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Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition

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Authoritative and up to date, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary offers unsurpassed coverage of English, perfect for anyone who needs a handy, reliable resource for home, school, or office.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary is one of the most popular choices in Oxford’s renowned dictionary line. Now in print through its various editions for a century it has been selected by decades of users for its up-to-date and authoritative coverage of the English language.

This centenary edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary presents the most accurate picture of English today. It contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, providing superb coverage of contemporary English, including rare, historical, and archaic terms, scientific and technical vocabulary, and English from around the world. The dictionary has been updated with hundreds of new words–including sub-prime, social networking, and carbon footprint–all based on the latest research from the Oxford English Corpus. In addition, the dictionary features an engaging new center section, with quick-reference word lists (containing, for example, lists of Fascinating Words and Onomatopoeic Words), and a revised and updated English Uncovered supplement, which examines interesting facts about the English language. Sprinkled throughout the text are intriguing Word Histories, detailing the origins and development of numerous words. The volume also retains such popular features as the hundreds of usage notes which give advice on tricky vocabulary and pointers to help you improve your use of English. Finally, the dictionary contains full appendices on topics such as alphabets, currencies, electronic English, and the registers of language (from formal to slang), plus a useful Guide to Good English with advice on grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Explore our language resources on oxforddictionaries.com, Oxford’s hub for dictionaries and language reference.

System Requirements

WindowsRG: Intel® Pentium® II 450MHz or faster processor (or equivalent); Microsoft® Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows® ServerTM 2003, Windows® XP, Windows® 2000. Macintosh®: PowerPC® G3 500MHz or faster processor; Intel® Core® Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor; Mac® (PowerPC®): OS X 10.1.x -10.4.x; Mac® (Intel®): OS X 10.4.x, 10.5.x, 10.6.x.All Platforms: 250 MB free hard disk space; monitor with 1024 x 768 pixels and high colour (16 bits per pixel, i.e. 65,536 colours); local CD-ROM/DVD drive (for installation); 16-bit sound card; 512 MB RAM; runs from hard drive only

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 12th edition (August 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1728 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199601089
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199601080
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 2.19 x 9.46 inches

