This new edition of Oxford's flagship single-volume dictionary brings you the results of the latest research into the real English of today. Oxford is lead partner in the British National Corpus, a massive and constantly expanding hundred-million-word database which allows dictionary editors to sample today's language - newspapers, magazines, books, advertisements, even transcripts of spoken English. With thousands of occurences ofeach common word available for instant analysis, lexicographers are able to track the latest trends in, for instance, spelling and hyphenation or disputed usages, with greater accuracy than ever before. This rolling, constantly updated 'opinion poll of language' combined with Oxford's unparalleledworld reading programme (we spend more on language research than any other dictionary publisher in the world), ensures that COD9 is the up-to-date reference for today's English. Bigger and better than ever before, its new features include: BL The most up-to-date spellings, with improved coverage of meaning and usage based on a computerized 'snapshot' of today's language BL 25% more content than the previous edition BL New words, including such items as holiday village, nip and tuck, central locking, ragga, house-sit, Balti, pesto, Cajun, road-pricing, Feyman diagram, supermodel, and slaphead BL New, more up-to-date pronunciation system, representing today's received pronunciation BL Over 300 new boxed usage notes with guidance on good English BL New, clearer etymologies BL easier to use with more compounds as main entries