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Biographical note
The lexicographical labours of the late Dr C.T. Onions began when he joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1895. His astringent yet humane scholarship in this field was well known from his work as co-editor (with J. A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley, and W. A. Craigie) of the OED, and later of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. His life work was crowned with his new etymological dictionary, based on the OED but embodying further research on the etymology of English and of the other languages concerned.ODEE is going to be, as it deserves to be, the standard etymological dictionary of the English language.
Times Literary Supplement
This is a very fine etymological dictionary, as aromatic a piece of lexicography as the great Onions (who, sadly died while the work was going through the press) ever achieved Anyone who wants to take journeys back through the mazes of the fickle human mind cannot very well do without this volume.
Anthony Burgess, Observer