Top 40 Online Dictionaries and Language Resources

"Il faut coucher avec son dictionnaire." - French proverb.

A DICTIONARY is collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), with usage of information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, translation, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon. According to Nielsen (2008) a dictionary may be regarded as a lexicographical product that is characterised by three significant features: (1) it has been prepared for one or more functions; (2) it contains data that have been selected for the purpose of fulfilling those functions; and (3) its lexicographic structures link and establish relationships between the data so that they can meet the needs of users and fulfill the functions of the dictionary.

In general usage, a THESAURUS is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning (containing synonyms and sometimes antonyms), in contrast to a dictionary, which provides definitions for words, and generally lists them in alphabetical order. The main purpose of such reference works is to help the user 'to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed' – to quote Peter Mark Roget, architect of the best known thesaurus in the English language. Although including synonyms, a thesaurus should not be taken as a complete list of all the synonyms for a particular word. The entries are also designed for drawing distinctions between similar words and assisting in choosing exactly the right word. Unlike a dictionary, a thesaurus entry does not give the definition of words.

Dictionary & Language News, Reviews & Resources

• 2nd most popular spoken language in each European country revealed - "Europe is home to almost 750 million people in just under 50 countries. Here are the second most popular languages for countries across the continent."
• 5 Common English Words We Don’t Know the Origins of - Including ‘Boy’ & ‘Dog’ - "Discover the mysterious origins of five common English words - including 'boy' and 'dog' - that continue to puzzle linguists."
• 10 phrases that instantly make you sound less intelligent, according to psychology - "Have you ever noticed how some people wow the crowd when they talk, while others just don’t? It’s not only about what they say, but how they say it. And guess what? Some phrases might even make you seem less bright than you really are."
• 10 words that don't mean what they used to - The Guardian.
• 10 words we learned in 2024 that will expand your mind - "Here are some of our favourite words and phrases that the BBC encountered during in our reporting this year that helped to unravel the changes taking place in world around us."
• 10 work buzzwords that took over in 2023 - "Largely originating on social media, this year's top jargon explains what workers want - and who they've become in a post-pandemic world."
• 11 Phrases That Offend Classy People But Sound Normal To Everyone Else - "Classy people aren't afraid to confront those who overstep."
• 11 words that make the heart sink - The Guardian.
• 15 Modern Words With Unusual Medieval Origins - "Many everyday words have roots in the Middle Ages but have come to be used in surprising ways in modern times. From medieval philosophies to long-forgotten customs, these words reveal how the past continues to shape our language in unexpected ways. Here are 15 examples of this fascinating evolution."
• 21 Best New Words of 2016 - Wired.
• 28 WORDS THAT ONLY POSH PEOPLE USE - Tatler.
• 50 THINGS WE SAY NOW, THANKS TO ‘S.N.L.’ - "Since 'Saturday Night Live' began, the show has introduced catchphrases that wind up in our own conversations. Isn't that special"
• 50 Tongue Twisters to improve pronunciation in English - "Tongue twisters are a great way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency. They can also help to improve accents by using alliteration, which is the repetition of one sound."
• 300 New Words Added to Scrabble Dictionary - "Scrabble enthusiasts will have 300 new words added to the Scrabble dictionary to up their game, thanks to the sixth edition of the popular board game."
• 500 Days of Duolingo: What You Can (and Can’t) Learn From a Language App - "Free language learning apps often promise the world - but don’t expect fluency from one. Here’s what to expect before you sign up."
• 2018 Was A Tense Year. The Biggest Search Trends on Dictionary.com Show Just How Tense It Was - "Dictionary.com has revealed the 10 most viral lookups of 2018, and they reflect a tense era. Here's what you need to know."
• 2021 Merriam-Webster word of the year revealed - CNN.
• 2023 Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is the real deal - "As the all-important question of truth and facts continues to dominate current affairs, it may come as no surprise to learn that Merriam-Webster’s word of the year is 'authentic.'"
• 2023: Rizz named word of the year by Oxford University Press - "Have you got charm, style and charisma? Do you use it to attract a romantic partner? Then you might just have Oxford's 2023 word of the year."
• 3705 Tongue Twisters - "World's largest collection of tongue twisters with 3705 entries in 118 languages!"
• A critical period for second language acquisition - TIME Magazine.
• A million-dollar challenge to crack the script of early Indians - "For over a century, experts - linguists, scientists and archaeologists - have tried to crack the Indus script. Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even claimed it's just made up of political or religious symbols."
• ACRONYM & INITIALISM - Wikipedia.
• Alexander the Great & the Legendary Gordian Knot - "The cutting of the Gordian Knot by Alexander became a metaphor for solving difficult problems by employing simple, drastic solutions."
• Amazon Releases a New Language Model that Outperforms GPT3.5 - "Amazon has launched a new language model to catch up with the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT."
• An A to Z of old words to calm & inspire hope - "Have a ‘kaffeeklatsch’ until you become ‘unsoulclogged’: archaic soothing terms to use in troubling times."
