Wikimedia, the same group that runs Wikipedia, has an online dictionary that can be updated by anyone at any time. The OED can be accessed online (with a subscription). They are never taken out even if they are obsolete (not used any more). The most famous English Dictionary is the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED). lots of computer terms) or words change their meanings (e.g. New words are often brought into a language (e.g. Updating dictionariesĭictionaries need to be updated frequently because of the way language changes. In many languages, for example, the word “put” will be different according to whether something is being put onto something (e.g. A good dictionary will have a large list of these meanings to help people find the word they want. Other languages are not like English: they will have different words for these different meanings. A word like “right” has two basic meanings in English: 1) “correct”, and 2) the opposite of “left”. When using a dictionary to find out how to say something in another language one has to be careful to choose the right word.

Very often one volume (one book) will translate both ways for example, half the book might be translating from English to Dutch and the other half from Dutch to English. There are also dictionaries which translate words into foreign languages. Dictionaries which translate into foreign languages An encyclopedic dictionary gives less information about the topic than a real encyclopedia does, but more than a simple dictionary. Some of these come close to being an encyclopedia, but an encyclopedia gives a lot of extra information about things (knowledge) and does not explain the use of the language.

There are several types of dictionaries: dictionaries which explain words and how they are used, dictionaries which translate words from one language to another, dictionaries of biography which tell about famous people, technical dictionaries which explain the meanings of technical words or words connected to a particular subject (sometimes called a thesaurus). The word “dictionary” comes from the Latin “dictio” (“saying”). The words are arranged in alphabetical order so that they can be found quickly. A dictionary is a book which explains the meanings of words or, more precisely, lexemes.

English to english dictionary for kids