The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.

As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from dictionaries of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You’ll still find present-day meanings in the OED, but you’ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

OED has created some very useful video guides, some of which are linked below:

Quick Search

Advanced Search

Understanding the Results Page

Using the Historical Thesaurus of the OED in research

Below is a video that will provide an overview of researching using the OED.

The OED offers a number of video tutorials and informational links on their site, all aimed at making your experience utilizing the OED easier. Take advantage of them! They can be found on the OED, accessed through the University of Iowa Libraries. 

The OED has also created other resources to help you best utilize the Dictionary. Some of them are listed here and linked on the OED landing page.