• Ancient objects that reveal writing's roots - "An exhibition about Iran traces how some of the world's earliest scripts developed. They were as much about images as text."
• AP apologises & deletes widely mocked tweet about ‘the French’ - "Organisation clarifies initial advice, which included term in list of phrases it thought could be dehumanising."
• apostrophe society admits its defeat: 'Laziness has won' - "Organisation formed in 2001 to preserve punctuation mark comes to a full stop."
• Apple Announces Real-Time Translation For 11 Languages With Siri - "Apple just announced that iOS 14 will offer live real-time translation for 11 languages, even offline, at its World Wide Developer Conference being held online this week. But the third-most spoken language globally, Hindi, is not one of them."
• aptronyms: Urologist Adam Weiner, runner Usain Bolt: can a last name determine your job? - "Some researchers claim aptronyms, or perfectly apt names, can affect what field you go into - while others are skeptical."
• Australian slang terms every visitor should know - "Australians have long prided themselves on putting their own twist on the English language. Do you know your 'yeah, nah' from your 'nah, yeah'? Or your 'woop woop' from your 'wig out'?"
• BERLITZ - since 1878. "Learn a language. Open your world." Get the language skills, cultural understanding and confidence to open up your world with Berlitz USA.
• Best Sentences of 2024 - "Without further ado, here they are: words worth revisiting. Words worth keeping."
• Biden: What a Linguist Hears When Biden Speaks - "In his interview last week with George Stephanopoulos, Biden repeatedly used verbless chunks in the place of sentences, with utterances such as 'No indication of any serious condition,' 'Nobody’s fault, mine' and 'Large crowds, overwhelming response, no slipping.'"
• Bilingualism May Stave Off Dementia, Study Suggests - "People who spoke two languages daily in their youth tended to score higher on memory tests later in life, the researchers found."
• Bill Murray Changed The English Language With One Line In Ghostbusters - "An improvised line from Bill Murray in Ghostbusters helped create an English idiom. Bill Murray changed the English language forever when he ad-libbed the words, 'This chick is toast,' in 1984’s Ghostbusters. The actor’s improv didn’t just become a quotable line from the movie. It also turned 'toast' into an idiom that is still used almost 40 years later. Referring to someone who is doomed as 'toast' was traced to the scene in which the famed parapsychologists battle Gozer."
• Brain rot is Oxford’s word of the year 2024 - a modern condition familiar to most of us - "'Brain rot' took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as public commentary and analysis of OUP’s language data."
• brat: Collins Dictionary’s word of the year 2024 is a confident, messy way of life - "The dictionary credited British singer Charli XCX with making 'brat' one of the most talked-about words in 2024. According to the singer, a brat is 'that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things some times.'"
• Britain's favourite polite phrases for saying what we don't mean - "Conversations are strewn with polite-isms that attempt to conceal seething resentment, frustration or irritation, research shows. These include 'Sounds fun, I'll let you know' (translation: 'I've no intention of coming'), and 'I'm sure it's just me' (translation: 'This is entirely your fault but I'm trying to soften the blow'). Almost half of people told researchers that they uttered such phrases, which were used about 14 times a day."
• British sarcasm 'lost on Americans' - "Britons like to think they have a 'special relationship' with the US, based on a common language and cultural, historical and political ties. In the words of YouGov, 'half of Americans wouldn't be able to tell that a Briton is calling them an idiot'."
• business jargon we want to leave behind in 2017 - The Telegraph.
• Calvin Trillin on the Scariest Word - The New York Times.
• Can Duolingo's chatbot teach you a foreign language? - The Guardian.
• can technology help you lose an accent? - "The trick to losing a heavy accent and imitating native English speakers may lie in re-training the brain to hear new frequencies, writes Farah Khalique."
• Can you solve it? Puzzles for language lovers - "Up to the task? Decipher yourself!"
• Cheugy, Glasgow & Eilish among words most mangled by newsreaders in 2021 - "How many on this list have you been butchering? Virtually everyone, meanwhile, is having trouble with 'Omicron'."
• Come quick, the dictionaries are fighting - The Verge.
• Countries by Their Second-Language English Proficiency, ranked - "This graphic ranks the top 25 countries according to their English proficiency. Data is sourced from the EF English Proficiency Index, which aggregated the test results of 2.2 million adults accross 113 countries."
• Countries Named From the Greek Language - "1. Argentina: the land of silver. 2. Azerbaijan and the ancient city of Atropatene. 3. Egypt's name comes from two words in the Greek language. 4. Ethiopia and Eritrea. 5. Georgia, named after a Greek Saint. 6. Indonesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. 7.Malta, named after its famous honey."
• Countries that speak the best English - "The destinations with the top non-native English speakers."
• Danish dictionary to weed out gender stereotypes - "In a major review of the language, ‘career women’ are now paired with ‘career men’ and manslaughter is a linguistic offence."