12 reviews for Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition

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  1. Dr CHUANG Wei Ping

    Improved Reference Section
    The paper quality of this 2011 centenary 12th edition is better than the 2008 predecessor. It is whiter and the print reads well, so it is comfortable to the eye. The paper is also tougher.The layout of the 10th edition is superior and better spaced, and one can hope future editions can revert to more generous spacing and previous typeface. All three editions mentioned above weigh exactly the same, have similar number of pages but the 2011 edition is about 1 cm thinner, 5.5 cm. This makes it so much easier to grasp, hold and handle. Aesthetically sleeker, it is also harder to drop during usage.Nearly the entire reference section has changed to include useful information, and has welcome additions such as*Lists of Prime Ministers and Presidents of the major countries of the world;*UK Kings and Queens and years of their reign; States of the USA with their capitals;*Weights measures and notations;*The Greek alphabet;*The solar system and the major moons;*The chemical elements, although a classical Periodic Table chart would have been useful.The countries of the world have been put back, along with the attendant capitals, areas, current populations and currency units. The one page list of collective nouns (e.g. “a drunkship of cobblers”, a “golzing of taverners”, “a covey of ptarmigan”,) has been retained.This thin reference section of only 14 pages is located between the letters J and K. The centre section of the 2008 edition contained a few pages of very useful “Foreign Words and Phrases”. I would like to see all commonly used Foreign Words and Phrases, incorporated into the main body of the dictionary. Single foreign words, like zeitgeist, schadenfreude (now in lower case), cognoscenti, have largely been incorporated into the body of the 2011 edition, so have phrases like “sui generis” and “raison d’etre”. But the absence of commonly encountered phrases such as “ex gratia” and “a capella” is really regrettable.If you need a comprehensive dictionary with 75,000 root words instead of the usual 25,000, you would expect a large number of foreign phrases to pop up regularly in your reading material. Syndicated newspaper columnists are prone to spice up their articles with obscure foreign phrases, which they can legitimately use, if these pompous foreign phrases are consonant with the theme of their articles. I would like to have a dictionary deal with such “foreign phrase” contingencies.The 2008 edition had an interesting centre middle section, which included:*English Uncovered: telling us how Oxford tracks the English language, with interesting information like the 100 most commonly used words (“the” tops the list), words with the most meanings (“set” has 156), and how English is changing. One reading of this essay is enough, and should not be repeated with every edition.*Fascinating words, some of which like “rhinoplasty” have been incorporated into the dictionary as they have ceased to be fascinating.*Guide to Good English: does not belong to a dictionary: nobody buys a dictionary to learn Grammar.These sections have rightfully been removed.The 2011 edition has fewer word usage bubbles, where a tinted bubble explains how words are used. It draws the attention of the user to the differences between “discreet” and “discrete”, for instances. For a dictionary, which has to catch up with increasing number of words in actual use, such amplifications on English usage wastes valuable space. This dictionary is clearly not for learners of English. There is the Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary by Oxford for this purpose. These “word usage” bubbles look so much like cut and paste jobs from “Fowler’s Modern English Usage”, a copy of which can be purchased separately. Previous editions did not have these superfluous bubbles, and this experiment in the recent editions must now be considered a failure.The sheer large number of entries in this “Concise” dictionary suggests that this dictionary is for those way, way, way, way, way past the beginner’s learning stage of English. With this dictionary, it is hard to hit a dead end searching for a word, even at college level and when reading some exotic “intellectual” essays.The 2011 edition has a one-off 9-page essay on the evolution of the Concise Oxford over 100 years. These 9 celebratory pages will not be relevant in future editions. There are interesting bubbles throughout the dictionary on how the word was defined in the first 1911 edition versus its current 2011 usage. These bubbles would only be relevant in a centenary edition.The space saved would be applied to an ever-expanding vocabulary, and also other important reference material. Your table-top dictionary should have:A. All the words you are likely to encounter in the course of your reading; ANDB. Important reference material and tables which I need to refer to occasionally, such as:a. table of military ranks in major armed forces, and service armsb. signs of the Zodiacc. Chinese Zodiacd. Wedding Anniversaries and corresponding materialse. Birthstonesf. Counties of the UKg. Books of the Bibleh. Braille,i. Morse Code (which I may need in an emergency)j. NATO alphabetical pronouncing codek. Roman numeralsl. A political map of the world (this is getting important as events are happening in places most people have never heard of).m. Fibonacci numbers, fractions and corresponding decimals, for those who dabble in the stock market.All the above can easily be accommodated by the 9 pages saved in future non-centenary editions. Incidentally, a table of symbols is hidden on page xxix, in the rather prolix introduction to the dictionary.I welcome the return of the conversion tables. Next time, do not convert 1 square metre or 1 acre to archaic square yards. For real estate use today, the conversion is to square feet. Valuation is done in price per square foot, although your mortgagee bank manager thinks in square metres. A conversion of ounces into grammes is getting very important in a world where gold trading is getting prominent. A conversion of feet and inches into metric is important. When my architect tells me that the kitchen stove is 600 mm height, or that somebody is 1.82 metres tall, I would like to know what it is in old fashioned feet and inches. My BMI is calculated in metric height and weight, not stones, lbs and feet and inches. Oxford needs to thoroughly update its conversion tables to bring it in line with modern usage.The dictionary is made in the UK. The binding is slightly better than previous editions, but the hinges of the hard covers are still atrocious. Oxford has probably sized up the users of this dictionary as people who handle books gently. If a new version comes out every few years, cost is a more important consideration than the toughness of the volume.The physical book is easily the shoddiest dictionary I have ever bought. Politically correct buyers can take some comfort that the manufacture of the book was not outsourced. But for the content, this dictionary is a bargain for its price and really has no peer in its class.

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  2. Alan U. Kennington

    The right size dictionary for daily spelling and meaning look-up.
    This is a light, compact, well-bound hard-back dictionary for daily use, for checking both spelling and meaning. It very usefully includes proper nouns, which the Oxford dictionaries 50 years ago refused to do. So this is more like a modern “encyclopedic” style of dictionary. This is important because most of the words which I don’t understand are proper nouns. However, I should mention that the vast numbers of proper nouns in classical literature are not here. It doesn’t define “Peloponnesian”, “Solon” or “Uruk” for example. So it’s definitely a dictionary for the modern world.This dictionary also includes common phrases and abbreviations as main headings, which once again were forbidden in the old-style Oxford dictionaries. Consequently, this is the ideal dictionary for daily use, to make sense of printed literature and Internet English, and it is ideal for daily writing also. I find that I only rarely have to consult the larger dictionaries for further detail.There are two main things which this compact dictionary does not deliver. One is detailed etymologies, and the other is detailed archaic meanings of words.The etymologies in this “Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition” are a bit light, thin and sketchy, but they do at least tell you which language group a word originates from. Etymology adds depth of meaning to words. Larger dictionaries are required for obtaining serious etymologies to get some real depth of meaning.The archaic meanings of words are not covered very much in this dictionary. So it is not so suitable for understanding literature before the 19th century. For that, once again, you do need the larger dictionaries.The main strength of this dictionary, in my opinion, is its coverage of spelling, particularly the morphological variants of words such as the conjugation of verbs and plurals of nouns, and especially the differences between British and American spelling. Noah Webster decided in about 1828 to very intentionally make American spelling diverge from British spelling, partly for commercial reasons because of the huge appetite of Americans to “improve themselves” by importing costly British dictionaries and grammar books. (This background is explained in “Stories of English” by David Crystal, pages 419-434, and “Collins Dictionary of the English Language”, pages xxiii-xxiv.) This Concise Oxford English dictionary allows me to safely navigate the numerous cross-Atlantic and other spelling variations so that I can keep a consistent style. This makes word-search in documents easier, for example.

