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The Oxford Dictionary of English (formerly The New Oxford Dictionary of English, often abbreviated to NODE) is a single-volume English language dictionary first published in 1998 by Oxford University Press. This dictionary is not based on the Oxford English Dictionary and should not be mistaken for a new or updated version of the OED. It is a completely new dictionary which strives to represent as faithfully as possible the current usage of English words.
The latest edition (2005) contains 355,000 words, phrases, and definitions, including biographical references. It is at present the largest single-volume English-language dictionary published by Oxford.
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The first editor, Judy Pearsall, wrote in the introduction that it is based on a modern understanding of language and is derived from a corpus of contemporary English usage. For example, the editors did not advocate against split infinitives, but instead justified their use in some contexts. A more unusual decision was to omit pronunciations of common, everyday words, contrary to the practice of most large dictionaries.[citation needed]
There were several reissues of the New Oxford Dictionary of English, the first was in 1999, when it was published with thumbtabs, and subsequently, in 2001, when it was reissued with corrections and printed thumbtabs and contains over 2170 pages.
In 2003, a second edition, named the Oxford Dictionary of English, was edited by Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. A revised second edition was published in August 2005; it included a free subscription to an online edition of the dictionary. In Britain and many other English-speaking countries, electronic versions of the second edition are available for PDAs.
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