• Dating disasters: why bad grammar could stop you finding love online - "The users of one dating site rate good grammar and literacy above erratic spelling in their search for a warm, ideal partner."
• DICTIONARY - Wikipedia.
• Dictionary.com announces word of the year for 2022: ‘woman’ - "Portal said searches for the word increased by 1,400% after Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to define it in her confirmation hearing."
• Dictionary.com’s word of the year 2024 is very mindful - "'Demure,' a word that went viral over the summer, has been named Dictionary.com’s 2024 word of the year - beating out other contenders like 'brainrot,' 'brat,' and 'weird.'"
• Emojipedia - since 2013. "Home of Emoji Meanings." The emoji search engine. A fast emoji search experience with options to browse every emoji by name, category, or platform.
• English skills - "The world’s largest ranking of countries and regions by English skills." Based on test results of 2.2m adults in 113 countries & regions. EF Proficiency Skills Index.
• Enjoy Paris Without Letting Language Get in the Way - The New York Times.
• False friend - False friends are words in two languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning.
• First 10 Words of the African American English Dictionary Are In - "An exclusive look at a dictionary consisting entirely of words created or reinvented by Black people. (Don’t worry: All three variants of 'bussin' are included.)"
• First English dictionary of ancient Greek since Victorian era ‘spares no blushes’ - "Words the most recent Greek lexicon translated as ‘to wench’ or ‘do one’s need’ have been given much earthier new readings for modern students of classics."
• Forget hygge; pyt is the new Scandinavian term for a happier life - "Danes are some of the happiest people in the world, and they also happen to have a lot of cool words for ways to be happy."
• France: Paris Champs-ÉlysÉes hosts mass spelling contest - "Paris's most famous avenue was turned into an open-air classroom on Sunday, as almost 1,400 people took part into a record-breaking spelling exercise. About 1,700 desks were laid out on the Champs-Élysées for an event billed as the 'largest dictation in the world'."
• Fresh call for Oxford dictionaries to change 'sexist' definitions - "Open letter continues drive to remove ‘damaging everyday sexism’ in its entries, such as citing ‘bitch’ as a synonym for woman."
• Friday The 13th, Say It With Us: Paraskevidekatriaphobia - "Because we want everyone to feel safe, once again we offer this advice for how to get through another Friday the 13th: Learn how to pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia. Successfully saying that super long word supposedly cures one of any Friday the 13th-related fears."
• From a wrongful arrest to a life-saving romance: the typos that have changed people's lives - "In our digital world, a misdirected text or simple keyboard error can trigger huge unintended consequences."
• From the B-word to the Q-word: an alphabet of offence - "When the unsayable is constantly evolving, it makes language a minefield."
• Gaga for goo goo: Wellington named the global capital of baby talk - "Residents of the New Zealand city have the world’s most extreme vocal changes when speaking to babies, a study has found."
• Gaslighting - Word of the Year 2022.
• ‘Gaslighting’ Is the Word of the Year. What Does That Tell Us About the World We’re Living In? - "Anyone who has ever been gaslit will remember the feeling. Wondering whether you might be overreacting after all. The self-doubt over what - until just now - you absolutely knew to be true. Perhaps you are a crazy psycho bitch and have misread the situation? Maybe you do overthink. Is it all in your head?"
• Ghosting is usually a terrible thing to do. Here’s when it’s OK - "If you’re actively considering ghosting someone, ask yourself if it’s necessary or if you just want to avoid an awkward situation. Is ghosting going to solve the problem in a way that makes sense for you? Do you feel good about it?"
• 'Ghosting,' 'Orbiting,' 'Rizz': A Guide to Modern Dating Terms - "The way we talk about relationships has drastically changed in recent years. Here is a glossary of some of the most popular words and phrases you should know."
• Gigil: The new word in the dictionary for overwhelming cuteness - "Ever found yourself speechless in the presence of overwhelming cuteness, like your baby nephew or the cat video you saw on Instagram? There's now a word for it: gigil. Gigil (pronounced ghee-gill) is part of a list of 'untranslatable' words, or those that do not have English equivalents, that have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary."
• GLOSSARY - Wikipedia.
• 'Goblin mode' chosen as Oxford word of the year for 2022 - "As you read this, look around. Are you still in bed? Are there piles of clothes and takeout food boxes strewn across the floor? Do you have chip crumbs on your sheets? Have you broken your self-care routine more times than you can count? Do you not even care? If so, you might already be in 'goblin mode' - chosen by the public as the 2022 Oxford word of the year."
• Google improves Translate with offline AI - engadget.
• Google Translate Adds Support For Five New Languages - "The languages, Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen and Uyghur, are the first new languages Google Translate has added in four years. In total, Google offers support for over 108 languages through its Translate app."
• Google Translate is getting a transcribe mode for lectures, speeches - "It can translate long speeches in real time."
• Google Translate now lets you chat to anyone in a foreign language - The Telegraph.
• Google Translate’s real time transcription feature is out now for Android - "From spoken language to translated text."
