives are
more often hyphenated than ordinary noun or adjective compounds (e.g. glass-
making, nation-building).
in -s, -x, -z, -sh, or soft -ch), e.g. find
• past tenses and past participles dropping a final silent e and adding -ed to the
stem, e.g. change changed or dance danced
• present participles dropping a final silent e and adding -ing to the stem, e.g.
change changing or dance dancing
→
finds or change
→
changes
→
→
→
→
Phrasal verbs such as ‘take off’, ‘take over’, and ‘set up’ are not hyphenated, but
nouns formed from phrasal verbs are hyphenated, or, increasingly, written as one
word: the plane accelerated for take-off; a hostile takeover; he didn’t die, it was a
set-up. There is an increasing tendency to hyphenate the verb form as well (food
available to take-away) but this is not good writing style and should be avoided.
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• verbs which inflect by doubling a consonant, e.g. bat
→
batting, batted
tries, tried
• verbs in which past tense and past participle do not follow the regular -ed
pattern, e.g. feel past and past participle felt; awake past awoke; past
participle awoken
• present participles which add -ing but retain a final e (in order to make clear that
• verbs ending in -y which inflect by changing -y to -i, e.g. try
→
Inflection
→
→
Compared with other European languages, English has comparatively few
inflections, and those that exist are remarkably regular. We add an -s to most nouns
to make a plural; we add -ed to most verbs to make a past tense or a past
participle, and -ing to make a present participle.
the pronunciation of g remains soft), e.g. singe
→
singeing
Nouns
Occasionally, a difficulty arises: for example, a single consonant after a short
stressed vowel is doubled before adding -ed or -ing (hum, hums, humming,
hummed). In addition, words borrowed from other languages generally bring their
foreign inflections with them, causing problems for English speakers who are not
proficient in those languages.
Plurals formed by adding -s (or -es when they end in -s, -x, -z, -sh, or soft -ch) are
regarded as regular and are not shown.
Other plural forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• nouns ending in -i or -o, e.g. agouti
• nouns ending in -a, -um, or -us which are or appear to be Latinate forms, e.g.
alumna alumnae; spectrum spectra; alveolus alveoli
• nouns ending in -y, e.g. fly flies
• nouns with more than one plural form, e.g. storey
• nouns with plurals showing a change in the stem, e.g. foot
• nouns with plurals unchanged from the singular form, e.g. sheep
→
agoutis; albino
→
albinos
In all such cases, guidance is given in the Oxford Dictionary of English. The main
areas covered are outlined below.
→
→
→
→
→
storeys or stories
feet
→
→
sheep
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Adjectives
The Oxford Dictionary of English uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to
represent the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England
(sometimes called Received Pronunciation or RP). The transcriptions reflect
pronunciation as it actually is in modern English, unlike some longer-established
systems, which reflect the standard pronunciation of broadcasters and public
schools in the 1930s. It is recognized that, although the English of southern
England is the pronunciation given, many variations are heard in standard speech
in other parts of the English-speaking world.
The following forms for comparative and superlative are regarded as regular and
are not shown in the dictionary:
• words of one syllable adding -er and -est, e.g. great
• words of one syllable ending in silent e, which drop the -e and add -er and -est,
e.g. brave braver, bravest
→
greater, greatest
→
• words which form the comparative and superlative by adding ‘more’ and ‘most’
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
The symbols used for English words, with their values, are given below. In multi-
syllable words the symbol ' is used to show that the following syllable is stressed
• adjectives which form the comparative and superlative by doubling a final
(as in k@"bal); the symbol indicates a secondary stress (as in %kal@"bri;s).
%
consonant, e.g. hot
• two-syllable adjectives which form the comparative and superlative with -er and -
est (typically adjectives ending in -y and their negative forms), e.g. happy
→
hotter, hottest
Consonants: b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, and z have their usual English
values. Other symbols are used as follows:
→
happier, happiest; unhappy
→
unhappier, unhappiest
g
get
chip
jar
x
N
T
loch
ring
thin
D
S
this
j
yes
Pronunciations
Í
she
Generally speaking, native speakers of English do not need information about the
pronunciation for ordinary, everyday words such as bake, baby, beach, bewilder,
boastful, or budget. For this reason, no pronunciations are given for such words
(or their compounds and derivatives) in the Oxford Dictionary of English. Words
such as baba ganoush, baccalaureate, beatific, bijouterie, bucolic, and
buddleia, on the other hand, are less familiar and may give problems. Similarly,
difficulties are often encountered in pronouncing names of people and places,
especially foreign ones, such as Chechnya, Kieslowski, and Althusser.
Ù
Z
decision
Vowels
short vowels
long vowels
indicates length)
diphthongs
triphthongs
(
;
a
E
@
I
cat
A; arm
E; hair
@; her
i; see
O; saw
u; too
VI my
VI@ fire
bed
ago
sit
aU how
eI day
@U no
aU@ sour
In the Oxford Dictionary of English, the principle followed is that pronunciations are
given where they are likely to cause problems for the native speaker of English, in
particular for foreign words, foreign names, scientific and other specialist terms,
rare words, words with unusual stress patterns, and words where there are
alternative pronunciations or where there is a dispute about the standard
pronunciation.
i
cosy
hot
run
put
I@ near
OI boy
U@ poor
Q
V
U
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(
@
) before /l/, /m/, or /n/ indicates that the syllable may be realized with a syllabic l,
m, or n, rather than with a vowel and consonant, e.g. /"bVt / rather than /"bVt@n/.
