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Questions tagged [dictionaries]

Questions about English dictionaries

Finding specific dictionaries

There is a great post in the community wiki which lists different types of dictionaries. The listings are categorised by the following types:

  • general purpose dictionaries
  • learner's dictionaries
  • meta-dictionaries
  • historical dictionaries
  • dialectical dictionaries
  • dictionaries focusing on idioms, expressions and slang
  • dictionaries focusing on pronunciation
325 questions
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Regulatory bodies and authoritative dictionaries for English

Some languages have a "regulatory body" issuing recommendations and guidelines regarding the use of that language. For example in the case of Spanish it's the Real Academia Española whose status is recognised in all Spanish-speaking countries. The…
Jonik
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Where can I obtain an English dictionary with structured data?

I would like to download an English dictionary -- not just a word list -- in a structured format such as TXT, XML, or SQL. Specifically, I need phonetic pronunciation and parts of speech (definition is not required). Surprisingly, I can't find this…
Portman
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3 answers

Largest open-source dictionary w/ brief definitions (not wiktionary)

What's the largest open-source dictionary that includes brief definitions of each word? Wiktionary is a great resource but: There are over 200K words in the scowl list that aren't in wiktionary. I'd use scowl directly, but it only list words and…
user3065
11
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4 answers

What is the best paper-based dictionary?

I'd like to have a dictionary in paper that won't be very big, at least there should be one tome, and it should be something like thefreedictionary.com but in paper, to use it offline. Please advise.
user5560
10
votes
4 answers

Is there a kind of "official" dictionary for the English language?

Context On languages having an Academy (I know it's not the English case thanks to this SE site) it's usual that those academies edit and maintain a kind of official dictionary for that language. Examples: The RAE - spanish royal academy - and the…
laconbass
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4 answers

US Equivalent to the Oxford English Dictionary

Apologies if this question is inappropriate for the site. In the US, what would be equivalent to the OED? The de facto standard. I know there's the New Oxford American Dictionary but in the US does this have the same gravitas as the OED has in the…
RichK
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2 answers

What's the relationship between various Oxford dictionaries? (OED vs ODO vs ODE vs NOAD)

Things I know so far: The OED is the Oxford English Dictionary. It's widely regarded as the definitive record of the English language. The ODE is the Oxford Dictionary of English, previously The New Oxford Dictionary of English (NODE). The NOAD is…
dreeves
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2 answers

"Personified" in an OED definition

While writing an answer to this question, I looked up the word ennui in the full version of the Oxford English Dictionary. (I'd give you a link, but I access the OED through my local library's proxy service, so it wouldn't work for you; if you have…
phenry
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5 answers

On what juristic basis are students corrected when making mistakes in an English class?

I've learned that there is no authoritative dictionary for English. I wonder on what juristic basis students are corrected when making mistakes in an English class. How can someone say that whatever the student did wrong is not considered correct…
MBober
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2 answers

Is "antiturnpikeism" a real word, or a copyright trap?

The list of words in the OS X /usr/share/dict/words file includes the surprising word "antiturnpikeism". (It seems it's not OS X-specific. It's also in the wamerican package.) I can't seem to find reference to this word anywhere through the normal…
givo
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4
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1 answer

Are dictionaries using 'big data'?

Traditionally (and roughly) dictionaries are written by teams of editors who gather large corpora, identify new words or new word usages, examine how those words are used, and then assign parts of speech and write definitions based on their…
Unrelated
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How do emojis sort in a dictionary?

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is… AKA the 'Face with Tears of Joy' emoji. Where will they file this in their dictionary? Have the people at Oxford made a large mistake, or is there a standard method for dealing with non alphanumeric…
Wayfaring Stranger
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4
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4 answers

Dictionary form - oneself vs. yourself

My colleagues and I are working on something and we have to frequently reference English dictionaries. We use all of them, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Cambridge, Longman, the works. Anyway, we came across reflexive collocations, such as "make yourself…
marimk17
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4
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1 answer

From a non-native's standpoint: Which dictionary should I pay attention to when I find semantically contradictory definitions of a word?

[The following is one of dozens of cases I come across on a daily basis] By accident, I have recently noticed that the phrasal verb go through (as in experience) -- which I've been using so far in my IELTS writing essays -- is associated with a…
Itsme
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4
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1 answer

English dictionary for download

I'm looking for dictionaries for download. I have found word lists from some Scrabble game sites, etc. but these lists are incomplete and do not cover word definitions and, perhaps, a thesaurus. I also know about dictionary APIs, unfortunately they…
Yanick Rochon
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