• H-dropping - or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H sound", [h]. The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects. Although common in most regions of England and in some other English-speaking countries, H-dropping is often stigmatized and perceived as a sign of careless or uneducated speech.
• 'Have your cake & eat it' - & other office jargon we love to hate - The Telegraph.
• Hawaiian, Gaelic, Yiddish: so you want to learn an endangered language on Duolingo? - "Languages do not become endangered peacefully. Duolingo’s efforts to teach such languages have entangled the company in often fraught historical contexts."
• Here are 10 spellings you need to get right - "Experienced, successful, professional ... according to a study of thousands of CVs, these are just some of the words that candidates struggle to spell. And recruiters hate it."
• How a single comma can cost millions - "For most people, a stray comma isn’t the end of the world. But in some cases, the exact placement of a punctuation mark can cost huge sums of money."
• How different cultures sign off emails - "Depending on where you live, the words you use to sign off your email could be just as important as the content."
• How a Danish word rallied a nation - "How a long-forgotten word rallied a nation. A word buried in the history books helped Danes mobilise during the pandemic, flattening the curve and lifting community spirit."
• How a long dead language was decoded from a broken slab of stone - "Much of what we now take for granted about this world of mummies, pyramids and tombs had for centuries remained shrouded in silence until French soldiers stumbled upon a broken slab of an inscribed stone in 1799."
• How do you translate impossible words? - "English is the world’s dominant scientific language, yet it has no word for the distinctive smell of cockroaches. What happens though, if you have no words for basic scientific terms?"
• How Exercise Can Help You Recall Words - The New York Times.
• How 'linguistic mirroring' can make you more convincing - "New research shows that analysing someone’s communication type and parroting it back may make you more persuasive."
• How our brains cope with speaking more than one language - "How language mess with our brain. Speaking a second or even a third language can bring obvious advantages, but occasionally the words, grammar and even accents can get mixed up. This can reveal surprising things about how our brains work."
• how Oxford Dictionaries is cleaning up sexist language - "After extensive research, reference publisher is quietly replacing examples that ‘unnecessarily perpetuate stereotypes’ - while also reflecting how language is used."
• How Sign Language Can Help Us All Be Better Communicators - "The emotionality of ASL can free you from the trap of precision."
• How to crack an unknown language - "The languages that defy auto-translate. There are more than 7,000 languages in the world, 4,000 of which are written. Yet only 100 or so can be translated by automated tools such as Google Translate. New research promises to let us communicate with the others too."
• How to create a language - "David J. Peterson, the language creator for HBO's Game of Thrones, explains how to go about creating a fictional language. David breaks down how he constructed the Dothraki and Valyrian languages, and shows us what you need to think about when creating a language of your own."
• how to get better at French - "Worried that she is speaking French like Joey Essex speaks English, Emma Beddington fights back with classes, podcasts and cartoons about mustard-loving aliens resuscitating literary giants."
• How to ‘Gray Rock’ Conversations With Difficult People - "Some say that becoming as dull as a rock is an effective way to disengage. It is especially effective in written communication, like texting, as a way of avoiding long, meandering messages."
• How to speak Silicon Valley: decoding tech bros from microdosing to privacy - "Your guide to understanding an industry where capitalism is euphemized."
• How to stop forgetting words - "Why you lose words on the tip of your tongue. Struggling to recall a word or name on the tip of your tongue might not be the sign of a bad memory – and there is an easy way to prevent it."
• How to translate speech using the Action button on iPhone - "In this tutorial, we will show you how to set up the Action button on your iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max to translate words and sentences into another language."
• 'Hygge' has made it into the Oxford English Dictionary - BBC.
• INTERNET SLANG - Wikipedia.
• iOS 17.2 finally gives me a reason to use the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button - "All told, though, it's extremely impressive that you're now able to carry an instantaneous translation tool around in your pocket. Now, with a single click, my iPhone 15 Pro can start a translation session in the Dynamic Island, allowing me to quickly translate phrases into another language without needing to boot up the full-blown Translate app (or indeed any rival translation app). Muchas gracias, Apple!"
• iOS 17.2: How to Turn Off Inline Predictive Text on Your iPhone - "If you find inline predictive text annoying, here's how to disable it: 1. Open Settings. 2. Tap General. 3. Tap Keyboard. 4. Tap the switch next to Predictive Text."
• Irish names you're probably saying wrong & how to pronounce them - "Do you know your Gearóid from your Gobnait? Your Fearghal from your Muirgheal? To the untrained eye, Irish names can seem like a daunting ambush of rogue consonants and surprise vowels."
• Is ‘irregardless’ a real word? We asked our journalists as battle rages on - "Merriam-Webster insists irregardless is a word - but not everyone agrees with the dictionary’s take."
• Is this the most powerful word in the English language? - "The most commonly-used word in English might only have three letters - but it packs a punch."
• Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words - "Italians who use English and other foreign words in official communications could face fines of up to €100,000 ($108,705) under new legislation introduced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party."
• iTranslate’s new app gets us one step closer to simple, real-time translation - The Verge.
