The New Oxford Dictionary of English was first published in 1998 and quickly established itself as the foremost single-volume authority on the English language. This is a major new edition, now without the New in the title, but with all the features that brought world-wide acclaim to the first publication. The Oxford Dictionary of English is at the forefront of language research, focusing on English as it is used today, informed by the most up-to-date evidence and the latest research from the Oxford English Corpus. The dictionary is unique in that it places the central and most frequent meanings of each word first, followed by secondary and technical senses, slang, idioms, and historical and archaic senses. There are over 500 boxed usage notes, giving guidance on all aspects of the language and backed up by extensive analysis of 100s of millions of words of real English. Featuring 355,000 words, phrases, and definitions, this dictionary offers the most comprehensive coverage of English as it is actually used in the twenty-first century. There is also a brand-new set of appendices, covering topics including countries, heads of state, and chemical elements.