Emeritus Prof Alan Horsman was recognised for the contribution he made to a 2016 book on editors of the OED.
Prof Horsman, who turned 99 on Tuesday, was briefly editor of the OED from late 1956 until leaving Oxford for a professorial role at Otago in July 1957.
Now living at Dunedin's Yvette Williams Retirement Village, Prof Horsman was the inaugural Donald Collie Professor of English at Otago University from 1957 until his retirement in 1984.
He was contacted in 2011 by OED associate editor Peter Gilliver, who was writing The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary and wanted ''to fill a gap in his history''.
Mr Gilliver realised Prof Horsman would now be in his 90s and ''tentatively asked'' whether he would be able to help by providing reminiscences of his brief tenure as editor.
He was somewhat surprised when, in a detailed emailed response to Mr Gilliver's first batch of questions, Prof Horsman apologised for answering in instalments ''because he was busy preparing a series of lectures''.
''Alan's reminiscences helped me enormously in writing about the short period of his editorship for my history of the OED,'' Mr Gilliver said.
He wrote an article, which appeared on the ''Oxford Words'' blog this week, to honour Prof Horsman's birthday and celebrate his contribution to the OED.
Otago English and linguistics department head Dr Shef Rogers also acknowledged Prof Horsman's contribution to ''Otago's proud academic tradition''.
It was ''inspiring'' for all the staff to know the department's scholarship continued to be appreciated for many decades, and to have an opportunity to acknowledge Prof Horsman's achievements and influence, he said.
As well as his extensive body of writing, Prof Horsman's legacy at Otago was also remembered through the Alan Horsman Prize, established in 2009 after an anonymous gift.
