Questions about dictionaries - Oxford Dictionaries Online

Subscriber login

Library card login

Close menu


World of words toggle The story of dictionaries The Oxford English Corpus The OEC: Composition and structure The OEC: Facts about the language Using the Corpus The Corpus and the dictionary entry The OEC: Technical information Using the Corpus in your research Corpus demonstrations The Oxford English Dictionary - relaunched About the Oxford English Corpus Example Sentences The history of English Celebrating 100 years of the Concise Oxford Dictionary toggle Frequently asked questions toggle Questions about dictionaries How do you decide what to include in a dictionary? How do you decide whether a new word should be included in an Oxford dictionary? How do you know what a word means? How has computer technology affected dictionary-making? How have dictionaries changed over the years? What are the main differences between the OED and ODO? How a new word enters an Oxford Dictionary toggle Questions about language How many words are there in the English language? Is it true that English has the most words of any language? What is the difference between Old English and Anglo-Saxon? Why don't you introduce some form of phonetic spelling? Why is 'w' pronounced 'double u' rather than 'double v'? What do you call a group of ...? toggle Random questions Is a banana a fruit or a herb? Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Is the letter Y a vowel or a consonant? Why do such words as hour and honest have a silent h? What is the 'Oxford comma'? toggle Vocabulary questions Apart from 'angry' and 'hungry', what other common English word ends in '-gry'? Are there any English words containing the same letter three times in a row? Are there any words in the English language that use all five vowels with no intervening consonants? Are there any words that only exist in the plural form? One example that I've heard of, but am not sure about, is 'hustings'. Are there any words that rhyme with orange? Are there words that contain the letter 'q' without a 'u' following it? Does 'bimonthly' mean 'twice a month' or 'every two months'? Female cattle are cows, male cattle are bulls. But what word do you use if you don't want to specify an animal's sex? How do you describe a person who does not eat meat, but eats fish? How many is a billion? Is 'bookkeeper' the only English word with three consecutive repeated letters? Is there a term for the study of love? Is there a word for a baby hedgehog? Is there a word like 'siblings' for nephews and nieces collectively? Is there a word which describes the fear of Friday the 13th? Is there an eight letter word with five vowels in a row? What English words end in -dous? What comes after once, twice, thrice? What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary? What is the collective term for a group of cats? What is the female equivalent of a misogynist? What is the female equivalent of brethren? What is the female equivalent of fraternal? What is the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English? What is the longest one-syllable English word? What is the longest English word containing no letter more than once? What is the longest English word? What is the name for a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet? What is the only word in the English language that ends with the letters -mt? What is the opposite of exceed? What is the opposite of hibernation? What is the opposite of juvenilia? What is the opposite of nocturnal? What is the opposite of uxorious? What is the term for a word that has two opposing meanings? What is the term for a new word made by combining parts of existing words? What is the term for a pattern of letters or words that helps you remember something? What is the word for a fear of ... ? What is the term for a word that's spelled the same as another word but has a different meaning? What is the term for a word which is another word spelled backwards? What is the word for people who collect ... ? What is the term for words that sound similar to the thing they describe? What is the term for a phrase combining two words that mean the opposite of each other? What word contains the five vowels (a, e, i, o,u) in the right order? Why does 'unisex' refer to something to do with both sexes, not just one sex? toggle Word origins Was the first computer 'bug' a real insect? What is the origin of 'love' meaning 'nil' in tennis scoring? What is the origin of the phrase 'sleep tight'? What is the origin of the phrase 'the bee's knees'? What is the origin of the term 'brass monkey'? What is the origin of the term 'dressed to the nines'? What is the origin of the term 'flea market'? What is the origin of the word 'OK'? What is the origin of the word 'codswallop'? What is the origin of the word 'grockle'? What is the origin of the word 'loo'? What is the origin of the word 'penguin'? What is the origin of the word 'posh'? What is the origin of the word 'quiz'? What is the origin of the word 'snob'? toggle Questions about symbols Is there a name for the dot above the letters i and j? Does the '¢' in the US cent sign stand for 'cent'? What is the name of the # symbol? What is the origin of the '@' sign? What is the origin of the dollar sign ($)? What is the origin of the pound sign (£)? E-products Download our free search widget		Home › World of words › Frequently asked questions › Questions about dictionaries Questions about dictionaries How do you decide whether a new word should be included in an Oxford dictionary? How do you decide what to include in a dictionary? How do you know what a word means? How has computer technology affected dictionary-making? How have dictionaries changed over the years? What is the difference between ODO and the OED? Find out more about The Story of Dictionaries Take a look out our infographic showing How a new word enters an Oxford Dictionary