The concise Oxford dictionary of current English

This new edition of Oxford's flagship single-volume dictionary brings you the results of the latest research into the real English of today. Oxford is lead partner in the British National Corpus, a massive and constantly expanding hundred-million-word database which allows dictionary editors to sample today's language - newspapers, magazines, books, advertisements, even transcripts of spoken English. With thousands of occurences of each common word available for instant analysis, lexicographers are able to track the latest trends in, for instance, spelling and hyphenation or disputed usages, with greater accuracy than ever before. This rolling, constantly updated `opinion poll of language' combined with Oxford's unparalleled world reading programme (we spend more on language research than any other dictionary publisher in the world), ensures that COD9 is the up-to-date reference for today's English. Bigger and better than ever before, its new features include: BL The most up-to-date spellings, with improved coverage of meaning and usage based on a computerized `snapshot' of today's language BL 25% more content than the previous edition BL New words, including such items as holiday village, nip and tuck, central locking, ragga, house-sit, Balti, pesto, Cajun, road-pricing, Feyman diagram, supermodel, and slaphead BL New, more up-to-date pronunciation system, representing today's received pronunciation BL Over 300 new boxed usage notes with guidance on good English BL New, clearer etymologies BL easier to use with more compounds as main entries

Based on the British National Corpus (a database of more than 100 million words) and Oxford University Press data files, this new edition continues the tradition of providing a descriptive "snapshot" approach to language, with 230,000 prose-style definitions for 150,000 entries. This is 25 percent more material than the eighth edition: 7,000 new words and phrases, more than 300 new boxed usage notes, and more entries from North America. As with the last edition, prefatory material includes an introductory essay that surveys English over the past 15 centuries and a usage guide. The same format is employed within definitions (IPA pronunciation, American spelling, some illustrative examples, adjectival and inflected forms, parts of speech and usage labels, cross-references to comparison words, and etymologies for some words).

Different from the eighth edition is a "denesting" policy that reduces the number of phrases and idioms nested within definitions; many of these now constitute headwords rather than parts of other definitions (i.e., Bible bashing, Bible belt, and Bible oath are now headwords rather than definitions within the entry Bible). Also new are many terms (e.g., cyberspace, Internet, ecotourism, multiculturalism), updated pronunciations for many words, and more attention to North American words and phrases. As with the eighth edition, there are no geographic names, biographical names, or illustrations. Appendixes include countries of the world (with currency units); books of the Bible; Greek, Russian, and Roman alphabets; chemical elements; major divisions of geologic time; the Beaufort scale of wind speed; a biological classification scheme; a style guide; a chart of Indo-European languages; terms for groups; and an index to these supplements.

The ninth edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary is different enough from the eighth to merit purchase. The Concise Oxford will not be a first stop for Americans, but its focus on international English, its currency, and its descriptive approach make it an excellent complement to major American-English desk dictionaries. Public and academic libraries should purchase.