For anyone who wants to know not only what words mean but what they have meant, where they come from, and how they have been used and changed over the centuries; for anyone who wants to see, through over 2.5 million illustrative quotations, how the English language has been shaped and reshaped by its greatest writers; for anyone who delights in the sheer lexical expansiveness of 22,000 pages of definitions, there can be no equal to, and indeed no substitute for, the magnificent 20-volume OED. Now with purchase of this amazing set get the new version of the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition on CD-ROM free! The CD-ROM offers unparalleled access to the world's most important reference work for the English language. Minimum system requirements: PC with 200 MHz Pentium-class processor / 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended) / 16-speed CD-ROM drive (32-speed recommended) / Windows 95, 98, 98 Se, Me, NT, 2000, XP, or Vista / Minimum 1.1 GB hard disk space to run the OED from the CD-ROM and 1.7 GB to install the CD-ROM to the hard disk (CD validation required every 90 days) / SVGA monitor: 800 x 600 pixels, 16-bit (64k, high color) setting recommended.