Oxford English Dictionary

American Dialect Society Founded more than a century ago, the American Dialect Society still is the only scholarly association dedicated to the study of the English language in North America - and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it.As the OED is a historical dictionary, its entry structure is very different from that of a dictionary of current English, in which only present-day senses are covered, and in which the most common meanings or senses are described first. For each word in the OED, the various groupings of senses are dealt with in chronological order according to the quotation evidence, i.e. the senses with the earliest quotations appear first.

The OED covers words from across English-speaking world,from North America to South Africa,from Australia to New Zealand to the Caribbean and the senses which have developed more recently appear further down the entry. In a complex entry with many strands, the development over time can be seen in a structure with several 'branches'.