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Quick Search
What is a Quick search?
The quick search finds main dictionary entries, such as
alphabet, break, xylophone. It also finds
phrases and compounds listed within main entries, such as to
look up or alphabet book and variant
spellings such as dictionarie.
The Quick search box is in the centre left of the Home page and
at the top of every other page of the
dictionary.
Running a Quick search
1. Type or paste the word you want to find in the Search
box.
2. Click or press Enter.
3. A list of results is displayed, or, if there is a single
result, the entry is displayed automatically.
4. Click on any of the results to open its entry.
A quick search will find your term if it is a main entry,
subentry, or variant spelling. The quick
search will not recognize a misspelling. If you do not know how
to spell a word, you can use a
wildcard in your search.
If you do not find the word you are looking for, go to ‘widen
search’, or try an Advanced
search, as your word may be found in an etymology or
quotation.
In a Quick search, it is not necessary to type punctuation or
worry about capital letters or
hyphens. See also Accents, hyphens, and special characters.
You can use wildcards in your search term if you wish.
More on searching:
Results list
If there is more than one match to a search, these are shown in
the results list. Use the list to move
to the entries you want to see.
Using wildcards
You can make your search more complex by using the wildcards *
and ?. Wildcards are useful if you
want to search for several terms with the same stem or if you
don't know exactly how your term is
spelled.
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Accents, hyphens, and special characters
How to search for accented characters and hyphenated terms. In
any search you can type your
search term in any combination of upper and lower case
letters.
Advanced search
A Quick search looks for main entries, compounds, and variant
spellings only. To search the entire
dictionary text for a term, use an Advanced search. An Advanced
search allows you to search a
particular type of dictionary text (e.g. quotation text) and/or
to search for words that occur near one
another.
Quick search results
If there is one result for your search, the entry opens
automatically.
If there is more than one result, a Results list is displayed.
Click on any of the headwords to
open the entry.
If there are no matching results, you are offered a list of
closest matches alphabetically.
Quick search results list
Each of the results consists of a headword and an excerpt from
the first definition of the entry or
subentry. Click on any of the headwords in the list to open its
entry. To view the next entry in the list,
click Next ». To return to the results list, click Back to
Results.
To move to the next or previous page in the Results list, click
Next » or « Previous.
Jump to alphabetical point in the results list
To move quickly to a point in the results list, type the letter
you want into this input box and click
. E.g. typing g moves the list to the first matching entry
beginning with g.
Sorting results
Results are listed in alphabetical order (by headword).
You can also choose to order them by date of first use. Click
Date.
The standard number of results is 20 per page, but you can alter
this (up to a maximum of 100) by
clicking one of the Items per page options.
Viewing timeline results
To view results in the form of a Timeline, click Timeline.
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The results are displayed as a graph illustrating their usage by
century. Move the cursor over a bar to
view the results for that time period, and follow the link back
to the results if you wish.
Widening your search
The results of a Quick search are main entries. The Widen
search? option is a quick way of extending
your search to phrases, definitions, etymologies, or the full
text. Click on any of the text areas (e.g. »
definitions) to display matching results.
Refining your search
There are two ways to refine your results:
1. Filtering them using the Refine by filters to the right of
the results list. You can narrow down
your results to only those matching a specific part of speech,
subject, date, etc.
2. Using the Refine search option to run an Advanced search on
the results lists.
More on results
Advanced search results
Printing results
Emailing results
Saving results
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Wildcards
What is a wildcard?
A wildcard is a symbol which stands for any character. You can
include wildcards in a Quick search or
an Advanced search to make your search more flexible.
Two wildcards are available:
The question mark ? represents the occurrence of any one single
character
The asterisk * represents the occurrence of any number of
characters (or no character at all)
A search with a wildcard retrieves all results which contain
matching terms. For example
c?t finds cat, cot, cut
c*t finds cat, caught, commencement, conflict, consent, cot,
cut, etc.
Using wildcards in a search
Wildcards are useful if you do not know how to spell a word, if
you are not sure in what form the
term you want appears in the dictionary, or if you want to find
several terms beginning with the
same root.
The search term *sychok?n?s?s finds psychokinesis
The term colo*r matches color and colour
The term chorograph* finds chorographer, chorographic,
chorographical, chorographically
Searching for a phrase
You can search for a phrase (e.g. eat humble pie) in both Quick
and Advanced searches.
Type the phrase into the Search box and start the search in the
usual way.
Search tips
An Advanced search looks for your phrase in the entire text of
the dictionary, so this may be
the most efficient search to choose.
If you are not sure in exactly what form your phrase may appear
in the dictionary, consider
an Advanced search for more than one term (e.g. humble Near
pie).
