- Hardcover: 1728 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; 11th Revised edition edition (22 Jun 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0199296340
- ISBN-13: 978-0199296347
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.2 x 6.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 60,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.60
Trade in Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Eleventh edition for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.60, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
A dictionary may not contain narratives and poems, but the best ones, like this one, give you the tools. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement )
This is the dictionary par excellence for the general reader. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement )
It answers a lot of questions; it is easy to use; it does not take up too much space on a crowded desk. (David Malcolm, TLS ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
This is the dictionary par excellence for the general reader. (David Malcolm, Times Literary Supplement )
It answers a lot of questions; it is easy to use; it does not take up too much space on a crowded desk. (David Malcolm, TLS ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Based on the authority of the Oxford English Corpus and the ongoing research of Oxford Dictionaries, this revised edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th edition contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, and provides the most authoritative description of the English language. It offers rich vocabulary coverage, with full treatment of World English, rare, historical, and archaic terms, as well as scientific and technical vocabulary. This revised edition includes hundreds of new and up-to-date words, such as sudoku, agroterrorism, and bird flu, with a special focus on words and phrases used in business English eg. helicopter view, knowledge economy, and vulture fund. This edition retains such popular features as Word Histories, the Guide to Good English, and appendices on countries of the world, alphabets, and more. New to this edition is a compelling 'English Uncovered' supplement, which presents new findings from the Oxford English Corpus. Find out the most common words in our language, discover which words have the most meanings, and learn about the working of words beneath the surface. For UK only, there is a special promotion which will allow users to use a new SMS service to receive dictionary definitions direct to their mobile phone*. *Terms and conditions apply
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anyone old enough to remember the days when executives had secretaries should be able to confirm that the well-thumbed dictionary most likely to be found in the sec's office was the Concise Oxford. It was also the dictionary that a wise parent might give to their child going off to college or university. It earned this position by combining the authority that came ultimately from the OED with the common sense and practicality that chose the right subset of words to represent the English used or likely to be encountered, in real life by real people. To those who know about popular dictionaries in the USA, I can just say "this is our Websters Collegiate".
You can of course get one-volume dictionaries with many more words - the full versions of Chambers and Collins, and the Oxford Dictionary of English. Very good dictionaries all, but a notch heavier and more expensive. But for clear coverage of the vast majority of words you're ever likely to meet, the Concise does the job. It does more than the job in some cases, with usage and history notes for various words. The usage notes are the more useful (and more frequent), telling you about things like the times when round is used instead of around, and vice versa, or the offensiveness of 'spastic' in modern use. As another reviewer points out, pronunciations are only given where they're not obvious to English speakers. Not a problem, I think, unless you're a non-native speaker of English - but there are dictionaries designed specifically for use by students of English, which I suspect deal with this issue.
Placed right in the middle of the dictionary is a 24-page "Centre Section" with information about the way lexicographers deal with English words, lists of ineteresting words of various kinds, and a guide to good English. This placement seems a bit odd, but the shading on page edges makes it easy to find (for other pages, this does a pale grey letter-less imitation of thumb-indexing - helpful once you remember a few things like "the fat letter near the end is S"). My guess is that some work with real dictionary users discovered that having this stuff at the beginning or end was a good way to ensure that almost no-one found it.
A brief mention for the reason I own too many dictionaries - the Concise Oxford is one of the two dictionaries used as a standard reference by the Times crossword (the other is Collins). Lots of people will tell you that "Chambers is the only dictionary for crosswords". If you're doing the fiendish barred-grid puzzles like Azed and the Listener this is true, but except for the odd bit of wildness from Araucaria and the like, the vast majority of answers in a daily paper cryptic crossword (proper nouns excepted of course) will be found in the humble COED.
You can of course get one-volume dictionaries with many more words - the full versions of Chambers and Collins, and the Oxford Dictionary of English. Very good dictionaries all, but a notch heavier and more expensive. But for clear coverage of the vast majority of words you're ever likely to meet, the Concise does the job. It does more than the job in some cases, with usage and history notes for various words. The usage notes are the more useful (and more frequent), telling you about things like the times when round is used instead of around, and vice versa, or the offensiveness of 'spastic' in modern use. As another reviewer points out, pronunciations are only given where they're not obvious to English speakers. Not a problem, I think, unless you're a non-native speaker of English - but there are dictionaries designed specifically for use by students of English, which I suspect deal with this issue.
Placed right in the middle of the dictionary is a 24-page "Centre Section" with information about the way lexicographers deal with English words, lists of ineteresting words of various kinds, and a guide to good English. This placement seems a bit odd, but the shading on page edges makes it easy to find (for other pages, this does a pale grey letter-less imitation of thumb-indexing - helpful once you remember a few things like "the fat letter near the end is S"). My guess is that some work with real dictionary users discovered that having this stuff at the beginning or end was a good way to ensure that almost no-one found it.
