Oxford Reference Online brings language and subject reference works into a cross-searchable resource. The Premium Collection offers a huge range of fully-indexed, extensively linked, up-to-date, and cross-searchable dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press, including detailed information across a broad subject range from titles in the world-renowned Oxford Companions series.
Oxford Reference Online offers multiple ways to search for relevant material:
- Phrase Searching
- You can search for an exact phrase by enclosing it in double quotation marks (e.g. “bury my heart”).
- Multiple Term Searching
- If you enter more than one search term, the search engine will look first for all of your search terms in entry headings and other key elements of an entry (e.g. variant forms or section headings). If no matches are found there, the search engine will look for your search terms in the full text of the entries.
- Wildcards
- Use wildcards to widen the scope of your search. Wildcards are special characters that match any character or sequence of characters. For instance, an asterisk () stands for zero or more characters (it can represent single numbers or letters, several characters, even whole words). Thus, a search for car* might find carnal, cardamom, Caribbean, carminative, while *car might find Madagascar, verificar, buffet car, and Wilde, Oscar.If you search for car* at a global level—across all subjects and books—in the Oxford Reference Online database, you may get more results than expected. In this case, restrict your search to a particular subject or book, or try an Advanced Search instead.
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