Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Deluxe Edition

Daily Telegraph Review from previous edition The Shorter demands a shelf, but one very close to the desk of anyone who cares about words.


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


Erich Segal, Times Literary Supplement It may be difficult to carry, but not to read


Chris Campling, Times It must be difficult trying to come up with a bright marketing technique to sell the fifth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary ...but the OUP seems to have managed it. On the box housing the two volumes of this mighty enterprise is a picture of a white-bearded gentleman in a cloak who, at first blush, appears to be J. K. Rowling's Albus Dumbledore. However, it is Sir James Murray (1837-1915), the first Editor of the real, 21-volume Oxford English
Dictionary, of which the Shorter is an honest abridgement. More than half a million definitions are presented in clear type, set big enough for all but the most long-sighted.


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


US News & World Reports Even at a fraction of its original bulk, the premier collection of English words manages to squeeze in over a third of the original's content, including its hallmark: minute etymological details.


Toronto Star The Shorter is a mine of information

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


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


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