Teacher Bytes - Online Dictionaries

The past two years have seen a dramatic increase in the depth, scope and availability of online dictionaries. Today there are many sources for students to reference, many with rich features. Most major dictionaries now have free full-access online equivalents although Collins has recently withdrawn free access to its popular Cobuild site.

One that is available is the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary at http://www1.oup.co.uk/elt/oald. Cambridge dictionaries are at http://dictionary.cambridge.org. Here you can find dictionaries of American English, phrasal verbs and idioms. Merriam-Webster has put its dictionaries at http://www.m-w.com/home.htm. Their site includes a spelling help facility. They also produce a student dictionary at http://www.wordcentral.com. Flexible searches are available at http://www.wordsmyth.net, while Onelook, http://www.onelook.com, will search many of the above sites.

Enter http://www.dictionary.com to find multilingual dictionaries, a thesaurus and software that allows users to look up words from many applications such as browsers or from document files. Another vast portal is at http://www.yourdictionary.com, which contains useful links to specialty dictionaries and an endangered language repository. Enter the address of any webpage at http://www.voycabulary.com and you will be able to check the meaning of any word on the page with a mouse click.

For those of a technical bent, Webopedia, at http://www.webopedia.com, provides definitions and links for computer and Internet terminology.

Issue 6		Online Dictionaries The past two years have seen a dramatic increase in the depth, scope and availability of online dictionaries. Today there are many sources for students to reference, many with rich features. Most major dictionaries now have free full-access online equivalents although Collins has recently withdrawn free access to its popular Cobuild site. One that is available is the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary at http://www1.oup.co.uk/elt/oald. Cambridge dictionaries are at http://dictionary.cambridge.org. Here you can find dictionaries of American English, phrasal verbs and idioms. Merriam-Webster has put its dictionaries at http://www.m-w.com/home.htm. Their site includes a spelling help facility. They also produce a student dictionary at http://www.wordcentral.com. Flexible searches are available at http://www.wordsmyth.net, while Onelook, http://www.onelook.com, will search many of the above sites. Enter http://www.dictionary.com to find multilingual dictionaries, a thesaurus and software that allows users to look up words from many applications such as browsers or from document files. Another vast portal is at http://www.yourdictionary.com, which contains useful links to specialty dictionaries and an endangered language repository. Enter the address of any webpage at http://www.voycabulary.com and you will be able to check the meaning of any word on the page with a mouse click. For those of a technical bent, Webopedia, at http://www.webopedia.com, provides definitions and links for computer and Internet terminology.
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