) indicates an r that is sometimes sounded when a vowel follows, as in drawer,
cha-chaing.
G
F
Û
R
r
(Spanish)
(Italian)
Burgos
(
@)n
Cagliari
(
r
(Hungarian)
French ‘r’
Magyarország
Anvers, Arles
all other values of ‘r’ in
other featured languages.
(German) Braunschweig
(Italian) Alberti
Foreign pronunciations
(Russian) Grozny
(Spanish) Algeciras, zarzuela
Foreign words and phrases, whether naturalized or not, are always given an
anglicized pronunciation. The anglicized pronunciation represents the normal
pronunciation used by native speakers of standard English (who may not be
speakers of other languages) when using the word in an English context. A foreign
pronunciation is also given for words taken from other languages (principally
French, Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish) where this is appreciably
different from the anglicized form and where the other language is familiar to a
reasonable number of English speakers.
Vowels
Short vowels
long vowels
(
;
indicates length)
6
A
e
(German)
(Dutch)
Abitur
a; (Dutch)
Den Haag
Aachen
(German)
Nederland
Where the native form of a foreign place name is given in addition to the anglicized
form, only the foreign pronunciation of this form is given.
(French)
(Italian)
abbé
Croce
Albacete
e; (German) Wehrmacht
(Dutch)
(Irish)
Nederland
Gaeltacht
Foreign-language transcriptions are based on current national standards. Regional
variations have not been given, except in the case of Spanish transcriptions, where
both Castilian and American Spanish variants are given (if distinct). Transcriptions
are broad, and many symbols, identical to those used for transcribing English, have
similar values to those of RP. In a few cases, where there is no English equivalent
to a foreign sound, a symbol has been added to the inventory. The additional
symbols used to represent foreign pronunciations are given on the right.
(Spanish)
o
O
(French)
(Italian)
(Spanish)
auberge
Palio
Cortes
o; (German) verboten
(Hungarian) Brassó
(French)
(German)
(Greek)
Bonnard
durchkomponiert
Dhílos
(Hungarian) Brassó
Consonants
(Italian)
(French)
(French)
Borgia
C
(German)
Ehrlich, gemütlich
9
{
Pasteur
Montreux
J
(French)
Monseigneur, Auvergne, Daubigny
Emilia-Romagna
Minho
{; (German) Gasthöfe
(Italian)
(Portuguese)
(Spanish)
u
(French)
(Italian)
(Spanish)
Anjou
Duccio
Asunción
España, Buñuel
B
(Spanish)
Bilbao
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y
Y
j
(French)
cru
y; (German) gemütlich
New Oxford Thesaurus of English
Introduction
(German)
München
(Irish)
Dáil
(Russian)
Arkhangelsk
The New Oxford Thesaurus of English (NOTE) has been compiled using new
evidence in new ways, in order to create an original work of reference that will be
most useful to a wide range of users for many different purposes. It is an indepen-
dent work of reference in its own right, but may also be viewed as a companion title
to the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE). Where ODE presented a new, more
accurate picture of the language than had previously been possible, NOTE
elaborates the theme, with lists of words grouped together according to their
similarity in meaning and checked against the evidence for actual usage, as found
in the British National Corpus and the database of the Oxford Reading Programme.
It is an essential companion for anyone who wants to expand their vocabulary and
improve their creative writing skills, and for aficionados of word games.
>
(French)
Horta
nasalized vowels
indicates nasality)
diphthongs
(
~
a~ pincette
aI (German) Gleichschaltung
used for anglicized
French pronunciations
}
Q~ cordon bleu
A~ (French)
Danton, Lac Leman
Amiens, Rodin
Verdun
E~
(French)
9~ (French)
(French)
The word thesaurus comes from a Greek word meaning 'treasure house'. All
thesauruses contain lists of words that are linked by having a similar meaning, but
this thesaurus goes much further: it also contains antonyms (words with opposite
meanings), related terms, noun lists, detailed studies of closely related synonyms,
advice on confusable words, and other features. A common everyday use for a
thesaurus is as an aid in solving crossword puzzles, and such users will find that
the coverage in this title is fuller and more focused than most. But this is by no
means the only function of an alphabetical thesaurus. Some people will use this
title to look up a familiar word, in order to find a less familiar word which may be on
the tip of their tongue. Others will use it for guidance in choosing le mot juste, to
help improve the communicative power and accuracy of their writing, in an essay or
report for example. Whatever the purpose, the user can be assured of finding a rich
and varied selection of words with similar meaning, a selection that has been
systematically enhanced by computerized checking and cross-checking.
O~
arrondissement
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source of encyclopedic information on subjects as diverse as marsupials and
military leaders.
Selection of entries
The primary purpose of the thesaurus is to give lists of synonyms for the common
everyday words of English: words with roughly the same meaning as the entry word
or 'headword'. Not every word has synonyms. Some words, especially terms
denoting kinds of animals, plants, and physical objects, have no synonyms, so they
do not get entries in a thesaurus. The user will look in vain for synonyms of gerbil
and geranium. There is an entry for squirrel, but it is not there for the noun denoting
the animal, which has no synonym. The entry is there in order to give synonyms for
the phrasal verb squirrel something away, and as a reference point for a table
Homonyms
Homonyms are words that are written the same but which have completely different
and unrelated meanings. For example, the bark of a dog is a completely different
word from the bark of a tree. There are three different words spelled bay, and four
spelled sound. Some words that are written with the same spelling are pronounced
differently. In such cases, a note on pronunciation is given, either by giving a word
that rhymes with the headword, e.g.
