What happened in the Scriptorium? Where did radium go? What’s the unsolved mystery of editor Charles Onions? Join Fiona McPherson and Craig Leyland for stories about the OED's history from Dr Peter Gilliver, fellow lexicographer and author of ‘The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary’.

Come back for another episode in two weeks (May 13th), when we’ll be discussing regional English (with specific reference to Scotland and Yorkshire) and talking to OED’s head of pronunciation, Dr Catherine Sangster.

www.oed.com

lexipoddery@oup.com

https://themakersoftheoed.wordpress.com/

Music by Matt Cutmore.

Glossary

Antedating: an occurrence of a word, phrase, or sense, which predates the earliest use previously known or recorded.

Collocation: the habitual juxtaposition or association of a particular word with other particular words; a group of words so associated.

Compound: two or more words put together to make a new word or phrase (like hot sauce, nutcracker, or Greenwich Mean Time).

Entry: a section of a dictionary devoted to a particular word, starting with the headword and including the etymology, pronunciation, senses, compounds, etc.

Etymology: the origin and historical development of a word; the process of investigating this.

Headword: the word you look up, at the start of the entry; the word that is being defined.

Label: OED adds labels to words, when useful for readers, to give information on region (e.g. South African), subject (e.g. U.S. history), register (e.g. slang), usage (e.g. derogatory), and status (e.g. obsolete).

Lexicography: the art/science/craft of writing dictionaries. A lexicographer is a writer of dictionaries. (“A harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words,” according to Samuel Johnson. Fair enough, he should know.)

Obsolete: describing a word as no longer in use. (For OED’s purposes, that means we haven’t found any evidence of it after 1930.)

Poddery: podcasting? We thought it sounded fun. It's not in OED...yet.

Sense: any of the various distinct meanings of a particular word.

Small-type note: text (in small type!) that sits under the main definition, where we can add extra, useful information that doesn’t fit in the main definition itself.

Update: a new version of OED, including new and revised entries, as published four times a year on oed.com. Also called a release.

What impact has Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had on the Oxford English Dictionary, and how did The Hound of the Baskervilles prompt us to update an entry? Why does tech terminology owe a lot to our fingers? What’s the longest word in the OED? (Depending on what you mean by longest.) Join lexicographers Craig Leyland and Fiona McPherson to find out.

Come back for another episode in two weeks (April 29th), when we’ll be talking to our colleague Dr Peter Gilliver about the history of the OED and how he wrote a book on the subject.

(Apologies from Craig for my occasionally suboptimal mic use in this episode – we’re learning as we go! Plus I had a cold…)

www.oed.com

lexipoddery@oup.com

Music by Matt Cutmore.

Glossary

Antedating: an occurrence of a word, phrase, or sense, which predates the earliest use previously known or recorded.

Collocation: the habitual juxtaposition or association of a particular word with other particular words; a group of words so associated.

Compound: two or more words put together to make a new word or phrase (like hot sauce, nutcracker, or Greenwich Mean Time).

Entry: a section of a dictionary devoted to a particular word, starting with the headword and including the etymology, pronunciation, senses, compounds, etc.

Etymology: the origin and historical development of a word; the process of investigating this.

Headword: the word you look up, at the start of the entry; the word that is being defined.

Lexicography: the art/science/craft of writing dictionaries. A lexicographer is a writer of dictionaries. (“A harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words,” according to Samuel Johnson. Fair enough, he should know.)

Obsolete: describing a word as no longer in use. (For OED’s purposes, that means we haven’t found any evidence of it after 1930.)

Poddery: podcasting? We thought it sounded fun. It's not in OED...yet.

Sense: any of the various distinct meanings of a particular word.

Small-type note: text (in small type!) that sits under the main definition, where we can add extra, useful information that doesn’t fit in the main definition itself.

Update: a new version of OED, including new and revised entries, as published four times a year on oed.com. Also called a release.

For how long have we doomscrolled, and what’s the cure? Who popularized the glitch? Why is snobbery just a load of old cobblers? Join lexicographers Fiona McPherson and Craig Leyland to find out how the Oxford English Dictionary answers these questions and more in its March 2026 update.

Come back for another episode on April 15th, when we’ll be talking about the history of the word digital; the impact Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, had on the English language; and the longest word in the OED.

https://www.oed.com

https://www.oed.com/information/updates/march-2026/

lexipoddery@oup.com

Music by Matt Cutmore.

Glossary

Antedating: an occurrence of a word, phrase, or sense, which predates the earliest use previously known or recorded.

Collocation: the habitual juxtaposition or association of a particular word with other particular words; a group of words so associated.

Compound: two or more words put together to make a new word or phrase (like hot sauce, nutcracker, or Greenwich Mean Time).

Entry: a section of a dictionary devoted to a particular word, starting with the headword and including the etymology, pronunciation, senses, compounds, etc.

Etymology: the origin and historical development of a word; the process of investigating this.

Headword: the word you look up, at the start of the entry; the word that is being defined.

Lexicography: the art/science/craft of writing dictionaries. A lexicographer is a writer of dictionaries. (“A harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words,” according to Samuel Johnson. Fair enough, he should know.)

Obsolete: describing a word as no longer in use. (For OED’s purposes, that means we haven’t found any evidence of it after 1930.)

Poddery: podcasting? We thought it sounded fun. It's not in OED...yet.

Sense: any of the various distinct meanings of a particular word.

Small-type note: text (in small type!) that sits under the main definition, where we can add extra, useful information that doesn’t fit in the main definition itself.

Update: a new version of OED, including new and revised entries, as published four times a year on oed.com. Also called a release.