Thread: Online dictionaries.

As a non-native speaker I occasionally find a word that I do not know. i tend to look them all up.

In the olden days (I am 57) I used to have a row of paper dictionaries. I still own them but they are gathering dust.

For English I use the Free Dictionary. In my experience that is the most informatieve one. Is that correct? Or would you recommend a different one?

I have a number of paper dictionaries, and they are what I use. (Guess it's sort of like wet-shaving for me, rather than using an electric razor.) As an American, one dictionary I find especially useful is the Oxford Dictionary of English (not the much, much larger Oxford English Dictionary). What is nice about the ODE is that it follows British usage as used throughout the rest of the world, letting me know specific connotations that certain words or terms might have in different regions. American dictionaries don't have these. Also, I often find the definitions as given in the ODE to be closer to how I would want to define them myself. For example, my wife and I had a recent difference with a law firm regarding the meaning of the word "review" as used by them. Thanks to the ODE, I was able to argue that the noun or verb "review" implied the possibility of change, which was absent from the American dictionaries I consulted.

As a non-native speaker, reader, and writer of French, and to a far lesser extent of Italian, I have found it helpful to dispense with bilingual dictionaries early on and to concentrate on dictionaries solely written in the language being studied. That way, practice with the language itself is reinforced; and the definitions as given for the unknown word or term lead to further vocabulary enhancement.

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

As a non-native speaker, reader, and writer of French, and to a far lesser extent of Italian, I have found it helpful to dispense with bilingual dictionaries early on and to concentrate on dictionaries written in the language being studied That way, practice with the language itself is reinforced, and the definitions as given for the unknown word or term lead to further vocabulary enhancement.

So do I. For French I used to use le Petit Robert. What I do not like about it is that they don't list many slang words. I used to have a French girl friend who used le Petit Robert together with a dictionary of French slang. many French dictionaries only list words that have been approved of by l'Académie française, the watchdog of the French language, as proper French. Nowadays I use the online version of the Larousse.
Personally I would prefer paper dictionaries but I no longer use them as you have to buy a new one every so often to get up to date information. I used to use the ODE as well. One of its strong point is that it will tell you whether a certain word of expression is UK or US or Aus or whatever.

I have the Merriam- Webster Dictionary installed on both my phone and my tablet.
I find it very straightforward and easy to use.

Pete <:-}

Originally Posted by Kees

So do I. For French I used to use le Petit Robert. What I do not like about it is that they don't list many slang words. I used to have a French girl friend who used le Petit Robert together with a dictionary of French slang. many French dictionaries only list words that have been approved of by l'Académie française, the watchdog of the French language, as proper French. Nowadays I use [I]the online version of the Larousse.
Personally I would prefer paper dictionaries but I no longer use them as you have to buy a new one every so often to get up to date information. I used to use the ODE as well. One of its strong point is that it will tell you whether a certain word of expression is UK or US or Aus or whatever.

Le Petit Robert is pretty ubiquitous in French households. As an alternative, there was the Larousse Lexis for many years, republishing and republishing the same 1979 edition. I tend to use the latter as I like its system of arranging root words and derivatives under the same heading. For more recent arrivals, and because it's smaller in format, I use the nouveau petit Littré. Being built upon an earlier abridgement of the 19th-century original, it includes subsequent words, usages, and terms with a square-point notation that allows one to observe how the language has evolved over the past 150 years or so.

My sense is that a slang dictionary is probably out-of-date as soon as it's published--not that slang dictionaries don't have their use as a document, say, for an author interested in a certain period of time. Better just to live and talk to folks and pick up current terms that way for me. That said, it's true that electronic media now allows for new words to be constantly added, or old ones to be changed, along the lines of Wikipedia; but I seem to prefer a more authoritative approach, the Académie and all that. When I was a child, having been born in the autumn of 1963, my mother gave me a copy of the first edition of the Webster's New World Dictionary, college edition (college here in the U.S. meaning university-level), once I really started to be able to read. Basically, it was a hefty desk dictionary that I used until I grew up. Nowadays, for general desk reference, I will turn to the 4th edition of the same work, and it is pretty interesting to observe the changes as the language has evolved from the dictionary of my youth. But the important thing for me at least is that the American English language of my youth in many ways remains the English language as I know it most fundamentally, even to this day. So I will often return to the first edition of the said dictionary when I sense the current definition, or definitions, may be missing something.

We're of the same genereation, I was born 1961. When I went to university my parents gave me the unabridged Webster. I guess that is the same one you are referring to. If it were a razor it would be approximately 80/8. I still have it, and use it occaionally as it is very comprehensive.
French is for me almost like a classical language: I mainly read it. Only on holidays to francophone countries do I speak it. So for me the only way to get to know the meaning of French words is a dictionary.

I think you're talking about the Merriam-Webster unabridged Third International dictionary. That is the true "Webster's" line, and in essence, a Puritan bible--no, scratch that, a no-longer-Puritan dictionary that actually was a bit too permissive in usage for some when the third edition first came out. In libraries here in New England, it is often found on a dedicated lectern. It is largely conceded to be the ultimate in American dictionaries and that third edition, dating to the early 1960s, has yet to be truly re-edited.

My wife is French, and I spend a lot of time with her family in northeastern France; so I have picked up a lot of things from them. I am fairly literary, though, and it helps that I read a word and know its visual orthography to know it really exists, or at least to anticipate it.

I use the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary all the time. It's very useful.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

I find it really useful that most dictionaries can be found online now. My go-to for everyday use is also the Miriam-Webster, but I absolutely love the Online Etymology Dictionary

Originally Posted by PaulKidd

I use the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary all the time. It's very useful.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

I like their quizzes and words of the day.