UC Library Online Resources

With content designed specifically colleges and universities, this database is an excellent resource for background information on projects in history, arts, society, humanities, geography, science and technology. Britannica Online incorporates all articles from the print set with interactive, online features to offer a dynamic online resource:

• Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus
• Current full text magazine and journal articles
• Live news feeds from the New York Times
• Maps, photos, illustrations, video and multimedia clips
• World Data Analyst tool to compare countries and create graphs and charts
• Links to recommended websites
• Notable Quotations and Gateway to the Classics

OED traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, including classical literature, specialist periodicals, film scripts and cookbooks.

The OED Online covers words from across the English-speaking world, from North America to South Africa, from Australia and New Zealand to the Caribbean. This historical dictionary offers etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings and shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet.

As a historical dictionary, OED entry structure is different from dictionary of current English. For each word:

• Groupings of senses (definitions) are in chronological order with the earliest meaning first
• Recently developed senses (definitions) are at the end of the entry