(
) of different kinds of squirrels and related rodents.
wind1 (rhymes with 'tinned') noun
The words selected as entries are general words that non-specialists are likely to
want to look up. It is the job of a dictionary, not a thesaurus, to explain the
meanings of unusual words, such as supererogatory, so such words do not get an
alphabetical entry here. However, supererogatory is given as a synonym at entries
for the more familiar words inessential, needless, and unnecessary. A thesaurus
can thus lead the user from the familiar to the unfamiliar, improving his or her word
power.
wind2 (rhymes with 'mind') verb
or by stating where the stress falls, e.g.
defect1 (stress on first syllable) noun
defect2 (stress on second syllable) verb
Synonyms
It is sometimes argued that no two words have exactly the same meaning. Even
words as similar in meaning as close and shut may have slightly different nuances.
Closing a shop implies that the shop is no longer open for business, so no one can
come in. On the other hand, shutting a shop implies that the shop is being made
secure, so nothing can be taken out. A similar distinction is found between strong
and powerful: powerful enemies may threaten from outside, but a strong defence on
the inside will deter them from attacking. However, these are unusually subtle
distinctions. For most practical purposes, close and shut have the same meaning,
as do strong and powerful. Other synonyms are more distant, or emphasize
different aspects of the meaning. For example, another close synonym of strong is
muscular, but it places much more emphasis on physical strength. By contrast,
stalwart and staunch are synonyms that emphasize more abstract aspects of this
meaning of strong. Forceful, secure, durable, loud, intense, bright, and alcoholic are
other close synonyms of strong, but all in quite different senses. They are not, of
course, synonyms of each other.
Tables (A table is displayed as a
A special feature of the New Oxford Thesaurus of English is its 480 tables (
which are included throughout to give additional information relevant to particular
headwords. They range from lists of different breeds or kinds of animals, birds, and
plants to lists of famous artists, architects, and scientists. For example, at the entry
for actor/actress there is a selection of synonyms for the words themselves,
together with a comprehensive list of well-known actors and actresses of both
stage and screen.
in this model.)
),
Certain headwords are included despite the fact that they have no synonyms, in
order to direct the user to a table (
). For example, at the entry for volcano
the user will find no synonyms but instead a pointer to a list of major volcanoes,
together with their location and the date of their most recent eruption. Tables
(
) covering the essential vocabulary of such fields as art, economics,
computing, and cricket are also included. The provision of these tables (
makes this thesaurus an invaluable aid to crossword-solving and a fascinating
)
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In this title, the broadest possible definition of the term 'synonym' has been
adopted, as being the one that will be most useful to users. Even words whose
meaning is quite distantly related to that of the headword are listed if they can be
used to get the same message across in appropriate contexts. Synonyms are not
restricted to single words, and some expressions can be quite colourful: for
example, the synonyms for tinker include not only fiddle (with) and try to mend, but
also rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Illustrative examples
Almost every synonym set in NOTE is illustrated with a carefully chosen example of
the word in use in the relevant sense. These are authentic examples of natural
usage taken from the British National Corpus and the files of the Oxford Reading
Programme (see Linguistic evidence below). They have occasionally been lightly
edited to make the sense more apparent or to eliminate digressions. The examples
can therefore be trusted for guidance on using unfamiliar words in an idiomatic way.
The synonyms in each entry are grouped together in synonym sets. Major synonym
sets correspond roughly to different senses of a word in a dictionary. Each major
synonym set is numbered, and many have more delicate subdivisions, which are
separated by semicolons. At the start of almost every synonym set is a 'core
synonym': the term which is closest in meaning to the headword in that particular
sense. Core synonyms are displayed in BOLD CAPITALS. Only a very few words
have no core synonym. Some synonym sets have more than one core synonym; for
example at avant-garde (adjective), both innovative and advanced are very close in
meaning to the headword, so both are given as core synonyms. Two different core
synonyms within the same sense group may emphasize slightly different aspects of
the meaning of the headword. For example, at dutiful, the first core synonym given
is conscientious, followed by a group of words closely related to this aspect of its
meaning. Then, after a semicolon, a second core synonym, obedient, is given, with
a further group of synonyms grouped around that aspect of the meaning.
Where part of an example is displayed in bold type, this indicates that some or all
of the synonyms can be substituted for that particular phrase, not just for the
headword alone. Thus at attached, the example given is:
she was very attached to her brother.
In this case the synonyms are all equivalent to attached to:
FOND OF, devoted to, full of regard for, full of admiration for; affectionate
towards, tender towards, caring towards; <informal> mad about, crazy
about, nuts about.
In the entry for impute, the example given is:
he imputes selfish views to me.
This is followed by the synonym set:
ATTRIBUTE, ascribe, assign, credit, accredit, chalk up; connect with,
Synonyms whose usage is restricted in some way, for example regionalisms or very
formal or informal words, are placed at the end of each major synonym set and
labelled accordingly. See Register below.
associate with, lay on, lay at the door of; <informal> pin on, stick on.