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  3. Atieno

    Look it up!
    My husband has always wanted the EOD but each time I tried to find one it was too pricey or software when he wants a book. I found this and the American Oxford on Amazon & surprised him with them. He loves them! It’s fun comparing the 2 and he enjoys learning the origins of words. Although his Dad is long gone he still hears him say “Look it up” and he so now he does. It isn’t too big to have under the coffee table & pull out quickly for any reference. He also enjoys just sitting and reading through it, there is a lot of history in words.

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  4. gloria-jean hewitson

    the only place we could buy this version
    product was as advertised and the better version not available elsewhere

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  5. shopaholic1

    Don’t plan on using this for Scrabble
    This dictionary is a disappointment because many of the words I’m looking up aren’t in there but are in online dictionaries. I initially kept track of how many words weren’t in it: 2 out of 5 are missing. (I don’t count the odd words needed in Scrabble.) I still use it but still have to Google words that should be in there. My biggest complaint is that the pronunciations are just a bunch of squiggly things; I’m unable to figure them out. If I want to know how to pronounce something correctly, I have to Google it. This isn’t just a dictionary, there are phrases listed as words. That’s just weird.

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  6. L. Edward Brown

    and I love it, but the CONCISE is accessible and always …
    I own the 20 volume OED, Second Edition (Print), and I love it, but the CONCISE is accessible and always helpful. I keep the OED in my study and the CONCISE by my reading chair. I love it because of the rich history of the OED (The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary — a wonderfully delicious book also).

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  7. Amazon Customer

    This is worth it..
    Need to save money though prefer the whole collection of 20 set books.

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  8. R E Waters

    delivered on time

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  9. Kurt Ståhl

    Precisa och koncisa definitioner, gillar den!

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  10. Vincent

    Good

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  11. Amazon Customer

    Hmm, let me see which words I should use to describe this book other than, “Not much of a plot, but what a cast of characters!”

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  12. Harry

    Das Concise Oxford English Dictionary habe ich erworben, um meine Englischkenntnisse zu erweitern und als zuverlässige Referenz für alltägliche Sprachfragen. Die Wahl fiel auf dieses Wörterbuch aufgrund seines hervorragenden Rufs und seiner umfassenden Datenbasis.Die Qualität des Nachschlagewerks ist erstklassig. Die Einträge sind klar strukturiert, präzise und beinhalten nicht nur Definitionen, sondern auch Beispielsätze, die den Gebrauch der Wörter verdeutlichen. Zudem bietet das Wörterbuch umfangreiche Informationen zu Wortherkünften und verwandten Begriffen.Die Stärken des Concise Oxford English Dictionary liegen in seiner umfassenden Abdeckung der englischen Sprache und der Benutzerfreundlichkeit. Die klare und übersichtliche Gestaltung erleichtert das schnelle Finden von Informationen. Besonders beeindruckend ist das Jubiläums-Insert, das die Entwicklung des Wörterbuchs über 100 Jahre dokumentiert und interessante Einblicke bietet.Ein kleiner Schwachpunkt könnte die Größe des Buches sein. Es ist etwas schwer und unhandlich für den täglichen Gebrauch unterwegs. Zudem könnte die Auflage von 2011 einige neuere Begriffe und Slangausdrücke vermissen lassen.Insgesamt bin ich mit dem Concise Oxford English Dictionary sehr zufrieden und vergebe fünf Sterne. Es ist ein unverzichtbares Werkzeug für alle, die die englische Sprache ernst nehmen und regelmäßig damit arbeiten. Eine klare Empfehlung für Schüler, Studenten und Sprachbegeisterte!

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    Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition
    Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition

    Original price was: $39.95.Current price is: $22.80.

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