Online Dictionaries
There are several types of online dictionary, including:
- Aggregator sites, which give access to data licensed from various reference publishers. They typically offer monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, one or more thesauruses, and technical or specialized dictionaries. Examples include TheFreeDictionary.com and Dictionary.com
- 'Premium' dictionaries available on subscription, such as the Oxford English Dictionary
- Dictionaries from a single publisher, free to the user and supported by advertising. Examples include Collins Online Dictionary, Duden Online, Larousse bilingual dictionaries, the Macmillan English Dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary .
- Dictionaries available free from non-commercial publishers (often institutions with government funding). Examples include the Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek (ANW), and Den Danske Ordbog
Some online dictionaries are regularly updated, keeping abreast of language change. Many have additional content, such as blogs and features on new words. Some are collaborative projects, most notably Wiktionary and the Collins Online Dictionary. And some, like the Urban Dictionary, consist of entries (sometimes self-contradictory) supplied by users. Many dictionaries for special purposes, especially for professional and trade terminology, and regional dialects and language variations, are published on the websites of organizations and individual authors. Although they may often be presented in list form without a search function, because of the way in which the information is stored and transmitted, they are nevertheless electronic dictionaries.
Read more about this topic: Electronic Dictionary
Famous quotes containing the word dictionaries:
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)