Authoritative and up to date, this eleventh edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions, covering general and specialist words, literary, historical, and technical terms, and new words that have recently entered the language.

In addition there are hundreds of helpful notes on grammar, punctuation, and usage, many of them new to this edition.

New to this edition is also a fascinating Word Histories feature, telling the often bizarre stories of the origins and development of hundreds of words. For example, did you know that the word grammar is related to glamour, or that cockney used to mean a spoilt child?