LibGuides: Online Reference Collection: General Reference Resources

General Reference Sources

Merriam-Webster Unabridged This link opens in a new window
An excellent dictionary of American English. Also includes the M-W collegiate dictionary & thesaurus as well as a medical dictionary.

Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations Dictionary
Features definitions of a wide variety of acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, and similar contractions, allowing users to quickly and easily translate terms into their full names or meanings.
American Heritage Abbreviations Dictionary
Definitions of popular American abbreviations, including more recent technological abbreviations. Includes acronyms, blends, clippings, foreign words, initialisms, numericals, and truncations.
American Heritage Roget's Thesaurus
Provides a wide range of synonyms organized in alphabetical order with clear definitions that orient the user to the relevant meaning of related words.
Oxford English Dictionary
Complete text of the 2nd. ed. of the Oxford English dictionary with quarterly updates, including revisions not available in any other form.

Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia This link opens in a new window
Alternate version: Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia in the classic EBSCO user interface (best for exporting more than 50 results or combining saved searches). General encyclopedia containing over 25,000 entries. Included are images and brief biographies.
Alternate Access Link

Reference Collections

Use reference collections to search multiple reference sources at once.

ABC-CLIO E-Book Collection
Access to e-books for the study of history and the social sciences.

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a collection of aggregated and integrated reference books from high-quality publishers.
Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window
Access to: over 75,000 articles from the Encyclopædia Britannica; headlines from the New York Times, the BBC, the SBS Australian News Service, and full-text articles from more than 700 magazines and periodicals provided by EBSCO and Proquest; World data; Gateway to the classics; 166,000 Web sites selected by Britannica editors; over 27,000 images and maps, plus 3,300 animations, videos, and audio files; and world atlas.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Gale eBooks, formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library, offers a collection of premier reference and handbooks that you can view and search online, covering a variety of subject areas.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection brings together nearly 200 language and subject reference works in a single cross-searchable resource. Works in the collection include an expanding range of key titles in the acclaimed Oxford Companions series, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, many English-language and bilingual dictionaries, as well as subject encyclopedias and dictionaries in a wide range of subject areas including: Art & Architecture, Biological Sciences, Classics, Computing, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Economics & Business, Food & Drink, History, Law, Literature, Maps, Medicine, Military History, Mythology & Folklore, Names & Places, Performing Arts, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, Politics & Social Sciences, Quotations, Religion & Philosophy, Science.
SAGE Knowledge This link opens in a new window
A collection of books, encyclopedias and handbooks in the environmental and social sciences.