The synonyms up to the first semicolon are synonyms for impute, and those after it
are synonyms for impute to.
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Linguistic evidence
Register: standard vs informal and regional English
The compilers of NOTE have had access to two major linguistic resources, the
British National Corpus and the files of the Oxford Reading Programme. The British
National Corpus is a body of 100 million words of English books, newspapers, and
transcribed speech in machine-readable form, used for linguistic and lexicographi-
cal research. The Oxford Reading Programme is a database of citations collected
by Oxford's international network of readers, currently amounting to over 77 million
words and increasing by about 7 million words every year.
Informal usage is more prevalent than it was a few years ago. Even in quite formal
contexts, people may be heard using slang expressions, while the use of swear
words and taboo words is on the increase. Taboos generally are weakening, though
more so in Australia, where bastard is almost equivalent to British chap, and less so
in the USA, where taboos are still strong in southern States such as Texas. This
thesaurus contains a rich selection of informal and rude synonyms for more formal
expressions. Users who wish to avoid offensive words may treat the restrictive
labels as warning notices.
In both these resources, the context of every occurrence of a given word can be
viewed in a few seconds, making it possible to see more clearly than ever before
how words are actually used. This method was used not only to confirm whether a
word has senses for which there are suitable synonyms and to check the sense of
words being selected as synonyms but also to actively find synonyms which have
not previously been recorded. The British National Corpus, in particular, was also
used to obtain the sentences and phrases given as examples of usage.
Most of the synonyms given are, of course, part of standard English; that is, they
are in normal use in both speech and writing everywhere in the world, at many
different levels of formality, ranging from official documents to casual conversation.
These general synonyms are given first in each synonym set. Some words,
however, are appropriate only in particular contexts, and these are placed after the
standard expressions and labelled accordingly. The technical term for these
differences in levels of usage is 'register'. The main register labels used in this
thesaurus are the following:
Phrasal verbs and idiomatic phrases
English is full of idiomatic expressions-phrases whose meaning is more than the
sum of their parts. For example, a shot in the dark means 'a guess', while a shot in
the arm means 'a boost'. Neither of these meanings has very much to do with more
literal meanings of shot. In this thesaurus, particular care has been given to make a
full selection of idiomatic expressions and to give synonyms for them. If a word is
used as both a noun and a verb, the idiomatic expressions are listed as subentries
under the part of speech in which the word is used. Thus by the book is given under
the noun senses of book, while book in is given under the verb senses.
informal:
normally only used in contexts such as conversations or letters
between friends, e.g. swig as a synonym for drink.
vulgar slang: informal language that may cause offence, usually because it refers
to bodily functions.
formal:
normally only used in writing, in contexts such as official
documents, e.g. dwelling as a synonym for home.
technical:
normally only used in technical and specialist language, though not
necessarily restricted to any specific field, e.g. littoral as a synonym
for beach. Words used in specific fields are given appropriate
labels, e.g. medicine, Christianity.
Full coverage is also given to phrasal verbs in this thesaurus. Phrasal verbs are
expressions such as book in and turn out, consisting of a verb plus a particle. The
meaning of a phrasal verb is often very different from that of the basic verb; for
example, the meanings of take off are quite distinct from the meanings of take.
Phrasal verbs are listed as idiomatic expressions under the main verb entry.
poetic/literary: found only or mainly in poetry or in literature written in an 'elevated'
style, e.g. ambrosial as a synonym for delicious.
dated:
still used, but normally only by the older generation, e.g. measure
one's length as a synonym for fall down.
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historical:
still used today, but only to refer to some practice or article that is
no longer part of the modern world, e.g. crinoline as a synonym for
petticoat.
Opposites
Many synonym sets are followed by one or more words that have the opposite
meaning from the headword, often called 'antonyms'. There are several different
kinds of antonym. Tr ue and false are absolute antonyms, with no middle ground.
Logically, a statement is either true or false, but cannot be slightly true or rather
false. Hot and cold, on the other hand, are antonyms with gradations of meaning: it
makes perfectly good sense to say that something is rather hot or very cold, and
there are a number of words (warm, tepid, cool) which represent intermediate
stages. It makes sense to ask about something "How hot is it?" but that commits
the speaker to the notion that it is hot at least to some extent. So hot and cold are
at opposite ends of a continuum, rather than being absolutes.
humorous:
used with the intention of sounding funny or playful, e.g. termino-
logical inexactitude as a synonym for lie.
archaic:
very old-fashioned language, not in ordinary use at all today, but
sometimes used to give a deliberately old-fashioned effect or found
in works of the past that are still widely read, e.g. aliment as a
synonym for food.
rare:
not in common use, e.g. acclivitous as a synonym for steep.
World English
For many words, there is no single word that counts as an antonym, but there may
be a phrase that gets the opposite meaning across. For example, what is the
opposite of senile? There is no exact antonym, but the phrase in the prime of life
gets the opposite meaning across. In this title the broadest possible definition has
been adopted, giving the maximum amount of information to the user. In some
cases, a phrasal antonym is given for a phrasal subentry, e.g. bottle things up as an
antonym for let off steam.
It is an oft-repeated truism that English is now a world language. In this thesaurus,
particular care has been taken to include synonyms from every variety of English,
not just British, and when these are exclusively or very strongly associated with a
region of the world they are labelled as such.
The main regional standards are British (abbreviated to <Brit.>), North American
(<N. Amer.>), Australian and New Zealand (<Austral./NZ>), South African (<S.
