TheOxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) is generally considered "the best one-volume dictionary on antiquity,"^[1][2] an encyclopædic work in English consisting of articles relating toclassical antiquity and its civilizations. It was first published in 1949 (OCD¹ orOCD), edited by Max Cary with the assistance ofH. J. Rose, H. P. Harvey, andAlexander Souter. A second edition followed in 1970 (OCD²), edited byNicholas G. L. Hammond andH. H. Scullard, and a third edition in 1996 (OCD³), edited bySimon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. A revised third edition was released in 2003, which is nearly identical to the previous third edition. A fourth edition was published in 2012 (OCD⁴), edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, andEsther Eidinow. In 2016, a fully digital edition^[3] launched online, edited by Sander Goldberg (2013–2017) andTim Whitmarsh (2018–present). Continuously updated on a monthly basis, this edition incorporates all 6,300 entries fromOCD⁴ (which are being updated on a rolling basis) as well as newly commissioned entries, and features multimedia content and freely accessible maps^[4] of the ancient world.^[3][5]

TheOCD's over 6,400 articles^[6] cover everything from the daily life of the ancient Greeks and Romans to theirgeography,religion, and their historical figures.

The fourth edition and the third revised edition of theOCD are available online for members of subscribed institutions and for subscribed individuals via Oxford Reference.^[7] The third edition (1996) was also available onCD-ROM, but it is partially incompatible with more recent versions ofWindows and has not been revised or re-released.^[8]

The new digital edition is accessible online to institutional and individual subscribers via theOxford Research Encyclopedias.^[3] Entry extracts/summaries and select full-length entries are freely available to non-subscribing individuals.

TheOxford Companion to Classical Civilization (OCCC), part of the Oxford Companions^[9] series of Oxford University Press, is an independent publication consisting of a selection of articles from theOCD, with accompanying illustrations. The first edition was published in 1998 (OCCC¹ orOCCC), edited bySimon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, and contains over 600 articles selected from theOCD³. A paperback edition was issued in 2004. The current second edition was published in 2014 (OCCC²), edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, andEsther Eidinow, and contains over 700 articles selected from theOCD⁴.^[10]

National Latin Exam

A copy of theOCD has traditionally been offered by theNational Latin Exam as a prize for students who obtain four consecutive ascending gold medals on the exam.^[11]

Oxford Classical Dictionary

• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by Max Cary, with the assistance ofH. J. Rose, H. P. Harvey, andA. Souter. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1949.
• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited byNicholas G. L. Hammond andH. H. Scullard. 2nd ed. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1970.
• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited bySimon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. 3rd ed. Oxford and New York:Oxford University Press, 1996.ISBN 978-0-19-866172-6.
• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. 3rd rev. ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.ISBN 978-0-19-860641-3.
• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, andEsther Eidinow. 4th ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.
• Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited byTim Whitmarsh. Digital ed. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.

Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization

• Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. Edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 2004.ISBN 978-0-19-860165-4 (hb),ISBN 978-0-19-860958-2 (pb).
• Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization. Edited by Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth, and Esther Eidinow. 2nd ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.ISBN 978-0-19-870677-9.

• Abbreviations for Classical authors and texts
• Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, the comprehensive multivolume classical encyclopædia, also known as Pauly-Wissowa andRE, published in German and English, and explained more fully onWikipedia's German site
• Der Kleine Pauly (KlP),Der Neue Pauly (DNP), andBrill's New Pauly (BNP), subsequent versions of theRE, and generally explained more fully onWikipedia's German site
• Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (DAGR), an extensive multivolume classical encyclopædia published in French
• Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum [de] (RAC), a comprehensive and still-in-production encyclopædia onlate antiquity and the interactions between ancient Christians, Jews, Greeks, and Romans, published in German
• Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities

• 1st edition
• Oxford University Press USA, catalogue entry for theOCD⁴
• Oxford University Press UK, catalogue entry for theOCD⁴
• Amazon.com's catalogue entry for theOCD⁴
• Amazon.co.uk's catalogue entry for theOCD⁴
• Oxford University Press USA, catalogue entry for theOCCC²
• Amazon.com's catalogue entry for theOCCC²

• 1949 non-fiction books
• Encyclopedias of history
• Oxford dictionaries
• References on Greek mythology

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Oxford spelling from May 2022
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English with Oxford spelling
• Use dmy dates from November 2019