Oxford Dictionary Quotes & Sayings

Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources. — Alan Thein Durning

In fact," I add, "if George Clooney is ever accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, that activity is immediately getting added to my bucket list. "As in, 'Have you ever been George Clooneyed?'" Oliver asks. "Exactly. 'We went for a walk, and then George Clooneyed until around two. Good night. — Christina Lauren

I have six or seven 'what to name the baby' books, the Oxford dictionary of names, and a fabulous tome that's 26 languages in simultaneous translation - French, German, all the European majors, plus Esperanto, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and so on. — Melanie Rawn

Don't you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything. — David Bowie

It's the Queen's English now,' observed Peter mildly.

'Is there a difference?' asked Oundle rhetorically. 'I fervently hope not.'

'There will be in time,' said Peter.

'That will be deplorable,' replied Oudle. 'I shall not myself deviate by a syllable from correct usage.'

'My language is foul, and yours is Fowler?' said Peter, and added one of his sudden quirky smiles, 'or know your Onions.'

This quip crossed the barrier of the table, because the man sitting nearly opposite Peter laughed.

'Onions?' said Oudle.

'C.T. Onions, I imagine,' said the man opposite. 'Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.'

'Oh, I see,' said Oudle. 'Very droll. — Jill Paton Walsh

Basic dictionaries no longer belong on paper; the greatest, the 'Oxford English Dictionary,' has nimbly remade itself in cyberspace, where it has doubled in size and grown more timely and usable than ever. — James Gleick

If that doesn't seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word "google" is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary - as a verb. — Peter Thiel

There were over six hundred thousand words in the Oxford Dictionary. That meant there were six hundred thousand definitions of different words with a million and one meanings. Some words were silly while others were heartbreaking. Some words were happy while others were angry. So many different letters came together in different ways to form those different words, those unique meanings. So many words, but at the end of the day there was only one word that stood out among the rest. One word that somehow meant both heaven and hell, the sunny days and the rainy days, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was the one word that made sense when everything else around you was messy, painful, and unapologetic. Love. With a smile, I wrapped my pinkie around his and said, I love you. — Brittainy C. Cherry

Ludicrous concepts ... like the whole idea of a war on terrorism. You can wage war against another country, or on a national group within your own country, but you can't wage war on an abstract noun. How do you know when you've won? When you've got it removed from the Oxford English Dictionary? — Terry Jones

HERE'S HOW MY OXFORD DICTIONARY DEFINES IT: "The spasmodic utterance, facial distortion, shaking of the sides, etc., which form the instinctive impression of mirth." To me this sounds like the array of symptoms caused by a lethal virus, but it's actually a description of one of the best things life has to offer: laughter. With certain exceptions, the Joy Diet requires you to do it at least thirty times a day. — Martha N. Beck

My head was spinning. I could think of nothing better to calm it down than the Oxford English Dictionary. — Alan Bradley

Books provide a handy shorthand when Rory's mostly MIA father, Christopher, is first introduced to viewers. Christopher's offer to buy Rory the Compact Oxford English Dictionary she covets is sincere; his lack of ability to follow through on his good intentions is Christopher in a nutshell. — Jennifer Crusie

The Oxford English Dictionary is the greatest work of reference ever written, and it's largely the result of a Scotsman who left school at fourteen, and a criminally insane American. — Mark Forsyth

What do scientists mean when they talk of a virus? This is not quite so elementary as some people might believe. In The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a virus is defined as "a morbid principle, or a poisonous venom, especially one capable of being introduced into another person or animal." The dictionary takes its cue from the Latin virus, which denotes a slimy liquid, a poison, an offensive odor or taste. It is a colorful definition, redolent of medieval notions of disease origins in evil emanations, but it offers little by way of scientific understanding. — Frank Ryan

The Oxford Classical Dictionary firmly states: "No word in either Greek or Latin corresponds to the English 'religion' or 'religious.' "6 The idea of religion as an essentially personal and systematic pursuit was entirely absent from classical Greece, Japan, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, China, and India.7 Nor does the Hebrew Bible have any abstract concept of religion; and the Talmudic rabbis would have found it impossible to express what they meant by faith in a single word or even in a formula, since the Talmud was expressly designed to bring the whole of human life into the ambit of the sacred.8 — Karen Armstrong

