These free online dictionaries are designed specifically for English Language Learners.
Along with definitions, this dictionary has a huge array of features, such as related topic words, collocations, examples from the Corpus, and information about word origin. It's valuable for seeing how words are used in phrases and idiomatic English.
The Merriam-Webster is more than an online tool—it’s a community. With its “trending now” word lists, games, quizzes, apps, social media accounts and Word of the Day email subscription, Merriam-Webster is a distraction-filled resource for the 21st century English language learner.
A great everyday dictionary with clear definitions and recordings of words in both British and American English.
Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
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How to Use Dictionaries
Dictionaries are rich learning tools for language study. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Online has special features for language learners, but every standard dictionary will contain information such as the word entry, part of speech, definitions and examples.
Entry: this shows how the word is divided into syllables and is often followed by the pronunciation in the International Phonetic Guide.
Part of Speech: this shows what grammatical part of speech the word belongs to (i.e. noun, adjective, verb, preposition) and is often abbreviated (n., adj. v., prep.) and followed by additional information about what kind of noun or verb it is.
Context: you will sometimes find information about how and when you might hear this word, such as in spoken, informal/colloquial, academic, scientific or formal English.
Definitions: the meaning of the word. If the word has more than one definition, each will be numbered with the most common listed first.
Examples: you can see how the word is used in a sentence.
Collocations: Collocations are common word combinations in English and show how the word is used in common expressions and idioms.
Examples from the Corpus: See how the word is used by writers and speakers of English.
Origin: Listed in some dictionaries as Etymology. This shows the history of the word, what languages it originated from, and when it first started to be used.
AWL: This will be shown if the word is on Coxwell's Academic Word List, a compilation of the words most frequently found in academic writing.
Here are some tools you can use to get your daily language practice that are quick, interesting and make use of 21st century technology.
Google Play and the Apple App Store have many vocabulary builder apps to choose from, such as Vocabulary.com and Dictionary.com.
Merriam Webster uses its social media accounts to post a word a day, and there's an app and email newsletter as well.
Oxford Dictionaries runs a blog, an Instagram account of quotes and quirky new words, and bilingual dictionary apps for English language learning.
Quizlet lets you make study sets or use ones others have made to quiz yourself with vocabulary words and play games.
Scrabble and Boggle are wordy board games that have online versions.
Can’t remember the name of some part of something but you know what it looks like? Search the visual dictionary, which is organized by theme and matches highly detailed images and diagrams to its terminology and definition.
Not only is Thinkmap amazing for learning synonyms, related words and word families in a visual way, it's also great for brainstorming concepts and mindmapping.
Similar to ThinkMap but with a more colourful interface, Visuwords lets you graphically "visualize" a word and its associations with other words.
