Murray continued his work on the dictionary, age and failing health doing nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for the work to which he had devoted much of his life. Despite his devotion to the dictionary, which was recognised by his knighthood in 1908, Murray remained a relative outsider in Oxford, never fully taking part in university academic and Senior Common Room life. He was never made a Fellow of an Oxford college, and only received an Oxford honorary doctorate the year before his death. He died of pleurisy on 26 July 1915 and requested to be buried in Oxford beside the grave of his best friend, James Legge.