The Moment a Word Was Overlooked by the Oxford English Dictionary

Upon its completion in 1928, the Oxford English Dictionary was celebrated as an unparalleled compendium of the English language, a lexicon so extensive and meticulous that no rival reference work could surpass its breadth or precision. Spanning 70 years, the project meticulously documented 414,825 words from A to Z. Yet, to editor James Murray, the initial volume was a source of chagrin: it omitted a single word.

In retrospect, it's remarkable that additional words weren't overlooked. Compiling the OED was a Herculean task. Prior to the 1888 release of the first volume—covering words starting with A and B—several editors had assumed and relinquished control, each transition sowing further chaos. By the time James Murray assumed leadership in 1879, the Oxford English Dictionary was synonymous with disorder.

The paradox of crafting this monumental reference was its reliance on countless minuscule paper slips. Daily, volunteers sent in thousands of these slips, each bearing a single sentence excerpted from a book to clarify a word's meaning. (For instance, the preceding sentence could serve as an example for the word illuminate. Volunteers would transcribe it and send it to Oxford's editors, who would analyze and juxtapose it with other slips to elucidate the term illuminate.)

This method allowed Oxford's editors to explore the nuanced meanings of individual words, though it was both laborious and chaotic. With thousands of slips flooding the OED offices daily, errors were inevitable.

And they certainly did.

Some documents were carelessly tossed into boxes or bags, left to collect dust and be overlooked. Words starting with Pa vanished for a dozen years, only to be rediscovered in County Cavan, Ireland, where they were being used to start fires. Slips for the letter G almost ended up incinerated with someone's garbage. In 1879, the entire section for the letter H was found in Italy. On one occasion, Murray opened a bag to discover a family of live mice nibbling on the documents.

Upon assuming control, Murray sought to stabilize the project. To improve organization, he constructed a small corrugated iron structure named the “Scriptorium.” Resembling a sunken tool shed, this space—equipped with 1029 pigeonholes—became the hub where Murray and his team meticulously sorted and filed over a thousand slips daily. Millions of quotations passed through the Scriptorium, with hundreds of thousands of words being systematically organized by Murray's dedicated team.

Yet, one word managed to evade detection.

The term bondmaid has largely fallen out of modern conversation, and rightly so: it refers to “a female slave.” The word saw its peak usage in the 16th century. Murray’s records for bondmaid, however, traced back even further, featuring excerpts as ancient as William Tyndale’s 1526 Bible translation.

However, bondmaid somehow vanished. “Its slips had slipped behind some books, and the editors failed to realize it was missing,” notes Simon Winchester in The Meaning of Everything. By the time the first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was released in 1888, bondmaid was absent. (While that volume of the OED excludes other words, those omissions were intentional editorial decisions—bondmaid remains the sole word known to have been physically misplaced by the editors.)

Upon the rediscovery of the slips in the Scriptorium, Murray was said to have flushed with shame. Even in 1901, roughly 14 years after the oversight, he expressed his dismay in a draft letter to an unnamed contributor: “[N]ot one of the 30 individuals (at minimum) who reviewed the work at various stages from manuscript to printed pages noticed the absence. The occurrence is utterly baffling, and given our meticulous system, one would have deemed it entirely impossible; I also hope it remains entirely unique.”

Fortunately, the missing word wasn't lost forever. In 1933, bondmaid finally appeared in the Oxford dictionary, nearly 50 years after the oversight was discovered.