The Oxford English Dictionary is the internationally recognized authority on the English Language, defining more than 500,000 words and tracing their usage through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of literary and other sources. The text on the CD-ROM comprises the full text of the OED 2nd Edition, plus the three Additions volumes, as well as 7000 new entries from the OED's continuing research. Most importantly, OED v4.0 on CD-ROM boasts superb search-and-retrieval software, designed specifically for the electronic version, enabling you to investigate the Dictionary in ways not possible with the print edition. Questions which might have taken years of patient research can now be answered in seconds. Existing functionality retained from earlier versions includes: An installation option, much requested by users, so that users can choose to install the OED to their hard drive and run it without the CD-ROM; Options to customize the entry display and show or hide pronunciations,spellings, etymology, and quotation text; Flexible full text search options, with search filters and an option to rank entries and search results alphabetically or by date. New to this version: Now available to Mac users; Flash-base; Smoother and faster performance providing instantaneous search results; New word-wheel which supports incremental letter-by-letter browsing; 5000 new entries