Key to symbols and other conventions
Before a word or sense
| † | = obsolete |
| ‖ | = not naturalized, alien (not used in New Edition entries) |
| ¶ | = catachrestic and erroneous uses (not used in New Edition entries) |
After a label ‘Obs.’ or ‘rare’
| —0 | indicates a word or sense for which no contextual examples from printed sources were available to the editors |
| —1 |
indicates a word or sense for which only one contextual example from a printed source was available to the editors |
In a listing of variant spellings
Second Edition entries:
| 1 | = before 1100 |
| 2 | = 12th century (1100-1200) |
| 3 | = 13th century (1200-1300), etc. |
| 5-7 | = 15th to 17th century, etc. |
| 9- | = 19th century to present, etc. |
| 20 | = 20th century |
New Edition entries:
| eOE | = early Old English |
| OE | = Old English |
| lOE | = late Old English |
| eME | = early Middle English |
| ME | = Middle English |
| lME | = late Middle English |
| 14 | = 1400-99 |
| 15 | = 1500-99, etc. |
| 16-18 | = 1600-1899, etc. |
| 18- | = 1800-present, etc. |
| -17 | = before 1700 (labelling Older Scottish forms) |
In an etymology
| * | indicates a word or form not actually found, but of which the existence is inferred |
| < | = from (in New Edition entries) |
| > | = developed into or borrowed as (in New Edition entries) |
Within a forms section
| α., β., and other letters of the Greek alphabet | indicate lists of forms that are in some way similar or related. For example, in the case of fantastic, adj. and n. the α. and β are used to separate the forms that begin with the letter f and those that begin with ph-. The letters will also appear in the quotations sections alongside the illustrative examples of the similar or related forms. |
Before a date
| a | = ante |
| c | = circa |
| ? | indicates an uncertain date |
Within a definition
| = | means ‘the same as’ |
Within the quotations section
| … | (within cited text) indicates an omitted part of a quotation |
| [ ] | surrounds an editorial insertion |
| ~ | indicates a hyphen introduced in the printing of the First Edition of the OED, which may not have been present in the cited text |
Around an entire quotation
| [ ] | indicates a quotation is relevant to the development of a sense but not directly illustrative of it |