Upper and lower case
You do not need to distinguish between upper and lower-case
letters in your search term. Typing
Conservative, conservative, or CONSERVATIVE returns the same
results.
However, if you do want to take case into account, use Advanced
search and click the Case-sensitive
checkbox. When the box is checked the search term Conservative
finds only Conservative.
Accents, hyphens, and special characters
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You do not need to enter accented letters in order to find words
which contain accents.
A search for cafe finds cafe, café, Cafe, Café, CAFE, CAFÉ.
Use Advanced search if you want to find a specific accented or
hyphenated term.
Advanced Search
What is an Advanced search?
Advanced search is a full search of the entire dictionary text.
It finds your term wherever it occurs in
the dictionary. This could be in the form of an entry name, part
of another word's definition, in a
quotation, etc. An Advanced search also allows you to search for
words that occur near one another,
such as bread before butter.
Running an Advanced search
Here's how to run the simplest search:
1. Open the Advanced search page by clicking Advanced search
under the Search box at the top
of the page (or in the centre of the Home page).
2. Type the word or phrase you want to find into the main search
box at the top of the page.
3. Click .
4. The results are displayed in the Results list. To move to any
of the entries in the list, click on
its headword.
Example
To search for the term unmarried wherever it occurs in the full
text of the dictionary, type unmarried
into the Search box. Click . A list of results is displayed.
Click on any of the headwords in the
Results list to open it.
You can build on this basic search procedure by:
Choosing the scope of your search
Choosing between Entries, Senses, and Quotations.
Choosing your search area
The meaning of the options Full Text, Headword, Lemma,
Definitions, etc.
Using filters to refine your search
Filtering your search by origin (e.g. French Creole), usage
(e.g. euphemistic), region (e.g.
Caribbean), subject (e.g. Social Sciences), date of entry (e.g.
1960–1969), part of speech (e.g.
interjection), or entry range (e.g. entries beginning with the
prefix pre-).
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Searching for more than one term at once
Looking for combinations of words using Boolean operators such
as international AND
standard; Olympic NOT games; existential NEAR philosophy.
Wildcards
Making your search more flexible by using the wildcard
characters * and ?.
Results list
How to use and navigate the results list and select the entries
you have found for viewing.
More help on Advanced searching:
Searching for phrases
How to look for phrases such as mad as a hatter, solar eclipse,
bed and breakfast, etc.
Accents, hyphens, and special characters
How to search for accented characters and hyphenated terms. In
any search you can type
your search term in any combination of upper and lower case
letters.
Advanced search results
Each of the results consists of a headword and a snapshot of the
matching part of the entry. Click on
any of the headwords in the list to open its entry. A message is
displayed if there are no results.
To move to the next or previous page in the Results list, click
Next » or « Previous.
Jump to alphabetical point in the results list
To move quickly to a point in the results list, type the letter
you want into this input box and click Go.
E.g. typing g moves the list to the first matching entry
beginning with g.
Sorting results
The results are listed in alphabetical order (by headword).
You can also choose to order them by date of first use. Click
Date.
The standard number of results is 20 per page, but you can alter
this (up to a maximum of 100) by
clicking one of the Items per page options.
Viewing timeline results
To view results in the form of a Timeline, click Timeline.
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The results are displayed as a graph illustrating their usage by
century. Move the cursor over a bar to
view the results for that time period, and follow the link back
to the results if you wish.
Refining your search
There are two ways to refine your results:
1. Filtering them using the Refine by filters to the right of
the results list. You can narrow down
your results to only those matching a specific part of speech,
subject, date, etc.
2. Using the Refine search option to run an Advanced search on
the results lists.
More on results:
Quick search results
Printing results
Emailing results
Saving results
Choosing the scope of your search
What is the scope of a search?
The scope determines the kind of results you get from a search.
By default, your results are returned
by entry, just as in a Quick search. But a typical entry is
divided into senses and for each of the senses
there are usually a number of quotations. In an Advanced search
you also have the option to return
your results by sense or by quotations.
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Selecting the scope
You choose the scope of your search using the tabs marked
Entries, Senses, and Quotations at the
top of the Advanced search panel.
Entries
This is the default scope. When this is selected, your search
returns a list of entries. For example, a
search for headache lists all the entries which contain this
word.
Senses
A search on Senses returns individual senses within entries. A
search for headache lists all the senses
which contain this word.
Quotations
A search on Quotations returns individual quotations within
entries. A search for headache lists all
the quotations which contain this word.
Choosing your search area
What is a search area?
