It was started as a derivative of the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED), although section S–Z had to be written before the Oxford English Dictionary reached that stage. In addition to providing information for general use, it documents local variations such as United States and United Kingdom usage. It is available as an e-book for a variety of handheld device platforms. Its 12th edition, published in 2011, is used by both the United Nations (UN) and NATO as the current authority for spellings in documents written in English for international use.
The latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary contains over 240,000 entries and 1,728 pages (concise only compared to the OED at over 21,000 pages).
The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (officially titled The Concise Oxford Dictionary until 2002, and widely abbreviated COD or COED) is probably the best-known of the 'smaller' Oxford dictionaries.
