OED Additions Series

Two volumes have already been published in the Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series, and copy for the third volume is now almost complete. It will be published in 1995 and will contain the traditional mixture of new words and new senses of old words.

As a recent review of the first two volumes in Language International said: "If you can't wait until the next century to see what's in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, then the OED Additions Series is the answer". The books were also described as "but a taste of a great work", and from now on our new-words lexicographers will also be responding to drafting requests from those engaged in revising the great work, who discover omissions and gaps in their entries, so the team will be at full stretch.

Nevertheless, work in progress always reveals the need for examples of particular usages and dates which we cannot find through our files or electronic and library research resources.

We plan to include an appeals list in these newsletters, in the hope that someone may in their reading come across just what we are looking for, or may know of references which we can follow up. Our current needs include examples of these terms before the date indicated:

Simple terms

acidy a.: resembling acid; sharp, vinegary (1970)

bicameralism n.: (1966)

big girl's blouse: (1983)

bleatingly adv.: (1986)

claustrophobe n.: a sufferer of claustrophobia (1974)

jigger v. trans.: to adjust (figures, etc), to tamper with (1976)

keyboarder n.: a person who enters data into a computer (1971)

kinkily adv.: (1964)

labourism, (U.S.) laborism n.: (in general use, an outlook emphasizing workers' solidarity) (1976)

laybacking n. (Mountaineering): (1955)

leeriness n.: (1976)

libidinally adv.: (1967)

machinable a.: capable of being processed by machine (1960)

mannerlessness n.: (1947)

maternalistic a.: (1974)

swipe v. trans.: to pass a credit card through an electronic reader (1986)

worldlet n.: little world (1926)

Turns of phrases

Definitions which are appropriate in one century may not be appropriate in the next. While the four that follow are not exactly Johnsonian in their irrelevance, they nicely illustrate a thorny problem for OED revision: whether to supplement or to delete text which captured the flavour of a word's meaning to readers a century ago.

April-fool: one who is sent on a bootless errand, or otherwise sportively imposed upon upon.

gnomical: of a person: given to uttering gnomes.

hairbrush: a toilet brush for smoothing and dressing the hair.

lackadaisical: resembling one who is given to crying "Lackaday!"

If you can help with any of these appeals, please send information to oed3@oup.co.uk.