Oxford Reference
Use Oxford Reference for free at home or in the library with your library membership number. Oxford Reference is a huge and comprehensive resource containing dictionaries and reference titles covering every subject, from Science and Medicine to Business and Professional.
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Oxford Reference brings together language and
subject reference works from one of the world's biggest and most
trusted reference publishers into a single cross-searchable
resource. New content and features are added to Oxford
Reference throughout the year.
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English Dictionaries and Reference
Including a dictionary of abbrevations, English idioms, proverbs
and modern slang.
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Did You Know?
Edacious is relating to or given to eating.
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Did You Know?
The word pedigree comes from Old French pé de
grue, which literally meant ‘crane's foot’. The
development of the modern meaning (recorded from the 17th century)
arose from a mark used to denote succession in pedigrees or family trees, which had
three branching lines and was likened to a bird's foot. The first,
medieval sense of pedigree in English was ‘family tree,
genealogical table.’
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Bilingual Dictionaries
Translate words and phrases into a range of different
languages, modern and classical.
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Did You Know?
Olympics is: las Olimpíadas (Spanish),
Olympiade (German), Olimpiadi
(Italian)
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Did You Know?
England is: Inglaterra (Spanish),
Inghilterra (Italian), Angleterre
(French), Anglia (Latin)
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Quotations
Access the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Modern Quotations,
Scientific Quotations and much more.
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'Reading is
to the mind what exercise is to the body' - Richard Steele |
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'Coaching a football team is not rocket science and most of the
advice is blindingly obvious.' - Gary Lineker
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Maps and Illustrations
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Visual English dictionary containing 6,000 colour illustrations
from 800 subjects on a broad range of topics from astronomy and the
human body to arts and society.
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World flags - a quick reference guide with the pictures of
national flags and an explanation of their origin.
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World maps includes over 775 maps, with locator, physical
and political maps for each country, over 120 island maps, state
maps for North America, Canada, and Mexico, and more than 100 city
maps.
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Timelines
Timelines of notable events on themes such as literature,
ancient world, technology and society.
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Did You Know?
In 1967 Christiaan Barnard carried out the first successful
heart transplant.
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Did You Know?
In 1903 Orville Wright travelled 40 yards in the first
successful powered flight.
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Encyclopedia
Search a guide to the countries of the world and a world
encyclopedia.
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Did You Know?
Mount McKinley in Alaska is the highest peak in North
America.
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Did You Know?
A tiger will eat up to 25kg (50lb) of meat in one meal.
Tigers can be as long as 4m (13ft) and weigh up to 230kg
(500lb).
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Subject Reference
Find reference materials on a range of subjects, from Art &
Architecture to Science. Includes:
The Oxford Companion to the Garden (Earth & Environmental
Sciences)
A Diction of Marketing (Economics & Business)
A Dictionary of Family and Local History (History)
A Dictionary of Diet and Exercise (Food & Drink)
A Dictionary of Astronomy (Physical Sciences &
Mathematics)
A Dictionary of First Names (Names & Places)
Dictionary of Superstitions (Mythology & Folklore)
A Dictionary of Animal Behaviour (Natural History) and much
more.
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Did You Know?
A marquess is the rank of nobility between duke and earl. The first man to receive the
title was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was made Marquess of
Dublin in 1385. The French spelling ‘marquis’ is often preferred.
The wife of a marquess is a marchioness. The heir to a dukedom
sometimes has the courtesy title of marquis.
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Did You Know?
Stars are classified in a number of ways. One way is by their
evolutionary stage: into pre-main-sequence, main-sequence, giant,
supergiant, white-dwarf, or neutron stars. Another classification
is in terms of their spectra, which indicate their surface
temperature.
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