African>), Indian (in the sense of the variety of English found throughout the
subcontinent), and West Indian (<W. Indian>). Only if the distinction is very clear is
any finer labelling used, as with beer parlour, a Canadian synonym for bar.
The antonyms given in this thesaurus are not the only possible opposites, but they
are usually the furthest in meaning from the headword. By looking up the 'opposite'
word as an entry in its own right, the user will generally find a much larger range of
antonyms to choose from. For example, at the entry for delete the user will find:
Scottish, Irish, and Northern English are varieties within the British Isles containing
distinctive vocabulary items of their own. The main synonyms found as regional
terms of this kind are listed here and labelled accordingly.
-OPPOSITE(S) add, insert.
Both add and insert are entries in their own right.
The term for something found mainly or only in a particular country or region
(although it may be mentioned in any variety of English) is identified by an
indication such as '<<in France>>'. An example is gîte (as a synonym for cottage).
Many regionally restricted terms are informal, rather than being part of the standard
language. Writers in the northern hemisphere in search of local colour may be
delighted to learn that an Australian synonym for sordid is scungy, while Australian
writers may find it equally useful to be given the equivalent terms in Britain, manky
and grotty.
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Related terms
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A special feature of NOTE is that it gives not only synonyms and opposites but also
other related terms, especially for concrete nouns such as milk (where lactic is not
a synonym, but a word with a related meaning) and town (municipal, urban, and
oppidan). There are two types of related words: the first are adjectives which
usually mean 'relating to' the headword but have a different origin (e.g. lactic for
milk) and which may therefore not spring to mind as quickly as a straightforward
derivative such as milky. The second type is typically a word very closely associated
with the headword, but with a different meaning. For example, a related word may
denote a part of the thing denoted by the headword, or it may denote a particular
form of this thing.Thus, at barrel, the related words given are cooper, stave, and
hoop - a maker of barrels, and two important components of a barrel.
Introduction
Since 1953, all updated editions of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations have built
on their predecessors, and the fifth edition is no exception to this rule. The
character of the Dictionary, responding to its users, changes with each new edition,
but without the work of earlier editors it would not have been possible to compile
what is the most comprehensive, as well as the most extensive, version of the
Dictionary.
The dictionary now runs to well over 20,000 quotations, and represents over 3,000
authors: over 2,000 quotations are completely new additions, and we have also
drawn on our other recent dictionaries, in particular the Oxford Dictionary of
Twentieth Century Quotations published in print in 1998. Certain categories of
material have, after a gap of many years, been restored: proverbs and nursery
rhymes will now be found here. (It has been clear from correspondents over the
years that many of our users expect to be able to find this material in the
Dictionary.)
Combining forms
Combining forms are given after related terms. These are very similar to the first
kind of related terms, but in the form of a prefix or suffix that is used in combination
with other elements, e.g. oeno- with the sense 'wine', as in oenology, or -vorous
with the sense 'eat', as in carnivorous.
For the first time, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives proper place to the
sacred texts of world religions. This is of course appropriate to a multicultural age,
but it has also been fascinating to see how words and phrases from these sources
are already permeating the English language. When the American physicist Robert
Oppenheimer witnessed the explosion of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in
1945, he commented, `I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the
Bhagavad Gita, "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”' We now have the
relevant verse from the Bhagavadgita: `I [Krishna] am all-powerful Time which
destroys all things.' The closing words of Eliot's The Waste Land, `Shantih, shantih,
shantih', are cross-referred to their sources, the Upanishads, with the translation:
'Peace! Peace! Peace!'
Awkward synonyms and confusables (
)
One thing a plain list of synonyms cannot do is help the user choose between them
by describing their nuances and connotations. For instance, the words blunt,
candid, forthright, frank, and outspoken are all given as synonyms of each other,
because they all have roughly the same meaning. But there are subtle differences.
This set comprises one of the 120 studies of 'Awkward Synonyms' in the New
Oxford Thesaurus of English, devoted to explaining the differences in meaning
between close synonyms. The distinctions are based on careful analysis of actual
usage as recorded in the British National Corpus, and examples of typical usage
are given, selected from the British National Corpus and the citation collection of
the Oxford Reading Programme.
In 1992, Brian Keenan's account of his time as a hostage, An Evil Cradling,
received wide publicity. It may however be less well known that the title of the book
was taken from a verse of the Koran: `You shall be...mustered into Gehenna - an
evil cradling!' The heroine of an earlier book, Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice (first
published in 1950, and subsequently twice filmed) quotes directly from the Koran:
The other type of article displayed as a note (
), 'Confusables', compares words
which may cause difficulty for the opposite reason to 'awkward synonyms': they are
usually similar in form, as are militate and mitigate, and sometimes even pronounced
the same, as are principal and principle, but are very different in meaning.
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`if ye be kind towards women and fear to wrong them, God is well acquainted with
what ye do.'
The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain
Sometimes the relationship is an echo rather than a direct borrowing. Confucius
tells us that `A ruler who governs his state by virtue is like the north polar star,
which remains in its place while all the other stars revolve around it,' and we are at
once reminded of the assertion of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: `I am constant as
the northern star.' At other times, we are made aware of a common tradition: the
12th-century rabbi Eleazar of Worms states that `The highest sacrifice is a broken
and a contrite heart,' and we recall the words of the psalm, `a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, thou shalt not despise.'
can now be found in this dictionary.
