It lists short quotations that are common in English language and culture.
The 8th edition, with 20,000 quotations over 1126 pages, was published in print and online versions in 2014.
It begins with a preface explaining the term quotation:[citation needed] The first edition, in 1941, was compiled by a committee drawn from the staff of the OUP under the editorship of Alice Mary Smyth (later Alice Mary Hadfield).
[2] She recounts some of the details of choosing and processing quotations in her book on the life of Charles Williams (one of the committee).
[5] The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Subject is organized thematically.