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In 1857 the Philological Society decided the language needed an authoritative re-examination from a historical perspective. It was to trace the history of each meaning of each word through examples. Volunteer readers were asked to find these, going back to the earliest possible example, which they then sent to James Murray and his team of editors in Oxford. This work was collated into ‘fascicles’, which were published as the project progressed.

This project was even more ambitious than originally conceived: the first fascicle was published in 1884 and the 128th and last in 1928, when the first complete edition was also published. It had taken over 70 years instead of the expected 10.

But the language continued to evolve. Supplements tracked the changes and took in varieties of English from North America and around the globe. These were collected into a second edition in 1989.

A CD-ROM of the OED was produced in 1992 and has been updated since. OED Online was launched in 2000. A third edition is being prepared.

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The extreme detail, comprehensiveness, scholarship and authority have ensured an all-pervading influence, directly or indirectly, on dictionaries and lexicography in English since its publication.

In particular, the method used to compile the OED allows us to trace the development of every meaning of every variant of every word in each of the English languages, from its arrival and before. This is an a posteriori approach: it describes how the language is and was used, it does not tell us – except by example – how the language should be used. In fact there is an open debate among linguists about the relative virtues of prescription and description.

It exerts a powerful indirect influence on the study and teaching of vocabulary. It is better to know it exists and what it is.

The descriptive method of the OED has a direct heir in corpora linguistics and in the way the OALD – for example – specifies the possible grammatical behaviour for each meaning of a verb.

At the OED On-line you can get a better idea of the dictionary and all that went into its making, either by taking the tour or by visiting the word-of-the-day section. Only subscribers can consult the dictionary itself.

The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester tells the fascinating story of the dictionary's making.

The Encyclopædia Britannica the oldest continuously published reference work in the English language. ( … )

The King’s English, by Henry W. Fowler, has remained a standard resource serving generations of students and writers with common-sense rules of style and grammar. ( … )

The British National Corpus is a huge collection of samples of language from a wide variety of sources, representing a broad cross-section of current British English. ( … )