Research and Course Guides: English: Dictionaries/handbooks

Handbooks

Oxford Reference Online: Literature
Reference works on African-American, American, classical, English, and Irish literature, literary terms, Shakespeare, 20th century poetry in English, and writers
World Folklore and Folklife
folk traditions from around the world: celebrations & rituals, food & drink, holidays & festivals, music & dance, religion & beliefs, tales & myths, & traditional arts & crafts
Credo Reference
collection of resource tools, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, quotations, bilingual dictionaries, & more
Gale Virtual Reference Library (now Gale eBooks)
selected online reference books
Bloom's Literature
essays on well-known writers, works, & influential movements and events in world literature plus bios, character entries, and videos
Play Index
citations to approx. 34,000 plays by contemporary playwrights from 1949-present and 600+ monologues
Short Story Index
index of more than 145,000 stories with full text for approx. 5,000; 1984-present
Oxford African American Studies Center
biographies, topical entries, primary source documents with commentary, images, maps, charts, tables, and more

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
definitions and historical usage of over 600,000 words

English Dictionaries & Thesauri
Oxford English-language dictionaries and thesauruses
English Language Reference Sources
Oxford dictionaries of abbreviations, grammar, eponyms, foreign terms, idioms, linguistics, proverbs, usage, & style
Bilingual Dictionaries
French, German, Irish, Italian, Latin, Spanish, & Welsh dictionaries (Oxford Univ. Press)
Quotations
Oxford dictionaries of quotations

American Sign Language Video Dictionary and Inflection Guide
over 2,700 examples of sign language presented via video segments; appropriate for everyone to learn or improve ASL vocabulary skills