This is the type of dictionary text you choose to search in an
Advanced search. You choose your
search area from the list box on the right of the search box,
which is headed Full Text.
When you look at a typical entry you will see that it is divided
into different sections. In addition to
the main definition text for each of the senses of the entry,
there is often information on variant
spellings, etymology, quotations, etc. By default, an Advanced
search searches the entire text of the
entries, but you can confine your search area to a number of
other areas, if you prefer.
Selecting a search area
Click on the Full text list box and make your choice from the
list.
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More about the search areas
Full text is the entire text of all the entries in the
dictionary. It includes the entry names as well as
spellings, definitions, etymologies, and quotations. A search on
the full text of the dictionary is the
broadest possible search.
Headword confines your search to the main titles of entries.
Lemma restricts your search to compounds and phrases which
appear within the entries. (E.g. a
Lemma search on ladder finds the lemma aerial ladder in the
entry aerial, adj.
Variant spelling searches the dictionary's variant spellings for
your term. (A search for color finds this
as a variant spelling, for example, in the entries choler,
colour, hypercolour, and versicolour.)
Definitions searches the area of the text which contains all the
defined senses or meanings of the
entry. There is a definition for every sense of the entry. For
example, the definition of the entry
marble, n., sense 1.a is:
Etymology searches the text which contains information on the
origin of the word. For example:
Etymology - Language searches language names only (e.g., Low
German, Dutch, Frisian).
Etymology - Cited Form searches the cited word form only (e.g.,
brein, *bragno, etc.).
Labels are used to give brief information, usually in
abbreviated form, on the context in which that
term is used. For instance, a label will give a term's regional
origin (e.g. U.S., Australia), the subject
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area from which it derives (e.g. Biology, Chemistry, Music), the
status or level of language to which it
belongs (e.g. slang, dialect), its grammatical function (e.g.
plural, collective), and the type of meaning
assigned to a word in a particular context (figurative,
specific).
Quotations are the examples from print and manuscript sources
which illustrate each sense of an
entry. (Quotations are shown by default but you have the option
to hide them.) There are usually
quotations for every sense of the headword.
You can choose to search all quotations or confine your search
to the text of the first quotation in a
sense, i.e. the earliest recorded evidence for the use of a
sense(1st Quotation), authors (Quotation
Author), dates (Quotation Date), the titles of quoted works
(Quotation Title), or the text of
quotations (Quotation Text). Choose the appropriate option from
the list. Examples of content are:
1st Quotation 1951 E. Fermi Elem. Particles i. 3 The μ-meson of
Powell (called here muon) is
instead a disintegration product of the pion.
Quotation Author J. H. Newman
Quotation Date 1653
Quotation Title Tom Sawyer
Quotation Text Alas poore Yorick
Using filters
What is a filter?
A filter enables you to narrow your search to entries which
match a particular criterion (e.g., words
of Native American origin, slang terms, terms whose first use is
dated 1960–69, etc.). Two or more
filters may be combined in a search. Filters may be combined
with search terms, but you can also
search on the basis of a filter alone.
Available filters
Language of Origin The linguistic origin of a term (e.g.,
European languages)
Usage How the word is used (e.g., derogatory, ironic)
Region Where (geographically) the term is used (e.g.,
Caribbean)
Subject Its subject as designated in the dictionary (e.g., Arts,
Logic)
Date of entry Date of the first quoted use of the term.
Part of speech For example suffix or interjection.
Restrict to entry letter or range Use this option to restrict
your search to entries with beginning with
a particular letter or matching a specific wildcarded string
(e.g., all entries beginning with g*, or all
entries containing the string *calcu*).
Selecting a filter: Origin, Usage, Region, Subject
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Either click the relevant Browse option (e.g., Browse origin »)
to display the available filters.
Choose a filter from the list by clicking on it. A next to an
item indicates that a category
can be expanded further. Click to contract it again.
Or, if you know the name of the filter, begin typing it directly
into the input box. An
autocomplete prompt will appear to help you key in the filter in
the correct form.
Selecting a filter: Date of entry
Type your chosen date into the input box. You can type in:
A single date. For example, 1965.
A range of dates. Use the format 1970-1975.
An open date range. Use the formats -1401 (entries dated 1401
and earlier) or 1910- (entries
dated 1910 and later).
Including entries/ senses marked as current or obsolete
To restrict your results to current or obsolete entries or
senses only, check the appropriate box.
Selecting a filter: Part of speech
All parts of speech are selected by default. Choose an option
from the drop-down menu to select a
specific part of speech (e.g. combining form).
Selecting a filter: Restrict to entry letter or range
Type your term into the box. You can type in:
A wildcarded letter (e.g., b*). This finds matching entries
beginning with that letter.
