Which English Dictionary is Best for You? - We Reviewed 9 Popular Online Dictionaries

Hi, I’m Oli.

Welcome to Oxford Online English!

In this video, you’ll see reviews of several online dictionaries.

Which dictionary is the best for English learners?

Which should – or shouldn’t – you use?

You’ll find out!

In this video, you’ll see the pros and cons of nine popular online dictionaries.

We tested the following: Cambridge, Longman, dictionary.com, Collins, Lexico, Macmillan,

wordreference.com, Chambers and Merriam-Webster.

If you want the short version here it is.

Are you an upper-intermediate or advanced English learner who wants the most complete,

full-featured online dictionary?

Use Longman.

Are you at intermediate level or below?

Use Lexico.

Maybe use Lexico even if you’re at a higher level.

You want to know why, or how we tested, or why you perhaps shouldn’t use some of these

other dictionaries?

Keep watching!

We created six tests for each online dictionary, based around looking up common verbs like

‘talk’, ‘go’, ‘pick’ and so on.

We chose these verbs because they have many different meanings, as well as many phrasal

verbs and idioms based on them.

In this video, we’ll focus on the verb ‘talk’.

So, what were the six tests?

The first test was for completeness: does the dictionary give you every definition of

a word?

The second test: does the dictionary give you definitions of phrasal verbs, collocations

and idioms related to the word you look up?

Test three: does the dictionary explain the difference between UK and US pronunciation

and usage?

Test four: does the dictionary explain verb structures and complements?

For example, you can ‘talk to someone’, ‘talk with someone’, ‘talk about something’,

and ‘talk of something’.

Test five: can you look up phrasal verbs and idioms directly?

With some dictionaries, if you try to look up a phrasal verb like ‘put down’, it

will redirect you to the root verb, ‘put’.

This makes it harder to find the information you need.

Good online dictionaries let you look up phrasal verbs and idioms directly.

Test six: is the information presented in a clear, organised way, and is the dictionary

website easy to use?

This test is more subjective, of course.

Finally, we looked for any other features which might be useful for English learners.

Remember: if you want to see the full test results, check out the page on our website.

If you’re watching on YouTube, you can find a link in the video description.

So, how did our online dictionaries do?

Cambridge didn’t do very well, which is a shame, because it had been my go-to online

dictionary before I started making this video.

Firstly, it is not complete.

It doesn’t contain all the possible definitions of a word.

Plus, it doesn’t have a complete list of related phrasal verbs, idioms and collocations.

On the other hand, for beginners or intermediate learners, there are some good example sentences.

The definitions are well-written and clear.

It does also show the UK and US pronunciation of a word, with audio, so that’s a positive.

It doesn’t clearly show verb complements and structures.

Overall, I can’t recommend it.

One of the biggest problems is that three different dictionaries are combined on one

page; there’s a British English dictionary, an American dictionary, and a business English

dictionary.

This makes it confusing to use, because different information is in different places, and not

always where you might expect it.

I won’t spend more time on it, because there are much better dictionaries you can use.

Longman was number one in our tests.

It’s by far the most complete dictionary I found.

It contained all the information you might need: every definition of the word, possible

verb complements, phrasal verbs, idioms…

Everything you might need is there.

Not only that, but they have example sentences and many example sentences have audio, at

least for some words.

That makes it a great resource for practising pronunciation.

At the bottom of the page, they also have a large number of examples taken from natural

English texts.

You can look up phrasal verbs and other word combinations directly.

Even the longer phrase ‘know what you’re talking about’ has its own entry, with dedicated

examples.

That’s impressive!

When you’re learning English, you’ll often hear that you need to learn language in chunks.

This is good advice, so it’s great that there are dictionaries which can help you

to do this.

There’s one minor criticism: it gives you the UK and US pronunciations of a word, but

it doesn’t clearly show which is which.

For reference, the UK pronunciation is given first, and the US pronunciation second.

Longman also has a number of useful features for English learners.

If you look up a verb, you can find a verb tense table which lists all the forms and

tenses.

Finally, it has a good thesaurus, which gives you alternative words and also explains what

they mean, and how they’re different from the base word.

Generally, I found Longman one of the easiest dictionaries to use.

Information is organised and presented nicely, and the page is relatively clean, without

unnecessary clutter.

Dictionary dot com isn’t really a dictionary in its own right.

Instead, it collects information from many dictionaries.

In summary, I don’t recommend it for English learners.

It’s reasonably complete, although you won’t find much information on idioms and collocations.

More importantly, the information is not well-organised.

A lot of info is hidden behind ‘see more’ links, but there doesn’t seem to be any

logic to what’s hidden and what’s displayed immediately.

Plus, because it collects information from different dictionaries on a single page, the

information is divided into different sections, but not in a logical way.

This makes it harder to find what you need.

