Product Description

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary is a world-famous bestseller, chosen by thousands of users for its up-to-date and authoritative coverage of the English language. It contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, providing meanings for everyday words including scientific and technical vocabulary, as well as English from around the world. This revised edition of the dictionary has been updated with hundreds of new words and phrases, including sub-prime, social networking, and carbon footprint. This edition also features a new centre section, with quick-reference word lists (containing, for example, lists of Unusual Words, and Onomatopoeic Words), and a revised and updated English Uncovered supplement, which presents interesting facts about the English language. The revised edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary also retains such popular features as the Word Histories and Usage Notes that can be found throughout the A-Z text of the dictionary.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2368 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1728 pages

Review
A dictionary may not contain narratives and poems, but the best ones, like this one, give you the tools. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement )

This is the dictionary par excellence for the general reader. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement )

It answers a lot of questions; it is easy to use; it does not take up too much space on a crowded desk. (David Malcolm, TLS )

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive but deficient in certain aspects
Summary: Comprehensive, up-to-date, but short on definitions and illustrative examples
Reviewer: A reader from Singapore

The revised eleventh edition is very comprehensive and up-to-date in its coverage of words from different varieties of English. I am particularly impressed by the large number of "informal" words and phrases that have not yet appeared in other dictionaries, even those available online.

However, I am disappointed that, to accommodate the new additions, the definitions tend to be short, so much so that the full nuance is lost. Illustrative examples of word use are also greatly reduced. Like othe recent Oxford dictionaries, it does not provide the pronunciation of many words that the editors consider familiar to native speakers of English in the UK.

I have changed my mind about giving away the eighth and ninth editions of the COD, which give more detailed information on the words that they include.

One of the truly great English dictionaries
Anyone old enough to remember the days when executives had secretaries should be able to confirm that the well-thumbed dictionary most likely to be found in the sec's office was the Concise Oxford. It was also the dictionary that a wise parent might give to their child going off to college or university. It earned this position by combining the authority that came ultimately from the OED with the common sense and practicality that chose the right subset of words to represent the English used or likely to be encountered, in real life by real people. To those who know about popular dictionaries in the USA, I can just say "this is our Websters Collegiate".

You can of course get one-volume dictionaries with many more words - the full versions of Chambers and Collins, and the various larger dictionaries from Oxford such as the Oxford Dictionary of English. Very good dictionaries all, but a notch heavier and more expensive. But for clear coverage of the vast majority of words you're ever likely to meet, the Concise does the job. It does more than the job in some cases, with usage and history notes for various words. The usage notes are the more useful (and more frequent), telling you about things like the times when round is used instead of around, and vice versa, or the offensiveness of 'spastic' in modern use. As another reviewer points out, pronunciations are only given where they're not obvious to English speakers. Not a problem, I think unless you're a non-native speaker of English - but there are dictionaries designed specifically for use by students of English, which I suspect deal with this issue.

Placed right in the middle of the dictionary is a 24-page "Centre Section" with information about the way lexicographers deal with English words, lists of ineteresting words of various kinds, and a guide to good English. This placement seems a bit odd, but the shading on page edges makes it easy to find (for other pages, this does a pale grey letter-less imitation of thumb-indexing - helpful once you remember a few things like "the fat letter near the end is S"). My guess is that some work with real dictionary users discovered that having this stuff at the beginning or end was a good way to ensure that almost no-one found it.

A brief mention for the reason I own too many dictionaries - the Concise Oxford is one of the two dictionaries used as a standard reference by the Times crossword (the other is Collins). Lots of people will tell you that "Chambers is the only dictionary for crosswords". If you're doing the fiendish barred-grid puzzles like Azed and the Listener this is true, but except for the odd bit of wildness from Araucaria and the like, the vast majority of answers in a daily paper cryptic crossword (proper nouns excepted of course) will be found in the humble COED.

Good But Not Great.
A good enough dictionary.
Unfortunately, the publishers chose to use recycled paper which has a strong odour of the caustic soda used in its processing - which discourages frequent/prolonged use.
A good number of definitions.
Poor on some definitions, esp. words from ex-colonies - e.g. "conacre" definition does not state that the letting is over just 1 year.
Not as good as Chambers on technical terms either.