Concise Oxford Dictionary

Concise Oxford Dictionary, often abbreviated as COD, is probably the best-known 'smaller' Oxford dictionaries. It was started as a derivative of the Oxford English Dictionary although section S-Z had to be written before the Oxford English Dictionary actually reached that stage.

The editors of the first edition (1911) were the brothers H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler. The second edition (1929) was edited by H. W. Fowler alone as his brother had died in 1918. The third edition was edited by H. G. Le Mesurier. The fourth (1951) and fifth (1964) editions were prepared by E. McIntosh, who introduced the space-saving swung dash that stands for the headword. The sixth edition (1976) by J. B. Sykes saw a thorough revision based on the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary. In the seventh edition (1982), also by Sykes, symbols were introduced to mark uses considered controversial or offensive. The eighth edition (1990) by Robert E. Allen, being computer-based, changed the original structure to a large extent. The current tenth edition was edited by Judy Pearsall.