Comparison of English dictionaries
 | This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (November 2021) |
This is a comparison of English dictionaries, which are dictionaries about the language of English. The dictionaries listed here are categorized into "full-size" dictionaries (which extensively cover the language, and are targeted to native speakers), "collegiate" (which are smaller, and often contain other biographical or geographical information useful to college students), and "learner's" (which are even smaller, targeted to English language learners, and which all use the International Phonetic Alphabet to indicate pronunciation).
Full-size[]
These dictionaries generally aim for extensive coverage of the language for native speakers. They typically only cover one variety of English.
| Title | Publisher | First
published |
Latest edition | Year | Pages | Entries
(approx.) |
Main dialect | Pronunciation
guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 1969 | 5th (ISBN 0-547-04101-2) | 2011 | 2,074 | 70,000 | American | Diacritical |
| The Chambers Dictionary | Chambers Harrap | 1872 | 13th (ISBN 9781473602250) | 2014 | 1,920 | 62,500[1] | British | Diacritical |
| Collins English Dictionary | HarperCollins | 1979 | 13th (ISBN 9780008284374) | 2018 | 2,340 | 100,000 | British | IPA |
| Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED) | Oxford University Press | 1911 | 12th (ISBN 9780199601080) | 2011 | 1,728 | 240,000 | British | IPA |
| Macquarie Dictionary | Macquarie | 1981 | 8th (ISBN 9781760556594) | 2020 | 1,792 | 138,000 | Australian | IPA |
| The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (MWD) | Merriam-Webster | 1828 | 18th (ISBN 978-0-87779-668-8) | 2016 | 720 (trade), 960 (mass-market) | 75,000 | American | Diacritical |
| New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD) | Oxford University Press | 2001 | 3rd (ISBN 0-19-539288-4) | 2010 | 2,096 | 350,000 | American | Diacritical |
| Oxford Dictionary of English | Oxford University Press | 1998 | 3rd (ISBN 0-19-957112-0) | 2010 | 2,112 | 355,000 | British | IPA |
| Oxford English Dictionary (OED) | Oxford University Press | 1895 | 2nd (20 vols., ISBN 0-19-861186-2) | 1989 | 21,730 | 291,500 | British | IPA |
| Random House Webster's | Random House | 1966 | 2nd (rev., ISBN 978-0375425998) | 2002 | 2,256 | 315,000 | American | Diacritical |
| Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) | Oxford University Press | 1933 | 6th (2 vol., ISBN 9780199206872) | 2007 | 3,804 | 125,000 | British | IPA |
| Webster's Third New International Dictionary (W3) | Merriam-Webster | 1961 | 3rd (ISBN 0-87-779201-1) | 2002 | 2,783 | 263,000 | American | Diacritical |
Collegiate[]
These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries (and fewer definitions per entry) than their full-size counterparts but may contain additional material, such as biographical or geopolitical information, that would be useful to a college student. They may be revised more often and thus contain more up to date usage. Sometimes the term collegiate or college is used merely to indicate a physically smaller, more economically printed dictionary.
| Title | Publisher | First
published |
Latest edition | Year | Pages | Entries
(approx.) |
Main dialect | Pronunciation
guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Heritage College Dictionary | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 2002 | 4th[2] (ISBN 0-547-24766-4) | 2010 | 1,664 | American | Diacritical | |
| Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary | Merriam-Webster | 1898 | 11th (ISBN 0-8777-9809-5) | 2003 | 1,664 | 165,000 | American | Diacritical |
| Webster's New World College Dictionary | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 1953 | 5th | 2014 | 1,736 | 163,000 | American | Diacritical |
Learner's[]
These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries than full-size or collegiate dictionaries but contain additional information that would be useful to a learner of English, such as more extensive usage notes, example sentences or phrases, collocations, and both British and American pronunciations (sometimes multiple variants of the latter). In addition, definitions are usually restricted to a simpler core vocabulary than that expected of a native speaker. All use the IPA to indicate pronunciation.
| Title | Publisher | First
published |
Latest edition | Year | Pages | Usage examples
(approx.) |
Main dialect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary | Cambridge University Press | 2003[3] | 4th (ISBN 9781107619500) | 2013 | 1,856 | 140,000 | British |
| Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary | Collins Cobuild | 1987 | 9th (ISBN 9780008253219) | 2018 | 1,904 | British | |
| Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | Pearson-Longman | 1978 | 6th (ISBN 9781447954194) | 2014 | 2,224 | 165,000 | British |
| Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners | Macmillan Education | 2002 | 2nd (ISBN 9781405025263) | 2007 | 1,748 | British | |
| Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary | Merriam-Webster | 2008 | 2nd (ISBN 9780877797364) | 2016 | 1,994 | 160,000 | American |
| Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary | Oxford University Press | 1948 | 10th (ISBN 9780194799485) | 2020 | 1,960 | 185,000 | British |
See also[]
List of dictionaries by number of words
Notes[]
- ^ Kaminski, Mariusz (2013). A History of the Chambers Dictionary. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 95–96. ISBN 9783110312737.
- ^ The 2010 "4th edition" of The American Heritage College Dictionary (ISBN 0-547-24766-4) is the second revision of the original "4th edition" published in 2002; it was originally derived from the 4th edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which was published in 2000.[1]
- ^ Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary was originally published as Cambridge International Dictionary of English in 1995.
- English dictionaries
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