• “It’s not rocket science” & “It’s not brain surgery” - “It’s a walk in the park”: prospective comparative study - "To compare cognitive testing scores in neurosurgeons and aerospace engineers to help settle the age old argument of which phrase - “It’s not brain surgery” or “It’s not rocket science” - is most deserved."
• Jacob Rees-Mogg issues style guide to staff - ITV News.
• 'Key worker': how a 19th century term evolved into political rhetoric - "From burglars to upstanding - and vital - members of society."
• Language wars: the 19 greatest linguistic spats of all time - "Words are ever evolving – but not without controversy. From creative applications of an apostrophe to the overuse of literally, what makes you rage?"
• Languages under threat - "Welsh and Hawaiian were saved from extinction. Other languages might not be so lucky."
• Laurel or Yanny debate explained: why do some people hear a different word? - The Guardian.
• 'Let's go Brandon,' explained - "On Friday night, a Southwest Airlines pilot allegedly said 'Let's go Brandon' over the plane intercom, causing a stir on board and prompting an investigation by the airline - which has become right-wing code for 'F**k Joe Biden."
• LEXICON - Wikipedia.
• Like, really? Academic says stop sneering at the word 'Like' - "Criticising the filler word interrupts thought and shows bias against young women, according to a professor of sociolinguistics."
• Lockdown named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - "Collins records a 6,000% increase in usage of the word since 2019, with TikToker and Megxit ranking among mostly coronavirus-related terms."
• Love v l’amour: is English destroying the world’s sexiest language? - "In France, the culture minister has announced plans to strengthen a law that compels advertisers to say things in French."
• manifest: Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year 2024 is all about thinking positive - "Popularized by celebrities such as singer Dua Lipa, 'manifest' refers to the practice of using 'methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen,' the British dictionary publisher said in an announcement Wednesday."
• 'Manosphere' - "The term became more prominent last year after Donald Trump was said to have successfully leveraged the male-oriented podcast space to help him win the election. 'Manosphere' started to be used broadly to encapsulate more mainstream male-oriented podcasters like Joe Rogan."
• Mapped: The Most Popular Languages to Learn by Country - "Today, the top three most popular languages people want to learn worldwide are English, German, and Arabic."
• May the 'Star Wars' vocabulary be with us - "The word "Jedi," for example, occurs more than four times per million words in the American COCA corpus."
• Merriam-Webster dictionary adds 'they' as nonbinary pronoun - "America’s oldest dictionary claps back at grammar snobs as it embraces more inclusive definition."
• Merriam-Webster word of the year revealed 2021 - "'Vaccine' is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. The word was selected based on lookup data, notable spikes, and year-over-year increases in searches."
• Mind your language: is it ever OK to correct someone's grammar? - "If you find yourself doing it, consider this: are you genuinely attempting to help, or just trying to gain the upper hand?"
• My voyage through a world of language in just one word: snow - "Missing the wild regions where I have worked, I took a linguistic trip from Asia to the Andes, via Russia and Finland, instead."
• N-word: The troubled history of the racial slur - "'It's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.'"
• Oldest Languages in the World & the Origins of Writing - "Determining the exact 'oldest' languages can be challenging as the origin of many ancient languages is often shrouded in mystery. However, based on historical evidence and linguistic research, historians and philologists can make educated guesses."
• OMG! Is swearing still taboo? - "A judge ruled last week that using the F-word in work meetings was now ‘commonplace’. So is it acceptable to say whatever we like, wherever we are?"
• Omicron among 2021's most mispronounced words - "If you've been stumbling over how to say 'Omicron' or the pop singer Billie Eilish's last name, you're not alone."
• Our Semicolons, Ourselves - "You can now generate prose without writing at all. Wait, scratch that: You do need to fashion the prompt that you’re giving ChatGPT - the parameters of the composition you want, the objectives, the guidelines. But artificial intelligence will do the rest. It will sweat the structure, the syntax, the semicolons."
• Oxford Dictionary announces word of the year 2018 - "How Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year Sums Up the Cultural Moment."
• Oxford English Dictionary finds space for 1,000 new words - The Guardian.
• People Have Invented More Than 200 Gender-Neutral Pronouns. Here's Why 'They' Is Here to Stay - "For centuries, poets and pundits have observed that English is missing a gender-neutral, third-person pronoun that could be used when gender is unknown or irrelevant."
• ‘Poor little snowflake’ – the defining insult of 2016
• Pope Francis criticises overuse of adjectives - "Pope gives views on language in speech to Vatican communications team."
• 'Post-truth' named word of year by Oxford Dictionaries - The Guardian.
• ‘r-word’ is back. How a slur became renormalized - "'The word ‘retarded’ is back, and it’s one of the great culture victories,' Joe Rogan said with a laugh in the April 10 episode of his über-popular podcast, 'The Joe Rogan Experience,'"
• Racism definition: Merriam-Webster to make update after request - "The American dictionary Merriam-Webster is to change its definition of the word racism after receiving an email from a young black woman."
