New Oxford Dictionary of English
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The New Oxford Dictionary of English (often abbreviated to NODE) is a single-volume English language dictionary first published in 1998 by the Oxford University Press. This dictionary is not based on the Oxford English Dictionary and should not be mistaken for a new or updated version of the OED. It is a completely new dictionary which strives to represent as faithfully as possible the current usage of English words.
The latest edition contains 355,000 words, phrases and definitions. It is at present the largest single-volume English-language dictionary published by Oxford.
The first editor, Judy Pearsall, claims it is based on modern understanding of language, as it derives from a corpus linguistics of contemporary used English. Some unorthodox choices made by the editors made this dictionary controversial amongst lexicographers, because the dictionary is descriptive rather than prescriptive. For example, the editors did not advocate against split infinitives, and instead justify their use in some contexts.
For a college-level dictionary, another unusual decision was to omit pronunciations for common, everyday words, contrary to the practice of most large dictionaries.
In 2003 a second edition, renamed Oxford Dictionary of English, was edited by Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. A revised second edition was published in August 2005; it included a free subscription to an online edition of the dictionary.
In Britain and many other English-speaking countries, electronic versions of the second edition are available for portable handhelds.