NOVA MCGILL
Contributor
The first publishing of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) took place on February 1, 1884, when Oxford University Press released the dictionary’s first installment (called a fascicle). This first published section covered the words from “A” to “Ant.” Instead of releasing a full dictionary all at once, the publishers decided to issue it in smaller parts because the project was far too large to finish quickly.
The OED was created because scholars believed existing dictionaries were incomplete and outdated. The goal was to build a dictionary that did more than simply define words—it would trace the history of each word, including when it first appeared in English, how its meaning changed over time, and how it was used in real writing. To do this, editors relied heavily on quotations from sources like books, newspapers, and letters, which helped prove how words were actually used in different time periods.
Because the dictionary required massive research and organization, it took decades to complete. Thousands of volunteers contributed by sending in slips of paper with word examples, creating one of the largest language research efforts in history. Although the first section appeared in 1884, the OED continued to be published for many years, and the first complete edition was not finished until 1928, making it one of the most important and ambitious dictionary projects ever created.
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