Charles Talbut Onions (10 September 1873 – 8 January 1965) was an Englishgrammarian andlexicographer and the fourth editor of theOxford English Dictionary.

C. T. Onions was born inEdgbaston,Birmingham, the eldest son of Ralph John Onions and Harriet, daughter of locksmith John Talbut. The Onions family were traditionally bellows-makers, but Ralph Onions was a designer and embosser in metal. Charles Onions said he was "the first not to make (his) living by using (his) hands". The name "Onions" derives from the Welsh "Einion".^[1][2]

Onions early came under the influence of A. J. Smith, the headmaster of theKing Edward VI Camp Hill School, where Onions received his first contact with lexicography.^[1] He obtained a London BA in 1892 and an MA in 1895, both while attendingMason College (which later became theUniversity of Birmingham).^[3]

James Murray invited Onions to join the staff of theOxford English Dictionary (OED) at Oxford in 1895, and in 1914 he began independent editorial work with his own assistants.^[4] HisShakespeare Glossary was published in 1911; he co-editedShakespeare's England: an account of the life and manners of his age (2 volumes; 1916) and, in 1933, he co-edited the OED Supplement withWilliam Craigie. Following the death of William Little in 1922, he assumed the editorship of theShorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Onions served as a fellow and librarian ofMagdalen College, Oxford. He was president of thePhilological Society from 1929 to 1933 and was elected aFellow of the British Academy in 1938. On completion of theOED, the universities ofOxford,Leeds, andBirmingham conferred honorary degrees upon him. Onions was appointed aCommander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1934. In 1945 he succeededR. W. Chambers as honorary director of theEarly English Text Society and worked to extend its publishing program. He was editor ofMedium Aevum, the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, from its inception in 1932 to 1956. Onions' last twenty years were largely devoted to completingThe Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966), which treated over 38,000 words and went to press just prior to his death.^[1]

In 1907 he married Angela (1883–1941), daughter of Rev. Arthur Blythman, rector ofShenington, and they had seven sons and three daughters. Late in life, two of the children described their father as "a strict and distant figure whose primary relationship was with the Dictionary rather than with them." During World War I, Onions served in British naval intelligence where his knowledge of German proved a significant asset. For much of his life, Onions had astutter.^[1][5]

Anne Onions, one of his daughters, worked for many years in the Earth Sciences department at theUniversity of Oxford as the departmental secretary and financial administrator.^[6]

Onions' letters are held at theCadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.^[7] His papers more generally are held in theNational Library of Australia.^[8]

• 1873 births
• 1965 deaths
• British lexicographers
• Etymologists
• Shakespearean scholars
• People from Edgbaston
• People educated at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys
• Linguists of English
• Alumni of University of London Worldwide
• Alumni of the University of London
• Alumni of the University of Birmingham
• Chief editors of the Oxford English Dictionary
• Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America
• Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford
• Fellows of the British Academy
• People with speech disorders
• English librarians
• Royal Navy personnel of World War I
• English writers with disabilities

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• Articles with short description
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• Use dmy dates from November 2020
• Use British English from June 2012