Oxford American Dictionary
Introduction


The ***Oxford American Dictionary*** (***OAD***) is a single\-volume [dictionary](/wiki/Dictionary "Dictionary") of [American English](/wiki/American_English "American English"). It was the first dictionary published by the [Oxford University Press](/wiki/Oxford_University_Press "Oxford University Press") to be prepared by American lexicographers and editors.

The work was based on the *Oxford Paperback Dictionary*, published in 1979\. It is no longer in print and has been superseded by the *[New Oxford American Dictionary](/wiki/New_Oxford_American_Dictionary "New Oxford American Dictionary")*. It was criticized by [Antonin Scalia](/wiki/Antonin_Scalia "Antonin Scalia") and [Bryan A. Garner](/wiki/Bryan_A._Garner "Bryan A. Garner") in their well\-regarded treatise, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (2012\), as "abridged, outdated \[and] nonscholarly," a book known "in lexicographic circles ... to have been hastily put together by two editors on short notice, and very much on the cheap. ... Later editions of that dictionary, by contrast, are better works of scholarship"\-\-referring to the New Oxford American Dictionary.Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner in their well\-regarded treatise, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 75, 415, 423 (2012\)


Why was the OAD criticized by Scalia and Garner?