• Review: The Internet Is Changing the English Language. Is That a Good Thing? - TIME Magazine.
• rules of the internet - "Rules of the internet refers to a humorous list of unofficial rules guiding online conduct or listing axioms about what the internet is and how users should behave on it." Slang Dictionary.
• Samfundssind - which is loosely translated as 'community spirit' or 'social mindedness' - has become the buzzword of the coronavirus crisis - "The single word that connects Denmark."
• SLANG - Wikipedia.
• simple Chinese word sparks racial sensitivity debate - "Suspension of a US professor sparks debate over a Chinese word."
• Sloshed, plastered & gazeboed: why Britons have 546 words for drunkenness - "Combine ribald humour with peculiar sentence construction and a genuinely horrifying drinking culture, and what do you get? A dictionary's worth of ‘drunkonyms’."
• So, Um, How Do You, Like, Stop Using Filler Words? - The New York Times.
• Song lyrics getting simpler, more repetitive, angry & self-obsessed - study - "Researchers analysed the words in more than 12,000 English-language songs across several genres from 1980 to 2020."
• Swimming in Words With Oliver Sacks - "His love of language has a life of its own."
• The art of mashing up words to create new ones - "Ever said the words hangry, smog or mansplaining? You've been using portmanteau, as etymologist and broadcaster Susie Dent explains."
• The British isle with its own language - "The secret British language that was used to outwit the Nazis. Very few people outside the island know that Jersey has its own language - or that it was cannily used as a clandestine code during German occupation in WW2."
• The Case for Embracing Linguistic Identities - TIME Magazine.
• The coded language that holds women back at work - "Workplace language encodes gendered expectations that feed into who we hire, how we assess people and who we promote, holding some people back."
• The comma touch: Jacob Rees-Mogg's aides send language rules to staff - "Commons leader reportedly wants his team to use imperial measurements and avoid saying ‘very’."
• The disruption con: why big tech’s favourite buzzword is nonsense - "How one magic word became a way of justifying Silicon Valley’s unconstrained power."
• The hand gestures that last longer than spoken languages - "Using hand gestures might feel like an intuitive way to communicate across language barriers, but their meaning can change, and there are few universal signs that everyone agrees on."
• The harmful ableist language you unknowingly use - "Some of our most common, ingrained expressions have damaging effects on millions of people - and many of us don't know we're hurting others when we speak."
• The language that doesn't use 'no' - "Nepal's Kusunda language has no known origin and a number of quirks, like no words for 'yes' or 'no'. It also has only one fluent speaker left, something linguists are racing to change."
• The oldest living language in Europe? - "The last speakers of ancient Sparta. The iconic city-state may have fallen nearly 2,400 years ago, but today, 2,000 people still speak the language of these ancient warriors."
• The origina of the world 'Taboo' - "By harnessing the ancient practice of tapu, the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island were able to ward off the coronavirus soon after it penetrated their territory."
• The phrases you’ve been getting wrong all your life - "Have you found out you've been getting a phrase wrong all your life? It's OK! You're contributing to the evolution of the English language."
• The positive lexicography - "Welcome to the positive lexicography, an evolving index of 'untranslatable' words related to wellbeing from across the world's languages."
• The sounds that change how we think - "What the sound of your name says about you. The way your name or a word rolls off the tongue can have some surprising effects on the judgements we make."
• The surprising history of the word 'dude' - "Many common terms in English have unexpected roots. Kelly Grovier explores the origins of seven words coined in art history, including the political meanings of ‘silhouette’ and ‘picturesque’, and how ‘mobile’ became ‘mob’."
• The weird way language effects our sense of time & space - "The languages we speak can have a surprising impact on the way we think about the world and even how we move through it."
• THESAURUS - Wikipedia.
• 'They' beats 'the' to 2019's word of the year - "Merriam-Webster dictionary says look-ups for its winner have boomed since it became a favoured pronoun for non-binary individuals."
• This man can pronounce every word in the dictionary - "Dr. Jacques Bailly is so accurate with words that he became the official pronouncer of the Scripps National Spelling Bee."
• 'To Meghan Markle' is now a verb - here's how to use it - "You too can preserve your own mental wellbeing by bailing from an environment that doesn’t value you - Sussex-style!"
• top 10 words of 2019 - "From people becoming a proper noun to woke’s use as an insult, we pick our key words of the year."
• trustafarian - (Slang): A young person with the fashion sensibilities of a hippie, or any other countercultural trend, especially anarchism, Maoism, or punk rock, who subscribes to an unemployed, shiftless life of hedonism based upon an unlimited amount of funds (a trust fund). A wealthy young person who adopts an alternative lifestyle incorporating elements from non-Western cultures.
• T-V Distinction - in sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction (from the Latin pronouns tu and vos) is a contrast, within one language, between various forms of addressing one's conversation partner or partners that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, age or insult toward the addressee.
• Twitch bans ‘simp’ - a recent favorite in the Twitch community that nominally refers to men who seem desperate for a woman’s attention.
