Oxford English Dictionary Online offers a vast range of search options.

• a Find Word search box is available on every web page and makes quick look-ups easy
• choosing Simple Search enables users to search for words either in the full text or in different fields of the dictionary – for example, to find words which derive from a particular language, for words which were first recorded in English during the 19th century or in the year 2000, or for words first cited by Shakespeare
• the Proximity Search is very useful for looking for words on the basis of their definitions – for example the part of the back an animal can’t reach to scratch can be found by searching for “animal” in definitions near “scratch” in definitions
• Advanced Search offers a vast range of options including Boolean searching across 3 fields of the Dictionary. Users can also do case-sensitive searching, searches for particular parts of speech, and even for words which rhyme with other words. It is also possible to search within the results of previous searches
• Wildcards can be used in all types of search. Find all words ending in “ology” by searching for *ology. Find all 5 letter words which start with A and end in Y by searching for A???Y

Search results from Simple and Advanced Searches can be reordered from alpha to date order (i.e. the oldest word first).

When in an entry, users can select the following options:

• Date chart – for a graphical representation of when each sense of the word was in common usage
• Etymology – to discover the origins of the word
• Quotations – to see examples of how the word has been used
• Spellings – to see how the word has been spelled over time
• Pronunciation – to find out how the word is pronounced using the International Phonetic Alphabet

ICOLC compliant statistics are available.

Authentication is via the UK Access Management Federation, Athens, and IP address range.

Subscribers can register to have 'word of the day' emailed to them.

Oxford English Dictionary Online is designed to meet level Section 508 (1998 amendments) of the US Rehabilitation Act 1973. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind has produced a tutorial for using it with JAWS 3.5 or higher. An online tutorial, courtesy of the CNIB, is available.