User's Guide for the Oxford English Dictionary

A User's Guide to the Oxford English Dictionary has been provided to help you make full use of the Dictionary's many features. It is both a source of general information about the Dictionary and a key to the structure of specific entries. This Guide provides a detailed account of the conventions and organization of the Dictionary text. It gives an analysis of the components of a typical entry: pronunciation; part of speech, labels indicating, for example, the region in which a word arose or the discipine in which it is used; variates,; etymology; the definition itself; and the suportung quotations. There is a also a section on special types of entries, such as acronyms, abbreviations, and proper names.