The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (officially titled The Concise Oxford Dictionary until 2002, and widely abbreviated COD) is probably the best-known of the 'smaller' Oxford dictionaries. The latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains over 240,000 entries and 1,728 pages (concise only compared to the OED at over 21,000 pages). Its twelfth edition, published in 2011, is used by the United Nations as the current authority for spellings in documents written in the English language for international use. It is available free on the web and as an electronic eBook for a variety of handheld device platforms. In addition to providing information for general use, it documents local variations such as U.S. and U.K. usage.
It was started as a derivative of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), although section S–Z had to be written before the Oxford English Dictionary reached that stage. However, the eleventh edition was based on the Oxford Dictionary of English (also known as the NODE) rather than the OED. The most recent edition is the 12th edition, published in 2011.
Until 2000, it was the dictionary used on the game show Countdown.
Read more about Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Editions, 2011 Revised 11th Edition
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, english and/or dictionary:
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
““Mustn’t grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. “I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. “I’m fairly keen” was not American. Americans were showoffs—it was part of our innocence—we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.”
—Paul Theroux (b. 1941)
“The reputation of a man is like his shadow; it sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter than his natural size.”
—French Proverb. Quoted in Dictionary of Similes, ed. Frank J. Wilstach (1916)