In another book now available in the World's Classics, Rider Haggard's King
Solomon's Mines, an allusion is made to the figure of `Hamilton Tighe'. The origin,
and explanation, of this reference can now be found in quotations from `The
Legend of Hamilton Tighe' by Richard Barham. The growth in popularity of audio
cassettes is another trend of which we have taken note, since through this medium
our users may well come into contact with the prose and poetry of an earlier age.
It is pleasing that in some cases we have been able to improve on the information
provided in the last edition, as for example for the quotation then attributed to
Robert Burton: `Every thing, saith Epictetus, hath two handles, the one to be held
by, the other not.' We now have an entry for the Stoic philosopher, where the
original quotation is to be found. The Dictionary can also provide the origin of what
are now established phrases in our language: `cruel and unusual punishment' and
the `the sins of the fathers' are both for the first time found here.
Oxford dictionaries draw their strength from a constant monitoring of the language,
and it is appropriate that the most up-to-date quotations in the news can be found
here, with politicians as always to the fore. Bill Clinton reflects on the relationship
that should not have occurred (`[It] was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong'), and
his wife Hillary on the nature of marriage (`the only people who count...are the two
that are in it'). George Mitchell looks forward somewhat ruefully to the peace
negotiations in Northern Ireland (`Nobody ever said it would be easy - and that was
an understatement'), and Bertie Ahern celebrates his achievement (`It is a day we
should treasure'). Tony Benn, whose entry spans 30 years, comments crisply,
`When I think of Cool Britannia, I think of old people dying of hypothermia.' Barbara
Castle gives her recipe for longevity, `I will fight for what I believe in until I drop
dead. And that's what keeps you alive.' Seamus Heaney, in his funeral address,
reflects movingly on the death of Ted Hughes: `No death outside my immediate
family has left me more bereft. No death in my lifetime has hurt poets more.'
Jeremy Paxman takes a firm line on conformity to an official line: `Speaking for
myself, if there is a message I want to be off it.'
Chronologically the Dictionary spans the ages, and it is exciting that we have been
able to enrich the dictionary with quotations from earlier centuries which bring the
speakers vividly to life. `Everybody's quick to blame the alien,' says Aeschylus, and
Plutarch comments on Cicero's ability `to see beneath the surface of Caesar's
public policy and to fear it, as one might fear the smiling surface of the sea.' The
historian Thucydides reflects that `Happiness depends on being free, and freedom
depends on being courageous.' Pliny the Elder is concerned about standards of
scholarship: `I have found that the most professedly reliable and modern writers
have copied the old authors word for word, without acknowledgement.'
New quotations are spread through the centuries. The 16th-century merchant and
writer Robert Thorne gives his view on exploration: `There is no land unhabitable,
nor sea innavigable.' Francis Bacon looks nearer home, to his garden: `Nothing is
more pleasant to the eye than green grass kept finely shorn.' William Wycherley
has a sardonic view of the law: `A man without money needs no more fear a crowd
of lawyers than a crowd of pickpockets.' Edward Gibbon, considering the Roman
penal system, gives the view that:
While it is important that we cover the up to date, the Oxford Dictionary of
Quotations should also be the source in which references in older writers likely to
be encountered today can be checked. Two books recently published in the Oxford
World's Classics editions make the point. Robert Fraser's abridgement of Fraser's
The Golden Bough, published in 1994, carried the original epigraph from
Macaulay's The Battle of Lake Regillus, and the often-quoted lines
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Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the
rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of
mankind.
Some notable figures appear for the first time. `Let no man write my epitaph,' runs
Robert Emmet's speech from the dock, and a later Irish nationalist, Eamonn de
Valera, asserts that `Whenever I wanted to know what the Irish people wanted, I
had only to examine my own heart.' The American labour activist Mary Harris
`Mother' Jones advises, `Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.' The
blind and deaf Helen Keller recalls the moment when language became a mode of
communication for her:
Some quotations signal moments of technological and cultural change. `Mr Watson,
come here, I want you!' says Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant in the next
room; the first words spoken on the telephone. Towards the end of his life Walt
Disney reflects wryly, `Fancy being remembered around the world for the invention
of a mouse!' There are some highly individual indications of personal sources of
pleasure: `There is nothing worth living for but Christian architecture and a boat',
asserts the architect Augustus Welby Pugin in 1852, while two centuries earlier the
Puritan Margaret Hoby reflects ruefully that she has spent too long in the garden
`to the detriment of spiritual exercise'. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to her
daughter, describes herself as `a rake in reading'. Some older quotations surprise
us with their topicality: the statement `I want the whole of Europe to have one
currency' is attributable not to a current Europhile but to Napoleon.
The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that
`w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing
over my hand.
It has been an object to provide users with as much access as possible to the
riches of the Dictionary, and we have thus followed the pattern set by the Oxford
Dictionary of Twentieth Century Quotations (1998) in providing a number of special
category sections integrated into the main author sequence. Advertising slogans
span a chronological range from 1859 (`Worth a guinea a box' - Beecham's pills) to
1998 (`Maybe, just maybe' - the British national lottery). Borrowed titles gives the
origins of, among others, The Golden Bough (Virgil) and Ring of Bright Water
(Kathleen Raine). Film lines make their usual strong showing, with some new
additions (`And call off Christmas!' snarls Alan Rickman in Robin Hood). Last
words range from Socrates to Timothy Leary, by way of the martyred William
Tyndale (`Lord, open the king of England's eyes'). Newspaper headlines and
leaders now include the sentence from which the Times derived its nickname of
`The Thunderer': `Unless the people...come forward and petition, ay, thunder for
reform!'