A brief mention for the reason I own too many dictionaries - the Concise Oxford is one of the two dictionaries used as a standard reference by the Times crossword (the other is Collins). Lots of people will tell you that "Chambers is the only dictionary for crosswords". If you're doing the fiendish barred-grid puzzles like Azed and the Listener this is true, but except for the odd bit of wildness from Araucaria and the like, the vast majority of answers in a daily paper cryptic crossword (proper nouns excepted of course) will be found in the humble COED.
103 of 106 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Summary: Comprehensive, up-to-date, but short on definitions and illustrative examples
Reviewer: A reader from Singapore
The revised eleventh edition is very comprehensive and up-to-date in its coverage of words from different varieties of English. I am particularly impressed by the large number of "informal" words and phrases that have not yet appeared in other dictionaries, even those available online.
However, I am disappointed that, to accommodate the new additions, the definitions tend to be short, so much so that the full nuance is lost. Illustrative examples of word use are also greatly reduced. Like othe recent Oxford dictionaries, it does not provide the pronunciation of many words that the editors consider familiar to native speakers of English in the UK.
I have changed my mind about giving away the eighth and ninth editions of the COD, which give more detailed information on the words that they include.
Reviewer: A reader from Singapore
The revised eleventh edition is very comprehensive and up-to-date in its coverage of words from different varieties of English. I am particularly impressed by the large number of "informal" words and phrases that have not yet appeared in other dictionaries, even those available online.
However, I am disappointed that, to accommodate the new additions, the definitions tend to be short, so much so that the full nuance is lost. Illustrative examples of word use are also greatly reduced. Like othe recent Oxford dictionaries, it does not provide the pronunciation of many words that the editors consider familiar to native speakers of English in the UK.
I have changed my mind about giving away the eighth and ninth editions of the COD, which give more detailed information on the words that they include.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Concise Oxford English Dictionary
The COD has always been the best small English dictionary. Its rivals have drawbacks: Chambers has too many obscure Scottish words, and Collins lacks many useful words.
The latest edition of the COD updates the vocabulary well, without including too many temporarily topical words whose life is likely to be short.
My only criticism of the latest edition is the inclusion in the middle of a guidance section. This should have been at the beginning or the end. But this is a very small point - perhaps largely a matter of taste - about what is otherwise a very useful book.
David Lucas
The COD has always been the best small English dictionary. Its rivals have drawbacks: Chambers has too many obscure Scottish words, and Collins lacks many useful words.
The latest edition of the COD updates the vocabulary well, without including too many temporarily topical words whose life is likely to be short.
My only criticism of the latest edition is the inclusion in the middle of a guidance section. This should have been at the beginning or the end. But this is a very small point - perhaps largely a matter of taste - about what is otherwise a very useful book.
David Lucas
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
English at its best.
I have already purchased this dictionary, and the most recent purchase was for a Christmas present, along with the Seiko crossword solver. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Derek Rainbow
oxford dictionery
i enter a lot of competitions, and find the oxford dictionery
the best dictionery i have ever used, would highly recommend it
the best dictionery i have ever used, would highly recommend it
Published 10 months ago by wal
Oxford English Dictionary
We did not receive this item - we were told it had the wrong address! We are still awaiting a credit on our bank statement.
Published 15 months ago by No
Short Oxford Flaw
I do not use the Concise but I would like to comment on the Short Oxford Dictionary CD.There is a problem with this Dictionary . Read more
Published 16 months ago by Hashimi
Good resource
I am not sure why an earlier reviewer had problems with this product, but it installs and runs happily on my (Windows 7, 64-bit) machine with no appreciable delays. Read more
Published 16 months ago by William Hudson
Oxford English Dictionary
Not as good as previous editions. More word entries but now missing Appendix of, Countries of the World,Weights, measures and Notation, and Chemical Elements in alphabetical order.
Published 16 months ago by M. Aherne
Good Value
Good quality edition. Well worth spending a bit extra to get the Oxford edition of the thesaurus as much more information that any other editions. Great value for money.
Published 19 months ago by jood
Good news, bad news
Needing a supplement to my aging 1987 Webster, and in particular one reliably giving British usage, I originally bought the Cambridge International Dictionary of English. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Paul Magnussen
Concise Oxford English Dictionary: 11th Edition CD-ROM
I bought this because it is compatible with my new Apple Mac, as I had the older version which can only be used on Windows. Read more
Published on 16 May 2010 by Beverley Fawcett
new oxford english dictionary
I found the site very informative,only queery is their was no dimension's to the new book size that i could see. Read more
Published on 2 May 2010 by KELSO
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
