This English dictionary edition 2 provides access to the full text of the print edition containing authoritative definitions and quoatations illustrating the evolution of English language.
This dictionary provides a designation, usually abbreviated, which describes the boundaries within which a word or sense is or was used, in current OED terminology.
There are five categories of labels status (obsolete, rare, colloquial):
regional (indicating a geographical area of usage such as the USA),
grammitical (describing the syntactical role of the word or sense such as plural or collective),
semantic (indicating the interpretation given to a word or sense in a particular context): such as (figurative, transferred, specific, etc), and
subject (specifying the dicipline, profession, trade, etc. in which a word or sense is used)
It is possible to retrieve either entire dictionary entries (including quotations) or to search within or retrieve quotations.
