Comprehensive reference work including content from several resources: Encyclopædia Britannica and Britannica Concise Encyclopedia articles as well as media, Web sites, and videos. Magazine and journals are also available. Also includes dictionary and thesaurus as well as the notable quotations from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus.
Access Note: To view video clips download free software plug-ins Microsoft Media Player or Apple QuickTime. [details]

The "accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You'll still find these in the OED, but you'll also find the history of individual words, and of the language—traced through 3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to films scripts and cookery books." [details]