The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary, Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically (in slipcase with reading glass)

OED in one giant book! But be aware that you really can't read anything without using magnifying glass (you get one with the book for a reason). So if you will only use this book in those rare occasions where all your other dictionaries have failed you (here presuming that you are at least an advanced student of English because otherwise you don't really need it although you may want to have it anyway) than it might be the right choice for you. If however you intend to use it frequently then perhaps the 6-book edition of OED might be a better way to go although costing 3 times more - either way you look at it, it is quite an investment.

The Compact OED is exactly everything in the mammoth OED, micrographically-reproduced into 2 stout volumes. I own a 1979 printing, and I had to buy a $20 4x dome magnifier to read it. The books are heavy, impractical to use if you're reading a novel and quickly want to look up a word, and of all the 414,800 + entries (1st edition OED), there are no proper nouns per se (no Biographical/Geographical definitions). The OED has chosen its own list of dozens of arcane pronunciation symbols, too, with about 7 symbols that
really are not much different than a schwa, so you must deal with that also. (I made a cheat-sheet card). There is a host of abbreviations and initials that are NOT explained in the preface (s.v. comes to mind) which may leave you scratching your head. There are zero maps or diagrams. Finally, the edition I have, although it was printed in 1979, does not have any words past 1933, even in the supplement. There is no "daiquiri" (introduced in 1920), or "frisson" (introduced in 1700's), making me really wonder how good the revered OED scholarship is. However, I have not looked at the 2nd edition OED, published in 1989. But still, the 1st edition, with a 1933 supplement, should have included these words.

Having said that, I am loath to part with it! It has 414,800 + words (cf, Webster's 3rd Int'l has 450,000 but less usage examples and no dating, and Random House Unabridged has 315,000, but must exclude many older terms due to the newer terms and including proper names), a whopping 1.8 million usage examples (2.5 million in 2nd ed. 1989), from real dated quotes, and is indispensable if you read old literature and need to look up antiquated terms. And it is true that simply reading these quotes (of which the year and exact source is referenced), one can learn quite a bit about the English language, or even the development of language and the world itself! The preface even mentions this benefit, and I have spent hours doing nothing but "reading" the OED for this reason! How many other dictionaries are that fun to browse? For example, modern collegiate dictionaries, to save space, have expurgated older terms, detailed usage examples and archaic words, in order to include lots of terms from chemistry, science and technology. But personally, reading the definition of "cholic acid" or "sterol" or "plant lipid" is not exciting. But look up
"hang" or "bestiary" in the OED and let it take you on a trip through Western civilization. Finally, the pronunciations interestingly reveal (unlike modern dictionaries, which seem to hold the past in contempt)the older articulations, rather than new ones like "forte", "exquisite" and "oscine", and this helps one understand also the original sense of the word from its etymology. And because the definitions are dated, one can often see maybe how words came to mean what they mean today, from looking at the original senses.

So, if you are willing to break out the magnifier and spend hours trolling the words as a pastime, or if you read a lot of dusty books from dead authors, or even if you want to play a more scholarly game of Scrabble (to learn new words) then the compact OED is suitable. But if you want a general reference work, which has words from modern technology, modern science, modern medicine, modern slang, biographical names, geographical names, diagrams and maps, then buy the Random House Unabridged, or even a good collegiate dictionary (Merriam Webster 11th edition--available in Franklin portable electronic device by the way, and very handy, American Heritage, or New World).

Good luck!

If my house, God Forbid, were burning down, this would be the book I would risk my life to save. If I were stranded on a remote island and allowed only one book, this would be my choice. This book was one of my first Amazon Purchases. When it came, my fellow lit cronies came over and we just basked in the indigo aura...the spy glass makes me feel like one of the wyrd sisters in Macbeth...the book has been a lot of fun and helpful when working on a glossing project. This resource has been helpful in theater projects, religious studies (glossing type research within the king james bible) and numerous other miscelaneous research projects so enjoyed by the inquisitive, mercurial morphology sleuth.

This is one reference worth reading. The story of the most unlikely contributer is additionally compelling. This book is a magical and exciting reference full of treasure. I found so much more enjoyment in the pre restoration english literature as this reference brought life and meaning into those strange, formerly foreign lines.

I have had my micrographic dictionary long enough to not swoon over the raw idea of the thing (like a lot of the knaves posting reviews that sound oh-so-familiar to the product description with gobs of exclamation points). I am a ferocious reader of dictionaries, a college student, and I do a lot of writing so in the interest of precision or simply bolstering my vocabulary with words like taciturnity, illinition, and temporicide--this dictionary's arsenal of obscure/obsolete treasures is not to be trifled with.

The lense for this version is actually not at all an annoyance, except if you go off the page a little. It covers the whole row, so you don't have to move it left and right like I thought, and it isn't a hand lense it sets on the page--which is really convenient in comparison to the last groggy edition. It's really easy to read. The problem I have with all this is that when the lense goes off the page, if you aren't careful you will rip the page. And you probably will rip a few. The glue they use for the binding also gets into the pages and glues some of them together at the edges, which is really annoying, but you can get them apart without incident if you exercise some caution.

In order be able to understand all of the abbreviations (and by abbreviations I don't mean n. or adj., in order to reduce size they have to abbreviate everything they can about the structure of the word and it's basic history, but the definitions and references themselves are in tact) you need to familiarize yourself with the book that comes with it, explaining how to decipher everything. It isn't long, and if you are interested in buying this anyways you are probably either a really pretentious feign flauting some fictitious intellect or a really intense need-to-know-everything freak/professor/student of the universe--in which case (the latter case) fifty or so pages on how to be friends with this big book is no big deal.

Now, if you are interested in getting this it would be wise to warn you that it is not a good idea to have this as your only dictionary. I supplement mine with online dictionaries and an older Random House dictionary. It does take forever just to find a single word in the OED, and for casual use it simply isn't practical. If you are just looking up the meaning of say caricature, hyperbolize, or expatiate--a smaller dictionary really is more useful.

Finally, one of the huge advantages to this dictionary, which is really why they made it, is mobility. I am on the go between several houses so I need to be able to take my books from my library to different places with as little hassle as possible. Ok, if I am lugging along two dictionaries along with god-knows-what you can imagine how much of a hassle I must be book wise, but this to the twenty-volume edition (plus supplementary texts) is an absolute joy. This, as well as just being the OED, is what gets this thing five stars.

i had the old version back 20 or so years ago. i am waiting somewhat joyously for the new, to replace my 'shorter oxford english dictionary'. my sight (at 52) is *not* great - i think i have 20 pairs of reading glasses around. but if it were greater, and i had a lot more money, and space, i would have bought the big one (well, ones). if you go in knowing you have to understand what you/re getting, the smaller oxford is great. the old edition never bothered me. but, once again, that is me.

but the quality of dictionary can *not* be misunderstood. even with my degrees in latin and greek, and a long knowledge of anglo-saxon, i always find i can read the oxford dictionaries as if they were a novel. new knowledge everywhere. wish i were involved.

can/t wait for the new one.