Is there a web source of reference or book (perhaps a particular dictionary) that gives the period during which an obsolete word was used?

I wanted to use the word 'Sire' in the remark 'I make no such suggestion, Sire' addressed to a knight by a legal official during the reign of Henry VIII. There seems to be no shortage of sources telling me that the word is archaic but no way of establishing when it fell out of use.

Any ideas about this particular example or about sources of information in general?

Chris

Shorter OED and the OED itself - which is available in all libraries, and online tho' maybe only if you pay - give the dates to the nearest third of a century that words came into use and if they've gone, when they did. As in 'E12-M17' = Early 12th - Middle 17th century or 'L19' = Late 19th century to now.

Emma

Thanks Emma. I followed this up and discovered that, because my local library subscribes to OED on-line, as a member I can access the OED free of charge via the library website. It all seems to work straightforwardly. As I understand it, most libraries offer this service.

It's clear that 'Sire' was still in use at the time.

BW
Chris

Plenty of 'sire' in Shakespeare, too, so it obviously went on being current for a while. And it's worth remembering that libraries are the place for all sorts of online stuff you'd otherwise have to pay for...

Emma