Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition (2000)

A good, up-to-date, general-purpose dictionary.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

Emphasis is on the history of words, i.e., how words have changed meaning over time. This is not necessarily the place to go for a quick lookup of a word! Use of this dictionary is limited to members of the Ohio University community.

Reference Universe

Reference Universe is a database which lists the title of all of the articles in thousands of subject encyclopedias. In other words, if you are looking for an encyclopedia article, enter the topic in the search box below and Reference Universe will tell you what subject encyclopedias have entries for that topic. In the results list, clicking on the icon will show you the call number and location of the encyclopedia in our collection.

[The search box below currently works only for on-campus users; for off-campus connections, follow this link.]

For more information on Subject Encyclopedias and links to selected titles in InfoTree, see our Subject Encyclopedias page.

Britannica Online

Scholarly entries. Also includes links to journal articles, a dictionary, thesaurus, and quotation finder. Use of this dictionary is limited to members of the Ohio University community.

Wikipedia

Entries written by the general public and subject to constant change. Be sure to verify information you find here!