OED

From This Day in History (history.com)

February 1, 1884: The first portion, or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Today, the OED is the definitive authority on the meaning, pronunciation and history of over half a million English words, past and present.
Plans for the dictionary began in 1857 when members of London's Philological Society, who believed there were no up-to-date, error-free English dictionaries available, decided to produce one that would cover all vocabulary from the Anglo-Saxon period (1150 A.D.) to the present.
Conceived of as a four-volume, 6,400-page work, it was estimated the project would take 10 years to finish. In fact, it took over 40 years until the 125th and final fascicle was published in April 1928 and the full dictionary was complete–at over 400,000 words and phrases in 10 volumes–and published under the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

From This Day in History (history.com)

Unlike most English dictionaries, which only list present-day common meanings, the OED provides a detailed chronological history for every word and phrase, citing quotations from a wide range of sources, including classic literature and cookbooks. The OED is famous for its lengthy cross-references and etymologies.
The verb “set” merits the OED’s longest entry, at approximately 60,000 words and detailing over 430 uses.
No sooner was the OED finished than editors began updating it. A supplement, containing new entries and revisions, was published in 1933 and the original dictionary was reprinted in 12 volumes and officially renamed the Oxford English Dictionary.
Between 1972 and 1986, an updated 4-volume supplement was published, with new terms from the continually evolving English language plus more words and phrases from North America, Australia, the Caribbean, New Zealand, South Africa and South Asia.

From This Day in History (history.com)

In 1984, Oxford University Press embarked on a five-year, multi-million-dollar project to create an electronic version of the dictionary. The effort required 120 people just to type the pages from the print edition and 50 proofreaders to check their work. The online version of the dictionary has been active since 2000.
At a whopping 20 volumes weighing over 137 pounds, it would reportedly take one person 120 years to type all 59 million words in the OED.
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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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."

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.
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.
Murray was a grammar-school teacher from 1855 to 1885, during which time he also wrote a famous article on the English language for Encyclopædia Britannica (1878) and served as president of the Philological Society (1878–80, 1882–84). (from Britannica)
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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.
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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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..

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.
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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

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.
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.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

The OED has always been a collaborative project with contributions from volunteer readers, proof-readers, consultants, and staff. It can be regarded as one of the first academic crowdsourcing projects of its kind. This was emphasized in each of the prefaces which accompanied the fascicles of the First Edition as they were issued.
From the very start, the volunteer reading programme was at the centre of the project, which saw members of the public read books and extract quotations for use in the Dictionary. The number of people who contributed quotations to the First Edition alone runs into four figures, with many individuals sending in thousands of quotations each.
In order to fill the gaps in the material already collected, lists (of "desiderata") were issued to the general public highlighting words for which additional quotations were needed, thus generating more submissions.
Professional knowledge was also garnered from experts in their fields. We still solicit help from the public and consultants in much the same way today.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

It was (and remains) the role of the editors and assistants to bring order to all the quotations submitted, by transforming them into dictionary entries, aided further by the many volunteer proof-readers who checked and commented on progress. Dictionary staff from across the history of the OED have always been hugely committed to the project with several holding posts for around half a century.
This commitment was exhibited by James Murray’s own children, as all eleven of them helped on the OED from an early age, sorting slips at home. His eldest son, Harold, was a prolific reader for the Dictionary (credited with 27,000 quotations by 1888) and his eldest daughter, Hilda, worked as a paid assistant for a short time. However, it was Elsie and Rosfrith who perhaps made the most significant contribution, working as members of editorial staff for over 20 years each.

From The OED itself (oed.com)

- Peter Gilliver, Executive Editor, OED, has compiled a list of the main contributors to the First Edition of the OED which can be accessed here. For some of the more prolific or well-known contributors from the First Edition and Supplements, we provide a profile and sample of work below.
- First Edition Volunteers
  - Thomas Austin Jemima Brown
  - Thomas Brushfield Henry Hucks Gibbs
  - Fitzedward Hall Thomas Henderson
  - William Minor Job Pierson
  - Edith and Ellen Thompson William B. R. Wilson

From The OED itself (oed.com)

First Edition Staff
- Charles Balk Henry Bayliss
- Eleanor Bradley Jessie Coulson
- Wilfrid Lewis Arthur Maling
- Frederick Sweatman J. R. R. Tolkien
- Walter Worrall James Wyllie

Edith and Ellen Thompson (1848-1929 / 1857-1930)

Sisters Edith and Ellen Perronet Thompson began working as volunteer readers for the OED around 1880. Edith was a historian, best known for her History of England (1872); Ellen was a novelist and wrote several historical essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. Together they supplied thousands of quotations for the OED (jointly credited with 15,000 in 1888) and proof-read from D onwards. Edith also sub-edited in C and gave advice on historical terms.

Jessie Coulson née Senior (1903-1987)

Graduate in English from the University of Leeds (and likely taught by Tolkien), who started work on the OED in 1924, principally on the 1933 Supplement. She went on to work on the Little Oxford Dictionary (1930) and to edit the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933), the latter being the first Oxford dictionary to bear a woman's name on the title page (now Coulson). She continued to be a valuable lexicographer to OUP well into her seventies, also producing a Russian–English dictionary in 1975.

Frederick Sweatman (1873-1936)

Son of an Oxford printer-foreman and on the Bodleian library staff, Oxford, from 1888. Joined Murray’s staff in 1890 and became expert at the bibliographical standardization of quotation references and the verification of quotations in the Bodleian. He transferred to Onions’ staff upon Murray’s death in 1915 and continued to work on the Dictionary, and latterly the 1933 Supplement, until 1933. Also assisted Charles Onions with the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933).

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

Member of Bradley's editorial staff from 1919-1920, Tolkien’s contribution to the OED was in the range waggle-warlock. After his stint on the Dictionary, Tolkien went on to publish many works on Old and Middle English, later taking up professorships in Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature at Oxford. Tolkien is best known today for his fantasy fiction, most notably The Hobbit (1937) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-55).

Christopher Collier (1930/1-2010)

Spent almost his entire life in Brisbane, much of it working for the Queensland Patents Office, but also became an obsessive collector of quotation evidence from local newspapers, particularly the Brisbane Courier-Mail. From the early 1960s he sent cuttings and quotations from this and other papers to the offices of the OED Supplement, often packed up in cereal packets. He later performed the same service for the Australian National Dictionary. The number of quotations he supplied to both projects is in excess of 100,000.

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