Oxford English
1
8.6
- noun
- UK
:
inglés de Oxford
- Using the Oxford English can sometimes make one's speech seem affected and pretentious.
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Oxford English Dictionary defines
- According to the Oxford English
Examples
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The professor's use of the Oxford English left the students feeling both impressed and intimidated.
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Many students aspire to master the Oxford English to sound more cultured in their academic presentations.
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Nor does he understand what the mission of the Oxford English Dictionary has always been.
Blog text (2) -
I checked it in Oxford English Dictionary.
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For my writing about the history of words and phrases, I would be completely lost without the online Oxford English Dictionary.
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But there are around 250,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary!
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The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from May 1890.
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The Oxford English Dictionary was never intended to prescribe correct or acceptable usage of the English language.
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Thus, the Oxford English Dictionary has always been descriptivist, not prescriptivist.
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Yet we can and must rely on a firm tradition of lexicography in the various languages concerned, including the large Oxford English Dictionary, that tells us what a given word meant at a given time, in a given context, and to a given writer.
Academic text (1991)
Antonyms
How Formal
- Formal
63
3.0
1
3.7
- UK
1
8.6
- Informal
7
6.5
- Slang
49
7.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The referent 'the variety of English associated with Oxford' is directly and transparently built from combining the place name 'Oxford' with 'English' (language/variety), a common compositional pattern for naming regional or institutional varieties. Although subtle connotations like 'affected' or 'pretentious' are pragmatic and may require cultural knowledge, a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand the basic meaning.
Etymology
The noun Oxford English may come from the clear, formal way people at Oxford University used to speak in the old college halls. Because it comes from that famous place, the name now suggests 'status' and that someone sounds 'posh' or 'pretentious'.