The following is a brief history of the Oxford English Dictionary, detailing key events since the initial proposal in 1857.
The Oxford English Dictionary has been the last word on the English language for over a century, yet we count on its wisdom and authority without necessarily considering how it came to be. What is the history of the OED? With hundreds of staff, thousands of contributors, and more than 500,000 defined words at its core, the story of this extraordinary living document is revealed below.
How it began
In 1857, a proposal was put before the Philological Society, a London-based organization devoted to the scholarly study of language. The proposal addressed the deficiency of existing English language dictionaries and called for the compilation of a New English Dictionary (as it was originally called). Spearheaded by Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge, and Frederick Furnivall, this was to see a complete re-examination of the English language from Anglo-Saxon times onward – an ambitious project that would eventually require far more time and energy than they originally anticipated.
The Dictionary was to be based on actual evidence of words in use, taken from printed sources dating from all periods of the language’s history. Coleridge was named as the original editor and he and Furnivall amassed a group of volunteer readers to scour English literature and extract quotations to illustrate the usage of words. These quotations were sent in on small pieces of paper collectively known as ‘slips’. Coleridge died in 1861 and was succeeded as editor by Furnivall. His enthusiasm and energy were unmatched by his work ethic, however, and little progress was made over subsequent years.
Oxford beckons
In 1879, a new chapter began, when Oxford University Press agreed to publish the work. It was also at this time that a new editor was agreed upon from within the members of the Philological Society, James Murray. Murray was a self-taught scholar from the lowlands of Scotland who had showed an interest in language from a very early age. As editor of the Dictionary, he rejuvenated the volunteer reading program and established a small team of staff in an iron shed he labelled the Scriptorium, first at his home in Mill Hill, London, and later at his home in Oxford. His children (eventually there were eleven) were paid pocket money to sort the dictionary slips into alphabetical order upon arrival.
Murray had estimated that the entire Dictionary would take ten years to complete. After five years, the first part (or fascicle to use the technical term) was issued in 1884. It covered A-ant which made clear that a much more comprehensive work was being produced than had been imagined by the Philological Society almost thirty years earlier. In fact, Dictionary work relied on so much correspondence that a post box was installed right outside Murray’s Oxford home, where it still stands today.
A new authority on language
To expedite work on the Dictionary, a second editor was appointed to work alongside Murray. His name was Henry Bradley, and he was later joined by two other co-editors, William Craigie, and Charles Onions. Each of them worked on different sections of the alphabet with their own teams of assistants, eventually all working in what is now Oxford’s History of Science Museum, while Murray and his team continued toiling away in the Scriptorium. The four editors and their staff worked steadily, producing fascicle after fascicle, until finally, in April 1928, the last part was published to critical acclaim.
Instead of 6,400 pages in four volumes as originally planned, the Dictionary culminated in ten volumes containing over 250,000 main entries and almost 2 million quotations. It was published under the imposing name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles although it had also come to be known as the Oxford English Dictionary. Sadly, neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see its completion. Murray died in 1915; the work to which he had devoted his life represented an achievement unprecedented in the history of publishing anywhere in the world, with the Dictionary taking its place as the ultimate authority on the English language.
Keeping it current
An exhilarating aspect of a living language is that it continually changes. This means that no dictionary is ever really finished. After fifty years of work on the first iteration of the Dictionary, the editors must have found this exhausting to contemplate. Nevertheless, as soon as the original ten volumes were completed, the remaining two editors, Craigie, and Onions, began to compile a single-volume Supplement to the Dictionary, published in 1933. At the same time, the First Edition was re-issued in twelve volumes and the work was formally given its current title – the Oxford English Dictionary.
After the Second World War, Oxford University Press decided to re-establish the headquarters of the OED and embark upon the revision of the 1933 Supplement. In 1957, a century after the Philological Society first conceived the notion of a New English Dictionary, Robert Burchfield took up the editorship of the new Supplement with a fresh cohort of staff and once again solicited the help of readers. Initially intended as a single volume work of around 1,300 pages that would take seven years to complete, the Supplement expanded to a four-volume work of some 5,750 pages published between 1972 and 1986. It was one of the last major books in the UK to be set in type using the hot-metal process.
Making it modern
In the early 1980s, the Press began to consider how to bring this monumental dictionary into the modern age. It was clear that the traditional methods of dictionary compilation were no longer suitable. A decision was made to combine the First Edition and Supplements before embarking on any revision of the text. This required the data to be converted into electronic form, upon which the texts could be amalgamated and edited, all with the help of external providers. Project managers and systems engineers would now be required alongside lexicographers and the Press duly set about this with the formation of the New Oxford English Dictionary Project in 1984.
Co-editors John Simpson and Edmund Weiner oversaw a core group of lexicographers in Oxford who reviewed, corrected, and edited the new electronic text, as well as adding 5,000 new words and senses. In all, the project team succeeded in accomplishing around 85% of its work by software, but the remaining 15% required the critical eye of the editors. The culmination of this mammoth task was the setting in type and subsequent printing of the Second Edition of the OED, published in 1989 on time and to great acclaim. The finished work filled 22,000 pages bound into twenty substantial volumes.
Entering a digital landscape
In the 1990s, work began on a comprehensive revision of the OED. The aim was to create a completely updated text, with each entry being comprehensively reviewed in light of new documentary evidence and modern developments in scholarship, alongside the creation of new entries. This was the first time that material written by James Murray and his contemporaries had been edited since the First Edition was completed in 1928.
The existence of an electronic version of the Dictionary made other publishing formats possible. In 1987 a CD-ROM of the First Edition was produced, and in 1992 the Second Edition was also published on a single compact disc – a great contrast to the hefty twenty-volume work that took up four feet of shelf space and weighed 150 pounds! CD-ROM publication proved a great success. The digital format revolutionized the way people used the Dictionary to search and retrieve information. Its creation was a window into the technological advancements that the Oxford English Dictionary was to make next.
The Oxford English Dictionary today
In 2000, the OED Online was launched, making the Dictionary more accessible than ever before and allowing for work on the Third Edition to be uploaded onto the online version in regular quarterly updates. Fast forward to 2023 and the OED Online has undergone a website transformation, resulting in the platform you are using today. Regular three-month updates are still published to the OED Online, which can be viewed on our updates page. This ambitious undertaking, which has been a work in progress for over twenty five years, will result in a completely revitalized Oxford English Dictionary.
Future focussed
The ambitious goals which the Philological Society set out in 1857 seem modest in comparison with the phenomenal achievement which their initiative set in motion. The Oxford English Dictionary is a living document that has been growing and changing for over a century and a half. Far more than a convenient place to look up words and their origins, the Oxford English Dictionary is an irreplaceable part of English culture. It not only provides an important record of the evolution of our language, but also documents the continuing development of our society. The Oxford English Dictionary is still as relevant today as it was in the past, always developing, and it is certain to continue in this role as we move forward in our digital world.
