We present an English lexical database which is fuller, more accurate and more consistent than any other. We believe this to be so because the project has been well-planned, with a 12-month intensive planning phase prior to the lexicography beginning; well-resourced, employing a team of fifteen highly experienced lexicographers for a thirty-month main phase; it has had access to the latest corpus and dictionary-editing technology; it has not been constrained to meet any goals other than an accurate description of the language; and it has been led by a team with singular experience in delivering high-quality and innovative resources. The lexicon will be complete in Summer 2010 and will be available for NLP groups, on terms designed to encourage its research use.