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.

From the OED's About page, retrieved May 21, 2019.