What’s new
March 2013 update
The latest range of revised and updated OED entries focuses on revision of blue, covering 614 headwords, compounds, and other expressions. New words and meanings include boccia, podium, and whip-smart.
Alongside these, we have major clusters around the ranges of: audience and audio-; Caribbean; credit and Creole; friend; gang and gangster; serial and serious, smart, and the volcano words.
You can read more about the revisions and new words in the March 2013 update in this article by the Chief Editor of the OED, John Simpson.
See a full list of the new words and new subentries added in this update.
The OED publishes four updates a year. The next update will be added to the dictionary in June 2013.
4 October 2012: The OED Appeals
The OED Appeals is a major new online initiative involving the public in tracing the history of English words. Using a dedicated community space on the OED website, editors are soliciting help in unearthing new information about the history and usage of English, including the earliest examples of particular words. The website enables the public to post evidence in direct response to OED editors online, fostering a collective effort to record the English language and find the true roots of our vocabulary.
Find out more about the OED Appeals
Video: An introduction to the OED Appeals
Read a history of the OED’s Appeals to the public
Articles on OED Online
Windows on to words: dive into the OED!
Shapers of English: Tania Styles looks at place names in the OED.
English in time: Eleanor Maier explores how the ‘buster’ suffix has become ubiquitous.
English in use: Penny Silva writes about South African English.
More English in use: Richard Shapiro examines whether Indian cardinal numbers are the most distinctive counting system in English.
Word stories: Denny Hilton on The ‘auto-’ age.
Word of the Day: Sign up to Word of the Day or follow OED Online on 
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Videos
Video shorts: a series of videos now live examines how the OED is produced behind the scenes: