The other day Oxford published their latest quarterly update of the OED, bringing the work up to the end of R. This includes run, which is now the longest article with 645 different senses and some 124,000 words. For comparison, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has 76,944 words, the New Testament (King James Version) has 180,552 words and my Guide to English Language Usage has over 190,000. Until this point the longest OED entry was set with 60,000 words describing 430 senses. It remains to be seen whether the revision of set will overtake run.
For further information about this update see the OED website.
Things have moved on
since the days of Murray’s scriptorium.
.
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