Research Words in Dictionaries

Say you're looking up a word via Google's definition search function or at Answers.com or even in a wiki. Chances are that some of the meanings supplied will come from other places, often referred to by abbreviations. If you want to be precise with a reference, or track down a word's meaning in a particular source, knowing what the abbreviations mean will help your search. The "D" always stands for 'dictionary'. Here are some of them:

• AHD (American Heritage)


• AHD3 (American Heritage, 3rd ed.)


• COD (Concise Oxford)


• MEU (Modern English Usage)


• MWCD (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate)


• OED (Oxford English Dictionary)


• NODE (New Oxford Dictionary of English)


• NSOED (New Shorter Oxford English)


• RHDEL (Random House ... English Language)


• RHHDAS (Random House Historical ... American Slang)


• RHWCD (Random House Webster's College)


• RHWUD (Random House Webster's Unabridged)


• SOED (Shorter Oxford English)


• W3NID (Webster's Third New International)

Anyone who's viewed my Amazon Wish List knows I lust for the OED. It's been on my list since the beginning when I discovered one can buy it in a 20-Volume Set form, rather than the humongous single book often found in libraries. (I'd always wondered what I would put it on if I had one.) Why do I drool over the it? I think novelist David Foster Wallace says it best:

"Listen: the OED is priceless. The only disadvantage it's got is that the entries are so interesting and chocked with subsidiary info that sometimes what was originally supposed to be a quick one-word dash to the dictionary becomes a two-hour perusal of cross-references and ramifications and etymologies and the sorts of illustrative sentences that make your saliva flow with sheer interest."