Publication of Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, tracing the history of each word through dated quotations. The 1989 date marks the publication of its second edition in twenty volumes, which combined the original work with supplements. The first edition, begun in 1857 as a project of the Philological Society and edited for decades by James Murray, was completed in 1928 after volunteers had sent in millions of quotations. The second edition was compiled with the help of computers. Since 2000 the dictionary has been revised online, with new words added regularly, and it remains the standard reference for the history of English words.

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