Quotations have always clustered around royal figures. `My dear firstborn is...the
greatest beast in the whole world,' says Caroline of Ansbach of her son, Frederick,
Prince of Wales. A later Prince of Wales, George, the Prince Regent, inspires Leigh
Hunt's regretful comment, `This Adonis in loveliness was a corpulent man of fifty.'
The Prince Regent (in view of his marital troubles) was looked on less kindly by
Jane Austen, who found her sympathies with Caroline of Brunswick: `Poor woman, I
shall support her as long as I can, because she is a woman and because I hate her
husband.' There are however indications of happier relationships, as when Queen
Victoria records her first meeting with her future husband: `It was with some
emotion...that I beheld Albert - who is beautiful.' It is their eldest daughter Vicky, on
her marriage to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, who inspires Bismarck's
cautious comment, `If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home and
become a Prussian, then she may be a blessing to the country.' In our own time,
the present Princess Royal comments briskly on the way in which she works for
children's charities: `The very idea that all children want to be cuddled by a
complete stranger, I find completely amazing.'
We have also improved the accessibility of information by including a selective
thematic index (Theme search function), through which can be found the best
quotations on given topics such as Age (`Although I am 92, my brain is 30 years
old', says the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt). At America (`God's crucible',
`From sea to shining sea') the Puritan John Winthrop sees the new settlement as `a
city upon a hill'; three centuries later, the Sioux leader Sitting Bull says simply, `the
Black Hills belong to me.' Diane Arbus and Robert Capa give their views on
Photography: `a secret about a secret', `if your pictures aren't good enough, you
aren't close enough'. The Press (`the men with the muck-rakes' - Theodore
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Roosevelt) have always elicited strong views (`ferocious, it forgives nothing' - Diana,
Princess of Wales), but the importance of journalism is stated, with dignity, by Amy
Goodman: `Go to where the silence is, and say something.' Views of the Present
range from Cicero (`O tempora! O mores!') to Tom Wolfe (`We are now in the Me
decade').
How to use the Dictionary
The sequence of entries is by alphabetical order of author, usually by surname but
with occasional exceptions such as members of royal families (e.g. Diana,
Princess of Wales and Elizabeth II) and Popes (John Paul II), or authors known
by a pseudonym (‘Saki’) or a nickname (Caligula). In general authors’ names are
given in the form by which they are best known, so that we have Harold Macmillan
(not Lord Stockton), George Eliot (not Mary Ann Evans), and H.G.Wells (not
Herbert George Wells). Collections such as Anonymous, the Bible, the Book of
Common Prayer, the Missal, and so forth, are included in the alphabetical
sequence. Some Anonymous quotations may be included in one of the special
category sections (see below).
As well as author descriptions, we have included biographical cross-references
(accessible using the Super Jump): directions to quotations about that author
elsewhere within the Dictionary, so that anyone consulting the entry for Richard
Crossman can also find Hugh Dalton's assessment of him: `loyal to his own career
but only incidentally to anything or anyone else'. Authors mentioned in source notes
who have their own entries appear in bold type, further to facilitate movement
sideways through the dictionary.
Author names are followed by dates of birth and death (where known) and brief
descriptions; where appropriate, cross-references ( ) are then given to quotations
about that author elsewhere in the text (on Byron: see
are also made to other entries in which the author appears, e.g.‘see also
Epitaphs’ and ‘see also Lennon and McCartney’. Within each author entry,
quotations are separated by literary form (novels, plays, poems: see further below)
and within each group arranged by order of title, ‘a’ and ‘the’ being ignored. Foreign-
language text is given for most literary quotations, or if it is felt that the quotation is
familiar in the language of origin.
In compiling this title we have as always drawn on the substantial resources of
Oxford Quotations Dictionaries: our existing published texts, and our growing bank
of new quotations. Fed by our reading programme, this is constantly enhanced by
the generosity of those who write to us with questions, comments, and suggestions,
a practice which we continue to welcome. Among those who have contributed
particularly to our resources and replied to specific questions, thanks are due to
Pauline Adams, Ralph Bates, Archie Burnett, Glynnis Chantrell, Margot Charlton,
Mike Clark, Robert Franklin, Peter Hennessy, Simon Hornblower, Antony Jay,
Richard Judd, Peter Kemp, John McNeill, Bernard O'Donoghue, Nigel Rees,
Brenda Richardson, Ned Sherrin, Robin Sawers, Hilary Spurling, and Norman
Vance. Colleagues in the Dictionary Department have, as always, supplied us with
quotations that they have come across. We hope once more that our contributors,
as well as those who use the dictionary, will share in the pleasure and interest felt
by the editorial staff in working on it.
Lamb). Cross-references
Quotations from diaries, letters, and speeches are given in chronological order and
usually follow the literary or published works quoted, with the form for which the
author is best known taking precedence. Thus in the case of political figures,
speeches appear first, just as poetry quotations precede those in prose for poets,
and poetry quotations come second for an author regarded primarily as a novelist.
