Most Popular English Dictionaries
The best English dictionary for you depends on your needs. For example, do you want a comprehensive dictionary with lots of extra learning tools or do you need something more basic? Like Goldilocks, you should try out different dictionaries until you find the one that’s right for you. Here are some of the most popular English dictionaries:.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is a great dictionary for English learners. It features extra learning tools for pronunciation, verb types, and basic grammar structures. It is also designed with standard test syllabi in mind, so it can help students prepare for the TOEFL or IELTS.
The OALD contains many illustrations and makes it easy to see how words are used in context. It also includes examples from published and recorded sources. In addition, it lists synonyms, which can be helpful for finding the right word to describe something.
Another advantage of the OALD is that it offers a more precise definition than a regular English dictionary. For example, the OALD defines “wag” as the action of tailing someone, while other dictionaries may just say ‘whip’ or ‘twirl’. This is because a lexicographer working on the OALD aims to provide accurate and clear pronunciations. In addition, the OALD gives details of how each word is pronounced in British and American English.
Oxford Dictionary of English
The Oxford Dictionary of English (OED) is the foremost single-volume authority on the language. Its editors strive to record every word in use in Britain and Ireland, and also to provide illustrative quotations from every period and region of the language’s history.
Unlike Merriam-Webster, which is a synchronic dictionary focused on current, active vocabulary, the OED is diachronic and focuses on words that have been in regular use for longer periods of time. As such, it takes much more time for a new word to make its way into the OED than it does into M-W.
When Beowulf was written, there was no OED; when Chaucer penned his graceful Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare wrote his graceful plays, there was no OED either. The first volume of OED was published in 1884; it took until 1928 for the entire twelve-volume set plus a supplement to be completed. The OED is still in continuous print. Each edition is augmented with the addition of new words and senses as well as the results of new research into English.
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (abbreviated CALD) is a great resource for English learners at the upper-intermediate to advanced levels. It features clear definitions and real-life sentence examples. It also offers a vocabulary quiz block and an option to make word lists, which makes it a good choice for active English learning. It has also been designed with IELTS preparation in mind.
The website offers a range of helpful additional resources, including a Thesaurus, Easy Learning English Grammar, and a blog. It also provides pronunciation examples for some words, which is a feature that not all online dictionaries offer. In addition, the site includes a timeline with language statistics, which is useful for understanding changes in the English language over time. The website is free to use, but it does have ads. Users can purchase an ad-free version for extra features. It is also available in a mobile app. It also offers a free trial period.
Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual free-content dictionary. It features definitions, images for illustration, pronunciations, etymologies, inflections, related terms, quotations and translations of words into other languages. It is run by the Wikimedia Foundation and written collaboratively by volunteers, dubbed “Wiktionarians”. Its wiki software allows almost anyone with access to the Internet to create and edit scrabble word finder entries.
The dictionary also includes a thesaurus and is available in 192 languages, including simple English. Its editors are required to write from a neutral point of view and to avoid any bias towards or against a particular person or group. This is a departure from the approach taken by traditional dictionaries, which often have partisanship in their definitions.
Unlike Wikipedia, Wiktionary does not have talk pages for individual entries. Discussion on the site is centralised in the Beer Parlour, Tea Room and other discussion rooms. The site uses categories to organise and group entries and other information, similar to those used on Wikipedia.