About this site

Welcome to the Oxford English Dictionary's web site.

In addition to offering comprehensive information on the OED, this site is also the home of OED Online, ‘the internet's biggest, most prestige-laden reference book’ (The Guardian).

OED Online redesign

OED Online has been redesigned in the style of the public pages by [off-site link] Limitless Innovations.

Additional improvements include:

Completely new entrance page
New design of graphical buttons
Table of recent results
Summary of results above results lists
Consistent page headings on every page
Tinted panels for quotations

Public site design

The public area of oed.com was restructured and redesigned in 2003 with the help of [off-site link] Limitless Innovations, applying modern web standards for mark-up and accessibility.

The changes to the site include:

Authenticated subscribers can search OED Online directly from the home page
Easier navigation, thanks to restructured content, clearer menus, and the use of colour, tabs, and context links to identify where you are in the site
Increased use of cascading style sheets, including an additional print style sheet which hides web navigation from printed pages
Use of access keys for readers who have difficulty using a mouse, or who prefer not to use a mouse