Has anyone ever subscribed to the Oxford English Dictionary?

Question

I'm wanting to get a subscription the OED online, and will try it out for at least one month. The subscription will cost 29.95/month which is pretty high but I'd still like to give it a shot and see how it benefits me. I would like to get some input from anyone who has ever tried it. And if so, what was your experience using it? Was it worth the membership fee? Etc. My primary purpose of wanting to subscribe is that I will be studying bible scripture and I like to get as accurate of a meaning as possible to certain words as they were used in the original text. Being that I'm not a scholar and don't have any other resources than the normal online dictionaries, I thought this would be a good start. Your thoughts? thank you.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

I have access. You'll hate me, but here (UK) you can generally get free online access from home via the city library - you just log in with your library ticket number.

The OED is superb. It has citations for words as far back as they can find. However, the citations come from a range of sources, usually reflecting meanings that were highly variable even in any historical period when the word was used. You're unlikely to find some ultimate "accurate meaning" to a word.

For your purpose, I think it would be better to go for a good biblical concordance. These consider the wording in terms of the original language (Greek / Hebrew) and the translation, and will give you a clearer idea of what the translator had in mind for the translated text to mean. A number of the classic out-of--copyright concordances are online: http://biblesuite.com/

lordreith · Answer

The OED is probably the greatest achievement in English dictionary-making.  However, Strong's Concordance, which you are probably familiar with,  should serve your purposes just fine. And it's only about $25.00  for the latest, most exhaustive edition . Check price with Amazon through this link.
 Many large public and college  libraries  make the OED available online for free. It's also free online from various websites. See link below.

Has anyone ever subscribed to the Oxford English Dictionary?

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