Shorter Oxford English Dictionary CD: Windows/Mac Individual User Version 3.0

Review from previous edition The Shorter is the Matterhorn to the great OED's Everest - elegant, awesome and marvelous to behold, differing only in size. A stupendous achievement. (Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman)

. . . truly a dictionary of global English. (Sydney Morning Herald)

The Shorter is a mine of information (Toronto Star)

. . . astonishingly good value . . . the new SOED is all that one would expect of it. (Keith Waterhouse, Daily Mail)

It is a dictionary with zest . . . a rare treasure. (Frank Devine, The Australian)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary redefines hip. (The New York Post)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM features the full text of the Sixth Edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which is a complete update of this unique reference work. Based on the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, the 'Shorter' contains an incredible one-third of the coverage of the Oxford English Dictionary, is just one-tenth of the size, and includes all words in current English from 1700 to the present day, with senses organized chronologically, plus the vocabulary of Shakespeare, the Bible and other major works in English from before 1700.

The CD-ROM is designed to run on both Windows and Apple Macintosh computers. With an elegant interface providing quick and intuitive searching, it also has advanced searching facilities for in-depth exploration, allowing searching of the definitions, etymologies, subject, geographical region of use, register, and source language, as well as the ability to limit searches by the date of a word's first recorded usage. There is also an automatic look-up facility; by double-clicking on a word in a document or web page the user can view the entry for that word. Sound recordings enable you to listen to standard British pronunciations for over 100,000 words. In addition it features a crossword puzzle solver and anagram solver.

The new edition of the CD-ROM is designed to benefit all users. It offers a simple and attractive interface which is fully customizable, making it easy to change the text size, fonts, and the color of both text and background.

The CD-ROM also offers all of the exciting updates made to the dictionary text. It features a new introductory essay by language expert David Crystal on the History of English, includes 2,500 new words and senses, plus thousands of antedatings of existing words, drawing on the huge ongoing research project for the Oxford English Dictionary and the wealth of information on language in use provided by the Oxford English Corpus. In addition, the work includes many new quotations from recent authors, and a complete review of spelling forms and defining vocabulary, making it the most authoritative reference work available for both modern and historical English.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM provides convenient and quick access to the text of the dictionary. For scholars and everyone with a serious interest in the English language, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary provides a unique description of the historical development of the language together with excellent coverage of contemporary English, and the CD-ROM allows users to get the most out of this resource.

Network licences available; price on application. Email: network-cds@oup.com

System Requirements

Windows: Intel® Pentium® III 1GHz or faster processor (or equivalent); 512 MB of RAM; Microsoft® Windows® Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows 2000 Macintosh: PowerPC® G3 500MHz or faster processor; 512MB of RAM or Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz or faster processor; 512MB of RAM; Mac OS x 10.3.9 or later (PowerPC) or MacOS x 10.4.x or 10.5.x (Intel) All platforms: 300MB free hard disk space; monitor with 1024x768 pixels and high colour (16 bits per pixel, i.e. 65,536 colours); CD-ROM drive; 16-bit sound card