First quotations

Please see earlier discussion in our page on Seward and first quotations. The following are some further notes written in 2018: the topic is ripe for further investigation.

Chronological representation of first quotations in the OED, as in the charts below, would seem to show the varying rate over time of lexical productivity in the language – how many words came into the language at which periods in its history.

However, as first noted by Schäfer (1980), OED’s identification of new words has always closely tracked the variation in its quotation collections in general. The more quotations gathered for any particular period in the language, the more likely the lexicographers have been to discover first examples of use in that period. This can be seen relatively clearly in the draft charts below.

Chart 44: First quotations in OED1/2 1150-1499

Chart 45: First quotations compared with total quotations in OED1/2 1150-1499

Chart 46: First quotations in OED1/2 1500-1699

Chart 47: First quotations compared with total quotations in OED1/2 1500-1699

Chart 48: First quotations in OED1/2 1500-1989

OED3

The relationship between first quotations and total quotations has shifted somewhat in OED3, so far as can be made out by comparing OED2 with the undifferentiable mix of OED2 and OED3 entries in OED Online (data collected December 2018), as can be seen in the first two charts below. However, the third chart shows that the OED Online line of first quotations is still closely tracking that of OED2.

Chart 49: First quotations compared with total quotations in OED Online 1500-1699 (as of December 2018)

Chart 50: First quotations compared with total quotations in OED Online 1500-1699 (as of December 2018)

Chart 51: First quotations in OED2 compared with first quotations in OED Online (as of December 2018) 1500 onwards

Last updated on 8 July 2025