• Vibe check: what does the most overused word of our era actually mean? - ‘Vibes’ are everywhere, from pop culture to politics. Is it a symbol of human connection - or has it become meaningless?
• Watch Out (for ClichÉs) - "Do you hear what we hear? It’s The New York Times’s annual reminder to avoid overused holiday phrases."
• Weird: The Hidden Grammatical Reason Why 'Weird' Works - "In Old English the word meant, believe it or not, 'what the future holds,' as in what we now refer to as fate. In the 20th century, the word lost its hint of the macabre as its meaning became something quieter. 'Weird' now means peculiar - perhaps passingly so, but against what one would expect."
• Welsh word you can't translate - "A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, 'hiraeth' is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost."
• What France’s battle over gender-inclusive language is really about - "In the French language, ‘inclusive’ becomes a loaded word."
• What the Queen's English revealed about a changing world - "The accent of the world's longest-serving monarch evolved during her long reign - reflecting enormous social shifts that occurred during that time."
• What was the first language? - "When did our meat-scavenging, fire-harnessing ancestors first learn to talk? And is it possible to trace the thousands of languages that exist today back to a single ancestor?"
• Whatever: The One Word That Can Destroy a Friendship - "'Whatever' is a 'fighting word,' says Leid, a friendship expert who’s the author of books including The 50/50 Friendship Flow - and it’s an immature one at that."
• Which languages are easiest - and most difficult - for native English speakers to learn? - "With so much time on our hands during lockdown, many of us have entertained the idea of expanding our horizons. Learning a foreign language is an obvious option."
• why are some objects - ships, countries, the moon - referred to as 'she'? - "The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts."
• Why are we learning languages in a closed world? - "Language learning spiked during lockdowns, commercial providers say. But when no-one can travel, and the job market looks unstable, why have people turned toward language now?"
• Why Bilinguals Are Smarter - The New York Times.
• Why It's So Hard to Learn Another Language After Childhood - TIME Magazine.
• WHY ‘SANMITSU’ IS JAPAN’S WORD OF THE YEAR 2020 - "'Sanmitsu', the Japanese word for the 'Three Cs', closed spaces, crowds and close-contact situations, has been chosen as the nation’s buzzword of the year."
• Why are so many young Americans adopting fake British accents? - "Whether deflecting an awkward moment or lightening the mood in an argument, affecting an accent has become a Gen Z verbal tic."
• Why swearing is a sign of intelligence, helps manage pain & more - "Polite society considers swearing to be a vulgar sign of low intelligence and education, for why would one rely on rude language when blessed with a rich vocabulary?"
• why the Apostrophe Protection Society has closed in disgust - "After 18 years of policing punctuation abuse from around the world, the APS has conceded defeat. The barbarians have won."
• Why the Queen's accent changed - "What the Queen's English reveals about a changing world. The accent of the world's longest-serving monarch evolved during her long reign - reflecting enormous social shifts that occurred during that time."
• Why we need new words for life in the Anthropocene - "The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is assembling a new lexicon for people's experience of climate change and environmental upheaval."
• Why we’ve created new language for coronavirus - "From ‘covidiots’ to ‘quarantine and chill’, the pandemic has led to many terms that help people laugh and commiserate."
• World's most difficult language? - CNN style.
• Words That Defined 2020 - "Social Distancing, Doomscroll & Defund."

Top 40 Best Free Online Dictionaries & Thesaurus

• A DICTIONARY OF SLANG - "Dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms of the U.K."
• ABBREVIATIONS.COM - "We are the world's largest and most comprehensive directory and search engine for acronyms, abbreviations and initialisms on the Internet. Abbreviations.com holds hundreds of thousands of entries organized by a large variety of categories from computing and the Web to governmental, medicine and business."
• ACRONYM FINDER - "With more than 1,000,000 human-edited definitions, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms."
• ALL ACRONYMS - "2,980,000 Acronyms and Abbreviations. 2,520 Topics."
• BABYLON'S ONLINE DICTIONARY - Babylon's Online Dictionary is dedicated to serving you the finest selection of the dictionaries, glossaries and encyclopedias on the web: more than 1400 dictionaries. More than 75 languages. Search myriads of terms, expressions and phrases.
• BUSINESS DICTIONARY - "Over 20,000 terms. Clear. Concise. Comprehensive."
• COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY - free online dictionaries.
• CREDO REFERENCE - "Smart Research Starts Here." Puts the world's best citable information at your fingertips. Find: encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, quotations, bilingual dictionaries, crossword solver, measurement conversions.
• DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH SLANG AND COLLOQUIALISMS
• FINANCIAL DICTIONARY - by Investopedia a Forbes company.
• HISTORICAL THESAURUS OF ENGLISH - contains almost 800,000 words from Old English to the present day arranged into detailed hierarchies.
• INTERNETSLANG.COM - Internet slang words, Internet dictionary.