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A wildcard term (e.g., poly*). Only results matching this string
will be returned.
A single word (e.g., lie). This finds only those entries with
that headword.
Searching for more than one term at once
You can search for more than one term at once. Key your second
search term into the second input
box. (You can continue to add input boxes to search for more
than two terms by clicking "Add row".)
Between the input boxes is a list box, headed And. This is where
you select how you want to combine
your terms. The options are And, Or, Not, Near, and Not
Near.
And Finds results containing all your terms.
sea And land.
Or
Finds results containing either of the terms.
sea Or land finds results which contain the word sea and results
which contain the word
land, as well as results which contain both.
Not
Finds results containing the first term but not the second.
sea NOT land finds results which contain the word sea but not
results which contain the
word land.
Near
Finds your terms near (i.e. within a specified number of words
of) one another. (The terms
must be anywhere within the same section of an entry.)
sea Near land finds results that contain the word sea within a
few words of the word land.
Not
Near
Finds your terms where they do not occur near (i.e. within a
specified number of words of)
one another.
Searching for terms in different search areas
If you wish, you can specify a different search area for each of
your terms. Choose the appropriate
search area (e.g., Quotation) from the box.
See also:
Choosing your search area
Near/Not Near searching
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By default a Near/Not Near search is set to One Word. The search
will look for your terms within one
word of one another.
You can switch to finding them within Five, Ten, Fifteen,
Twenty, Fifty, or a Hundred Words of one
another by choosing the appropriate option from the list.
An Ordered search
A Near/Not Near search finds your terms in any order (i.e.
Olympic before or after games). Click the
Ordered box to search for them only in the order in which they
appear in the search fields.
Note that:
The Near/Not Near part of a search is always performed first,
regardless of the order of any
other terms in the search.
Ordering multiple search terms
When more than one operator (e.g., And and Or) is used, the
search is run in the order in which they
are listed. For example:
This search retrieves entries in which bird OR mammal occurs in
the definition, AND in which
Australia occurs. In other words, the search is bracketed as
(bird OR mammal) AND australia, which
states that the operation Or is to be performed first.
You can override this default ordering by selecting the order
you want from the panel to the right of
the Advanced search form.
To run a search that would search for bird OR (mammal AND
Australia), you would need to reorder
the terms:
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Wildcards
What is a wildcard?
A wildcard is a symbol that stands for any character. You can
include wildcards in a Quick search or
an Advanced search to make your search more flexible.
Two wildcards are available:
The question mark ? represents the occurrence of any one single
character
The asterisk * represents the occurrence of any number of
characters (or no character at all)
A search with a wildcard retrieves all results which contain
matching terms. For example
c?t finds cat, cot, cut
c*t finds cat, caught, commencement, conflict, consent, cot,
cut, etc.
Using wildcards in a search
Wildcards are useful if you do not know how to spell a word, if
you are not sure in what form the
term you want appears in the dictionary, or if you want to find
several terms beginning with the
same root.
The search term *sychok?n?s?s finds psychokinesis
The term colo*r matches color and colour
The term chorograph* finds chorographer, chorographic,
chorographical, chorographically
Searching for a phrase
You can search for a phrase (e.g. eat humble pie) in both Quick
and Advanced searches.
Type the phrase into the Search box and start the search in the
usual way.
Search tips
An Advanced search looks for your phrase in the entire text of
the dictionary, so this may be
the most efficient search to choose.
If you are not sure in exactly what form your phrase may appear
in the dictionary, consider
an Advanced search for more than one term (e.g. humble Near
pie).
Upper and lower case
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You do not need to distinguish between upper and lower-case
letters in your search term. Typing
Conservative, conservative, or CONSERVATIVE returns the same
results.
However, if you do want to take case into account, click the
Case-sensitive checkbox. When the box
is checked the search term Conservative finds only
Conservative.
Accents, hyphens, and special characters
You do not need to enter accented letters in order to find words
which contain accents.
A search for cafe finds cafe, café, Cafe, Café, CAFE, CAFÉ.
However, if you want to find a specific accented or hyphenated
term, enter it into the Search box and
make sure Exact characters is checked. When Exact characters is
selected:
A search for Café finds Café only.
A search for no-one finds no-one only.
You can enter special characters using the character palette
just below the input box. Open the
palette by clicking on it. Then click on any of the letters to
paste it into the search box.
Special characters can also be pasted into the input box via
Character Map, using the keyboard
equivalents given in Character Map, by typing the Unicode
characters, using Alt key codes, via a
regional keyboard, or by pasting them into the input box from
another source.
