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Subject Guide » English Language and Literature

Dictionaries

4 resources available.
restricted - Restricted to WMU users open access - Open Access

Oxford English Dictionary restricted PE 1625 .O86 (Ref)
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is an historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day. It provides not only the current meanings of words, but also traces their development through time. Entries contain detailed etymological analysis, and are illustrated by quotations from a wide range of English language sources from around the world, making the OED a unique historical record. Click "Enter OED Online" and start searching.

Oxford Reference Online: Premium Collection restricted Contains over 100 dictionaries, encyclopedias, language reference and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. In addition to text, some of these sources include maps, illustrations, and carefully selected weblinks. Users can search one resource, a group of selected resources, or all of them at once. Sources are regularly updated. Please logoff when finished.

Librarian's Comment: The following online dictionaries within this general resource may be very useful to students of English language and literature:
The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English
The Concise Oxford Dictionary
The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English
The Oxford Paperback Thesaurus

Credo Reference (Formerly Xreferplus) restricted Full text online from about 240 encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books all cross-referenced. Search a topic, build a concept map or browse information sources organized by subject. Find text, images, sound files, sortable data tables and more.

Librarian's Comment: The following dictionaries of language and literature are available electronically in Xreferplus:

A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang
Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Millennium Edition
Dictionary of Eponyms, Manser
Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Abbreviations, H.W. Wilson
Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk
Rawson's Wicked Words
The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of Idioms
The Bloomsbury Good Word Guide
The Browser's Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases
The Devil's Dictionary
The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary
Dictionary of Shakespeare, Peter Collin Publishing
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story

A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory
3rd ed., 1991. PN 41 .C83 1991 (Ref)
One of the best of numerous dictionaries of literary terms. Not as thorough on poetry as the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Includes forms, genres, kinds, groups, schools, themes, character types, styles, etc. Besides a definition some entries include etymology, examples, or an illustrative passage from a poem.

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Last updated: March 2008

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