• INTERNET SLANG ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS - "15,089 Internet slang acronyms and abbreviations."
• INTERNET SLANG DICTIONARY & TRANSLATOR - "Confused by internet slang? Can't read a text message? Translate internet slang and acronyms."
• INVESTOPEDIA - financial dictionary.
• LECTRIC LAW LIBRARY - legal resources & definitions.
• LEGAL-EXPLANATIONS.COM - "Free legal resources in plain English." Legal-Explanations.com provides the very best in free legal resources written in plain English. Our website currently contains over 2,500 legal definitions and will be expanded in coming months to include a vast collection of legal resources.
• MACMILLAN DICTIONARY - "Free Englishline online dictionary and thesaurus."
• MEDICINE NET.COM - "We Bring Doctors' Knowledge to You."
• MERIAM-WEBSTER ONLINE - "Dictionary and Thesaurus."
• MODELLING TERMINOLOGY - "The terms used to describe various types of modeling and photography are often poorly defined. Such ambiguity can result in misunderstandings and uncomfortable situations for models, photographers, and other industry professionals. In an effort to clarify terms and reduce miscommunication, we have provided a list of terms which describe various types of modeling and photography, as well as various styles and states of dress."
• NETLINGO - "The Internet Dictionary." Acronyms, text message jargon & smileys.
• NINJAWORDS - "A really fast dictionary... fast like a ninja."
• ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY - "Etymologies are not definitions; they're explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago."
• ONLINE SLANG DICTIONARY - "American, English, and Urban slang."
• OXFORD DICTIONARIES - "Language matters."
• OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY - "The definitive record of the English language." Discover the story of English. More than 600,000 words, over a thousand years.
• OXFORD LANGUAGE DICTIONARIES ONLINE - "The world's most trusted dictionaries." At Oxford we know what it's like to learn, study, and use languages, and this site is designed to support you every step of the way. Oxford Language Dictionaries Online provides you with authoritative, up-to-date translations of all the words and phrases you need, plus a wealth of tools and resources to help you learn and use language more effectively.
• QUORA - "A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it." By invitation only.
• STYLEPEDIA - "Mr Porter's Glossary of Men's Style."
• THE FREE DICTIONARY - "The world's most comprehensive dictionary: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, Arabic, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Medical, Legal, and Financial Dictionaries, Thesaurus, Acronyms and Abbreviations, Idioms, Encyclopedia, a Literature Reference Library, and a Search Engine all in one!" 7,135,906,944 visitors served.
• THE FREE DICTIONARY LANGUAGE FORUMS - by The Free Dictionary.
• The Knot - "Jewish Weddings: Glossary of Terms."
• THE TECH TERMS COMPUTER DICTIONARY - "Free online dictionary of computer and technology terms."
• Thesaurus - "Synonyms, Antonyms, and Related Words." Contains more than 145,800 unique entries from three top sources: Collins Thesaurus of the English Language - Complete and Unabridged, The American Heritage Roget's Thesaurus, and WordNet.
• URBAN DICTIONARY - since 1999. "The slang dictionary you wrote." Crowdsourced online dictionary for slang words and phrases, operating under the motto "Define Your World." Originally, Urban Dictionary was intended as a dictionary of slang or cultural words and phrases, not typically found in standard dictionaries, but it is now used to define any word, event, or phrase (including sexually explicit content). Words or phrases on Urban Dictionary may have multiple definitions, usage examples, and tags. As of 2014, the dictionary had over seven million definitions, while around 2,000 new entries were being added daily.
• USING ENGLISH.COM - a general English language site, specialising in ESL (English as a Second Language) with a wide range of resources for learners and teachers of English.
• WEBOPEDIA - "Online Tech Dictionary for IT Professionals."
• WIKTIONARY - "The free English dictionary." 3,869,170 entries with English definitions from over 1400 languages.
• WORD DOMINATION.COM - "Dominate in Any Word Game!" Select number of letters in the word, enter letters you have, and find words!
• Wordnik - since 2009. "All the words." Online English dictionary and language resource that provides dictionary and thesaurus content, some of it based on print dictionaries such as the Century Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, WordNet, and GCIDE. Wordnik has collected a corpus of billions of words which it uses to display example sentences, allowing it to provide information on a much larger set of words than a typical dictionary.
• WORDREFERENCE DICTIONARIES - "I started this site in 1999 in an effort to provide free online bilingual dictionaries and tools to the world. The site has grown gradually ever since to become one of the most-used online dictionaries, and the top online dictionary for its language pairs of English-Spanish, English-French, English-Italian, Spanish-French, and Spanish-Portuguese. It is consistently ranked in the top 500 most-visited websites in the world and is a top 100 website in Spain, France, Italy and all of Latin America."
• YOUR DICTIONARY - "The Dictionary You Can Understand." Dictionary and thesaurus. YourDictionary is the easiest-to-use online dictionary. It is a dictionary you can understand with lots of tools to help you choose your words precisely, understand a word, avoid usage pitfalls and be confident in your use of words.