Headwords and the selection of entries

The revised text will include all entries (headwords) and meanings, compounds, phrases, derivatives, etc., included in earlier editions of the Dictionary. It should be noted in this context that the Second Edition of the Dictionary (1989), which was essentially an unrevised conflation of the texts previously published in the First Edition and the Supplements of 1972-86, excluded a small number of brief entries found in the one-volume Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary of 1933. These are being reinstated in the revised text.

The headword represents the spelling under which a main entry is listed in the Dictionary. Many words display numerous variant spellings over their history, and the headword is either the spelling recognized as the standard contemporary form or (where spelling is currently variable) the most regularly attested modern spelling. For obsolete terms it is normally the form most commonly recorded in the latest period of the word's history. However, some older terms (as in previous editions of the Dictionary) are listed under unrecorded, modernized spellings, in order to allow them to appear adjacent to later related words. Where there is variation between British and American spelling, the British English form is given first. Standard American English spelling comes immediately afterwards (though none occurs in the first published range).

Reinterpretation of the documentary evidence means that some headwords now appear under different spellings. For example, maccoboy (a variety of snuff) now usually appears as macouba, reflecting a modern respelling after the place name in Martinique where the term originated; maggot-pie (magpie) becomes maggoty-pie, in accordance with later regional evidence which retains a trace of the original form magget the py; and maharanee becomes maharani, reflecting the tendency towards a more ‘scholarly’ transliteration of loanwords from non-roman alphabets. In these cases, the earlier spellings are retained as historical spelling variants and in the illustrative quotations accompanying the entries.

Subsenses in the Second Edition may be conflated with or separated from others to form new integrated or individual subsenses. Many compounds and derivatives previously nested under the parent word are now given independent headword status (e.g. Machiavellianism, maddeningly, magnetic variation, and the verb to mah-jong).

New material (whether historical or modern) is included on the basis of the documentary evidence available to the editorial staff. Further new material, as well as amendments, will be added to published ranges from time to time as the publication schedule allows.