Quotations from secondary sources such as biographies and other writer’s works,
to which a date in the author’s lifetime can be assigned, are arranged in sequence
with diary entries, letters and speeches. Other quotations from secondary sources
and attributed quotations which cannot be so dated are arranged in alphabetical
order of quotation text.
Elizabeth Knowles
Oxford 1999
Within the alphabetical sequence there are a number of special category entries,
such as Advertising slogans, Catchphrases, Film lines, Misquotations, and
Newspaper headlines and leaders. Quotations in these sections are arranged
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alphabetically according to the first word of the quotation (ignoring ‘a’ and ‘the’). The
special categories contained in this model are shown below:
composition (or performance) and of publication, in most cases the former only has
been given (e.g. ‘written 1725’, ‘performed 1622’).
Advertising slogans
Borrowed titles
Catchphrases
Closing lines
Epitaphs
Mottoes
Spellings have been Anglicized and modernized except in those cases, such as
Burns or Chaucer, where this would have been inappropriate; capitalization has
been retained only for personifications; with rare exceptions, verse has been
aligned with the left hand margin. Italic type has been used for all foreign-language
originals.
Newspaper headlines and leaders
Official advice
Opening lines
Political slogans and songs
Prayers
Sub-headings (shown between
braces) have been used as a guide to novel
titles under Dickens, for the names of books under the Bible (arranged canonically,
not alphabetically), and for plays and poems under Shakespeare. Anonymous
quotations are grouped by language.
Film lines
Film titles
Sayings and slogans
Songs, spirituals, and shanties
Last words
Cross-references ( ) to specific quotations are used to direct the user to another
related item. In each case a reference is given to an author’s name or to the title of
a special category entry. In some cases, the quotation may exist in two forms, or
may depend on an earlier source not quoted in its own right; when that happens,
the subordinate quotation is given directly below the quotation to which it relates.
Authors who have their own entry are typographically distinguished by the use of
bold (‘of William Shakespeare’, ‘by Mae West’) in context or source notes.
Military sayings, slogans, and songs Telegrams
Misquotations Toasts
Contextual information regarded as essential to a full appreciation of the quotation
precedes the text in an italicized note; information seen as providing useful
amplification follows in an italicized note. Each quotation is accompanied by a
bibliographical note of the source from which the quotation is taken. Titles of
published volumes (Don Juan by Byron and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)
appear in italics; titles of short stories and poems not published as volumes in their
own right, and individual song titles, are given in plain type inside inverted commas
(‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by John Keats and ‘Both Sides Now’ by Joni Mitchell).
Theme Search
A selection of quotations on designated subjects can be traced via the Theme
Search function. Simply browse the list to access a short line from each of the
quotations on the given theme.
All numbers in source references are given in arabic, with the exception of lower-
case roman numerals denoting quotations from prefatory matter, whose page
numbering is separate from the main text. The numbering itself relates to the
beginning of the quotation, whether or not it runs on to another stanza or line in the
original. Where possible, chapter numbers have been offered for prose works.
Keyword Search
The most significant words from each quotation can be traced via the Keyword
Search function, allowing individual quotations to be accessed. The user can enter
one or more keywords, up to a maximum of three. The results list will feature a
short line from each of the quotations matching the search term(s), which can then
be accessed in the usual way.
A date in brackets indicates first publication in volume form of the work cited.
Unless otherwise stated, the dates thus offered are intended as chronological
guides only and do not necessarily indicate the date of the text cited; where the
latter is of significance, this has been stated. Where neither date of publication nor
of composition is known, an approximate date (e.g.‘c.1625’) may indicate the likely
date of composition. Where there is a large discrepancy between date of
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MEMO
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MEMO
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In Europe:
This equipment complies with the requirements of Directive 89/336/
EEC as amended by 93/68/EEC.
Dieses Gerät entspricht den Anforderungen der EG-Richtlinie 89/
336/EWG mit Änderung 93/68/EWG.
Ce matériel répond aux exigences contenues dans la directive 89/
336/CEE modifiée par la directive 93/68/CEE.
Dit apparaat voldoet aan de eisen van de richtlijn 89/336/EEG,
gewijzigd door 93/68/EEG.
Dette udstyr overholder kravene i direktiv nr. 89/336/EEC med tillæg
nr. 93/68/EEC.
Quest’apparecchio è conforme ai requisiti della direttiva 89/336/EEC
come emendata dalla direttiva 93/68/EEC.
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Ù˘ ∂˘Úˆ·˚΋˜ ∂ÓˆÛ˘ 89/336/∂√∫, fiˆ˜ Ô Î·ÓÔÓÈÛÌfi˜ ·˘Ùfi˜
Û˘ÌÏËÚÒıËΠ·fi ÙËÓ Ô‰ËÁ›· 93/68/∂√∫.
Este equipamento obedece às exigências da directiva 89/336/CEE
na sua versão corrigida pela directiva 93/68/CEE.
Este aparato satisface las exigencias de la Directiva 89/336/CEE,
modificada por medio de la 93/68/CEE.
Denna utrustning uppfyller kraven enligt riktlinjen 89/336/EEC så som
kompletteras av 93/68/EEC.
Dette produktet oppfyller betingelsene i direktivet 89/336/EEC i
endringen 93/68/EEC.
Tämä laite täyttää direktiivin 89/336/EEC vaatimukset, jota on
muutettu direktiivillä 93/68/EEC.
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