Version 3.1: New features
Sparklines
A sparkline provides a visual summary of the dates of all the quotations cited in an entry.
- Sparklines for SND entries cover the period 1700-2005; sparklines for DOST entries cover the period 1375-1700.
- Purple blocks represent dates with quotations in the entry. When the interval between dates is less than 50 years this date range is represented as a continuous block.
- Gaps represent periods of more than 50 years without a quotation.
You can see a summary of the quotation dates to the left of the sparkline and by hovering over the sparkline (or lightly tapping it on a mobile device).
Advanced Search: Filter quotations by date
DSL Online features more than 750,000 illustrative quotations and you can search all of them with the ‘quotations only’ option in DSL’s Advanced Search tool. You can even limit your search to quotations from a particular date range.
For example, if you want to find examples of ‘braw’ from the period 1750-1825:
- Choose Advanced Search.
- Enter ‘braw’ as your search term.
- Choose ‘quotations only’.
- Set the date filter from 1750 to 1825.
- Choose your source dictionary (in this case SND).
- Press search.
You’ll be presented with a list of up to 500 entries that include at least one quotation containing the word ‘braw’ (in that particular spelling only) from your specified date range. You’ll also see a snippet of each example (up to a maximum of ten) from those entries.
