While this facility can be useful, many words have multiple senses and sub-senses, either in current use or in their historical development. The earliest chronological date in the entry must therefore be viewed in the context of this fact. The quotation in an entry for an obsolete word which exemplifies the last located use of the form. In addition, a definition may simply describe the way the word functions in some grammatical or syntactical context. Definitions should always be read in conjunction with supporting quotations, since in a historical dictionary, the latter play an important role in establishing meaning and context.
Etymologies trace the origin or derivation of headwords.
Since the OED was conceived as a history of the English language, the original policy was to trace non-native words to the foreign word or word element from which they were immediately adopted or formed, and native words to their earliest English form. Also, some further identification refinement is necessary since automatic tagging of forms includes instances where language names appear attributively as adjectives specifying nationality, e.g., Italian wine-makers. Defines the initial group of elements in an entry and includes headword, pronunciation, part of speech, and homonym number. Note that, with the exception of the headword, not all of these elements necessarily appear in every entry.