Before you are admitted to British citizenship you are not even considered a natural human being.
I looked up the word natural (na'tural) in the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (p. 251); it says: Of or according to or provided by nature, physically existing, innate, instinctive, normal, not miraculous or spiritual or artificial or conventional.... Note that before you obtain British citizenship, they simply doubt that you are provided by nature. — George Mikes

On the analogy of 'Dictionary Johnson,' we call Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the just-published Yale Book of Quotations (well worth the $50 price), 'Quotationeer Shapiro.' ... Shapiro does original research, earning his 1,067-page volume a place on the quotation shelf next to Bartlett's and Oxford's. — William Safire

I am a success at last. We get annihilated. There is no mercy. The word "friendly" is never used in the same context again. "Friendly," according to The Australian Little Oxford Dictionary, means "acting or disposed to act as friend." The word "act" is very apt. The girls glare at me. They need to put a face to their misery and I'm it. From then on, whenever someone uses the words "the basketball game," there is no question which one they are referring to. This — Melina Marchetta

In the room where I work, I have a chalkboard, and as I'm going along, I write the made-up words on it. A few feet from that chalkboard is a copy of the full 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, to which I refer frequently as a source of ideas and word roots. — Neal Stephenson

The woman at the desk was a university graduate, young, colourless, spectacled, and intensely disagreeable. She had a fixed suspicion that no one - at least, no male person - ever consulted works of reference except in search of pornography. As soon as you approached she pierced you through and through with a flash of her pince-nez and let you know that your dirty secret was no secret from HER. After all, all works of reference are pornographical, except perhaps Whitaker's Almanack. You can put even the Oxford Dictionary to evil purposes by looking up words like - and - . — George Orwell

For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own. — Paul Engle

The New Oxford Dictionary has declared Sarah Palin's word 'refudiate' to be the 2010 Word of the Year. Palin was honored and said she would do her best to 'dismangle' the English language. — Conan O'Brien

How come "burbled" gets to be in the Oxford English Dictionary but "tulgy" doesn't? Hm? — Mike Tucker

The word power typically signifies a capacity for action. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us power lies in an 'ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing'. The person who has power may influence the material or social environment, generally on the basis of possessing high-tech weapons, money, oil, superior intelligence or large muscles. In war, I am powerful because I can blow up your city walls or drop bombs on your airfields. In the financial world, I am powerful because I can buy up your shares and invade your markets. In boxing, I am ,ore powerful because my punches outwit and exhaust yours. But in love, this issue appears to depend on a far more passive, negative definition; instead of looking at power as a capacity to do something, one may come to think of it as the capacity to do nothing. — Alain De Botton

The gadget had come with The New Oxford American Dictionary preloaded. You only had to begin typing your word and the Kindle found it for you. It was, he thought, TiVo for bookworms. — Stephen King

An end to timidity - the replacement of the philologically tentative by the lexicographically decisive. - on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary — Simon Winchester

Locavore" may have been the 2007 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year, but there's already been a word for those whose diets are restricted to seasonal items grown in their immediate area: That word is "peasant. — Brett Martin

The irony of this endeavor is palpable, for English itself is a hopeless hodgepodge of other tongues, with more exceptions than rules, more chaos than order, and enough new words created each day to keep the Oxford English Dictionary folks very, very busy. — George Takei

Snow n ... 2.a. Anything resembling snow. b. The white specks on a television
screen resulting from weak reception.
crash v ... -infr ... 5, To fail suddenly, as a business or an economy. -
The American Heritage Dictionary
virus ... [L. virus slimy liquid, poison, offensive odour or taste.] 1.
Venom, such as is emitted by a poisonous animal. 2. Path. a. A morbid
principle or poisonous substance produced in the body as the result of some
disease, esp. one capable of being introduced into other persons or animals by
inoculations or otherwise and of developing the same disease in them ... 3.
fig. A moral or intellectual poison, or poisonous influence. -The Oxford
English Dictionary — Neal Stephenson