The ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' (''SOED'') is an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologie ...

published by the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

. The SOED is a two-volume

abridgement An abridgement (or abridgment) is a condensing or reduction of a book or other creative work into a shorter form while maintaining the unity of the source. The abridgement can be true to the original work in terms of mood and tone, capturing the ...

of the twenty-volume ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...

'' (''OED'').

Print editions

Prequel

The first editor, William Little, worked on the book from 1902 until his death in 1922. The dictionary was completed by

H. W. Fowler Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, List of lexicographers, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' a ...

Jessie Coulson Jessie may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jessie (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Jessie (surname), a list of people Arts and entertainment * ''Jessie'' (2011 TV series), a 2011–15 Disney Chann ...

, and

C. T. Onions Charles Talbut Onions (C. T. Onions) (10 September 1873 – 8 January 1965) was an English grammarian and lexicographer and the fourth editor of the ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Life Onions was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, Birming ...

. An abridgement of the complete work was contemplated from 1879, when the

took over from the

Philological Society The Philological Society, or London Philological Society, is the oldest learned society in Great Britain dedicated to the study of language as well as a registered charity. The current Society was established in 1842 to "investigate and promot ...

on what was then known as ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles''. However, no action was taken until 1902, when the work was begun by William Little, a fellow of

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12t ...

. He laboured until his death in 1922, at which point he had completed "A" to "T", and "V". The remaining letters were completed by H. W. Fowler ("U", "X", "Y", and "Z") and Mrs. E. A. Coulson (Jessie Coulson) ("W") under the direction of C. T. Onions, who succeeded Little as editor. Onions wrote that ''SOED'' was "to present in miniature all the features of the principal work" and to be "a quintessence of those vast materials" in the complete OED.

First edition

The first edition was published in February 1933. It was reprinted in March and April of that year and again in 1934. *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary/The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Hardcover): 2 volumes. **?th impression (1933-??-??) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Hardcover): 1 volume. **?th impression (1959-??-??)

Second edition

The second edition appeared in 1936, contained about 3,000 revisions and additions, and was reprinted in 1939. *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on historical principles (Hardcover 2475 pages): Second edition 1 volume reprinted 1939. **Prepared by William Little, H. W.Fowler, J. Coulson **Revised and edited by C. T. Onions

Third edition

The third edition was published in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

under the name ''The Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles'' in 1944 with reprints in 1947, 1950, 1952, and 1955. The 1955 reprint contained an addendum of new entries. The 1973 reprint contained an enlarged addenda with over seventy pages and a major revision of all the etymologies. *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Hardcover) **1st? impression (1944-01-01) *The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Third Edition, revised with addenda) (Hardcover) (ASIN B01N22ETM9): Includes addenda. **?th impression (1964-??-??) **?th impression (1968-??-??) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Hardcover) (/): 1 volume. **1st? impression (1970-??-??) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Hardcover) (/): 1 volume. **1st? impression (1973-11-??) *The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Hardcover) (/) **?th impression (1973-11-22) **?th impression (1975-??-??) *The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Guild Publishing edition, Hardcover) (ASIN B00HLDC3M2) **?th impression (1985-??-??)

Fourth edition

The New SOED was prepared under the editorship of Lesley Brown 1980-1993 and was the first complete revision of the dictionary and should be considered a re-abridgement of the SOED and its supplements. The whole text was completely revised for the Fourth Edition, which was published in 1993 as the ''New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary''. The book attempted to include all English words which had substantial currency after 1700, plus the vocabulary of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...

and the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

. As a historical dictionary, it includes obsolete words if they are used by major authors and earlier meanings where they explain the development of a word. Headwords are traced back to their earliest usage. Includes 97,600 headwords, 25,250 variant spellings, 500,000 definitions, 87,400 illustrative quotations and 7,333 sources of quotations (including 5,519 individual authors). *The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Hardcover) () **?th impression (1993-??-??) *The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary thumb index edition (Hardcover) (/) **?th impression (1993-10-14) *The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary luxury edition (Hardcover) () **?th impression (1993-??-??) *The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary leather bound edition () **?th impression (1993-??-??)

Fifth edition

The fifth edition was published in 2002,Oxford University Press, ''The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', Sixth Edition, 2007, Preface to the sixth edition and contains more than half a million definitions, with 83,500 illustrative quotations from 7,000 authors. The name Shorter Oxford English Dictionary was used to emphasize the link between this two-volume dictionary and the original twenty-volume OED. *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Fifth Edition (Hardcover) (/) **?th impression (2002-12-31) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM Version 2.0 (/): **?th impression (2003-01-09)

Sixth edition

On 21 September 2007, the sixth edition appeared. The dictionary now included 600,000 words, phrases, and definitions, covering global English-speaking regions and 2500 new words and meanings from Oxford Dictionaries and Oxford English Corpus. As previously, the vocabulary included entries in general English from 1700 to the present day and in earlier major literary works. The dictionary included 80,000 quotations illustrating the use of words, thousands of newly discovered antedatings based on the continuing research for the OED, 2,500 new words and senses, thousands of antedatings of existing words from Oxford English Dictionary and Oxford English Corpus, many new quotations from then-recent authors, and a complete review of spelling forms and defining vocabulary. 16,000 words lost their hyphen. Angus Stevenson, the editor of the Shorter OED, stated the reason: "People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for." Its researchers reviewed a corpus of 2 billion words (in newspapers, books, web sites and blogs from 2000). Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly. *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Sixth Edition (Hardcover) (/) **?th impression (2007-09-20) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Sixth Edition (Deluxe leather-bound Hardcover) (/) **?th impression (2007-09-20) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM Version 3.0 (/): Supports linking to word processors. **?th impression (2007-09-13) *Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Deluxe edition (hardcover+CD-ROM) (/): **?th impression (2007-09-20) (The CD-ROM supports Windows 2000 or higher, Mac OS x 10.3.9 (PowerPC) or 10.4 or 10.5 (Intel) or higher).

Electronic versions

The ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' is available on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...

for Windows and Macintosh. Version 3.0 of that CD-ROM is copy-protected using SecuROM. The dictionary is also available as an electronic download plug-in for WordWeb for Windows and for Mac OS X.WordWeb Software, Macintosh versio
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
/ref> In addition to all of the contents of the traditional paper dictionary, the electronic versions include: * Audio pronunciations * Automatic look-up of words from other applications * Search functions * Crossword solver and anagram functions *Mac OS X version **Version 3.2 (OS X 10.9 64-bit, 2016-12-01) *Windows version: Published by MobiSystems, Inc. **Version 2.2.0.7 (Windows 8.1, 2015-??-??, 10-device installation)