LEMDO: Cite OED

Cite OED

Rationale

OED citations appear frequently in critical apparatuses, often in gloss notes that define the term or phrase linked to the annotation. You must credit the OED if you cite or paraphrase definitions. You may also want to point users to a particular OED definition even if you do not quote or paraphrase.

Practice: What to Include

Format the citation as follows:

The OED citation appears in parentheses after the gloss and includes the title OED.

The headword is always included in the citation, even if it is the same as the word being annotated.

The case used in the citation should match the case used on the OED. For example, if a headword is listed in lowercase, make sure it is lowercase in the citation.

The part of speech is indicated after the headword. In the below example, n indicates that the gloss is for a noun. The number three indicates the entry number of the definition being quoted. In the OED there are currently four different noun entries for qualm.

The number of the exact definition is listed after the part of speech. In this case, the editor is citing from 1.a.

<note type="gloss">
  <quote>A sudden fit, impulse, or pang of sickening fear, misgiving, despair, etc.</quote> (<ref type="bibl" target="bibl:OEDT2">
  <title level="m">OED</title>
  <term>qualm</term>, n.3.1.a</ref>).</note>

Practice: How to Encode

Wrap OED citations in a


                                          <ref>

element with the


                                       @type

attribute and the value "bibl". The


                                       @target

attribute on the


                                          <ref>

element has the value "bibl:OEDT2", which points to the online 2nd edition of the OED in the BIBL1.xml file. Make sure the


                                          <ref>

element encompasses the entire parenthetical citation, including the title, headword, and entry number.

The OED is conventionally cited by the acronym OED (as opposed to the authors, the press, or the full title). Tag it with a


                                          <title>

element with a


                                       @level

attribute and the value "m". The acronym OED must always be tagged this way but the simplest approach is to type OED in your annotations and then do a find-and-replace when your annotations are approaching completion to supply the full encoding.

Tag direct quotations from the OED with the


                                          <quote>

element. Even though LEMDO has a


                                          <gloss>

element, we prioritize giving credit to the OED over indicating that the quotation is a gloss. In any case, a gloss is more commonly a one- or two-word term rather than a dictionary definition. This practice means that a


                                          <note>

element may have a


                                       @type

attribute with the value "gloss" and contain a quotation tagged with the


                                          <quote>

element. See Introduction to Quotations, Terms, Expressions, Glosses, Emphasis, and Foreign Languages. If the gloss is your own, wrap it in the


                                          <gloss>

element. If part of your gloss has been taken verbatim from the OED, wrap the quoted part in the


                                          <quote>

element.

Examples

You can do various things with an OED definition. These examples work with the OED definition of countenance:

8.a. Patronage; appearance of favour; appearance on any side (Johnson); moral support.

1.a. Bearing, demeanour, comportment; behaviour, conduct.

4.a. The look or expression of a person’s face.

<note type="gloss">
  <quote>The look or expression of a person’s face</quote> (<ref type="bibl" target="bibl:OEDT2">
  <title level="m">OED</title>
  <term>countenance</term>, n.1.4.a</ref>).</note>

<note type="gloss">Protection (see <ref type="bibl" target="bibl:OEDT2">
<title level="m">OED</title>
<term>countenance</term>, n.1.8.a</ref>).</note>

<note type="gloss">Patronage, support, and protection, here used ironically in the sense of <gloss>lack of support</gloss>; also, demeanor, conduct, look or expression of the face (<ref type="bibl" target="bibl:OEDT2">
<title level="m">OED</title>
<term>countenance</term>, n.1</ref>).</note>

In this example, the editor provides their own gloss and quote from the OED:

<note type="gloss">Farm-hand; <quote>rustic</quote> (<ref type="bibl" target="bibl:OEDT2">
<title level="m">OED</title>
<term>hind</term> n.2.3</ref>).</note>

While most glosses from the OED will be formatted in the manner shown above, some editors choose to incorporate them into the running text:

<p>See <title level="m">OED</title> headword, n.# #.</p>

<p>This passage is quoted in <title level="m">OED</title> headword, n.# #.</p>

Prosopography

Chloe Mee

Chloe Mee (she/her) worked as a research assistant with the LEMDO team over several periods from 2022 to 2025. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2025 with a BA (Hons with distinction) in English. She will be studying at the University of British Columbia to complete her MA in English. Chloe collaborated with the LEMDO team on a VKURA internship in summer 2022, mainly focusing on Hamlet quartos. Following her internship, she also worked as a research assistant in 2022–23 and 2025.

Isabella Seales

Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Nicole Vatcher

Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.) in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s writing in the modernist period.

Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

Bibliography

OED: The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title	Cite OED
Type of text	Documentation
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Source	TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
Editorial declaration	n/a
Edition	Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	prgGenerated
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability	This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.