It doesn’t do a good job of showing related phrasal verbs, idioms and collocations.

You also can’t look up phrasal verbs directly, which is a big disadvantage.

Collins has some positive features.

It scored four out of five for completeness.

It has clear explanations with examples for each definition.

However, a couple of things could be better.

Our test word – ‘talk’ – can be both a noun and a verb.

Most dictionaries will separate the verb and noun definitions, which makes sense.

Collins mixes them together in a list.

It’s not bad, but it seems strange, and I think it could be confusing for some users.

Also, it gives some information about complements and structures, but it’s not so clear.

They highlight the structures used in their example sentences, but there’s no dedicated

information on what structures are possible and what they mean.

Finally, like some other dictionaries in our list, Collins tries to combine results from

different dictionaries on one page.

I think this is terrible design, because you might not even realise there are more parts

to the page.

You see the definitions and explanations, you get down to here, and… that looks like

the end, right?

But, then there’s more: a British dictionary, an American dictionary, and more examples

and idioms.

Overall, not bad, but it's not the best.

Lexico is one of the best dictionaries we tested.

I highly recommend it, especially for learners at an intermediate or lower level.

Even if you’re a higher-level learner, give Lexico a try.

Why?

Because it’s so clear and well-organised.

For example, it gives you one example sentence for each definition, but you can also click

to see more if you want.

That’s a really nice feature.

You just need a simple example?

You can have it.

You want more?

You can have that, too.

In general, Lexico does the best job of presenting a large amount of information in a logical

way.

However, it’s also fully complete.

Only two dictionaries scored 100% in our completeness tests: Longman and Lexico.

Plus, information on phrasal verbs, collocations and idioms is nicely separated, and you can

look up longer phrases directly; for example, if you look up an idiom like ‘talk the talk’

directly, you’ll find a dedicated page.

The only negative is that it doesn’t explain the difference between UK and US pronunciation

or usage.

Overall, I also found Lexico to be the cleanest dictionary in terms of design.

It’s a great choice for English learners.

Macmillan is slightly different, because it puts different parts of speech on different

pages.

So, if you look up ‘talk’, you’ll see definitions for the verb only.

The noun definitions are on a separate page, which might not be easy to find if you’re

using a mobile or a smaller screen, because they’re hidden in this ‘other entries’

box.

I don’t think that’s a good point.

Macmillan has some positives: it has good information on verb complements, which is

also nicely presented, and you can look up phrasal verbs and idioms directly.

However, it’s not complete, and it doesn’t give any information on UK versus US pronunciation

or usage.

So, it’s in the middle.

There are better options.

I knew about Wordreference as a bilingual dictionary.

They have many bilingual versions, aimed at speakers or learners of European languages.

However, they also include a monolingual English dictionary.

Is it any good?

It has some advantages, but overall, not recommended.

Like dictionary dot com, Wordreference collects information from multiple dictionaries, but

this means you have too much information on one page, some of which is repeated, and it’s

hard to find what you need.

You also can’t look up phrasal verbs or idioms directly.

If you try to look up a phrasal verb like ‘pick up’, you’ll be redirected to the

root verb – ‘pick’.

Then, you’ll have to find the definition on the page.

Wordreference does have one excellent and – at least in our tests – unique feature.

For pronunciation, it has audio not just for UK and US English, but also for other regions,

such as Ireland or Jamaica.

It also includes some regional UK and US accents.

This is really useful, because actually there isn’t just one UK pronunciation and one

US pronunciation of a word.

There are many English accents, in the UK, US and in other English-speaking countries,

and it’s good to understand how pronunciation is different in different parts of the world.

So, maybe use Wordreference for the pronunciation audio, but I don’t recommend it as a dictionary.

I’ll keep this short: don’t use Chambers.

Two points: first, they print information in a big block, like you’d find in a paper

dictionary.

That makes sense on paper, because you need to save money and space.

On the web, there’s no reason to do this, and it makes it harder to find what you’re

looking for.

Secondly, Chambers doesn’t seem to be aimed at learners of English as a second language.

It doesn’t give many examples, nor does it give information about verb complements,

phrasal verbs, and so on.

You can’t look up phrasal verbs or other longer chunks directly.

It’s not terrible; it does the basic job of a dictionary, but I can’t see any reason

to use it.

Merriam-Webster also doesn’t have much to recommend it.

One major disadvantage: it doesn’t give complete lists of phrasal verbs, idioms or

collocations when you look up a word.

For 'talk', it includes four phrases here, but why these four?

Why not others?

This seems strange; if you’re going to include some phrasal verbs or idioms, you should include

all of them.

There’s no information on UK versus US pronunciation or usage.

There’s also no information on verb complements.

They give examples, but the examples aren’t full sentences, making them less useful.

Finally, the design is weird.

There are all these colons and slashes in odd places.

Maybe that doesn’t bother you, but I found it unnecessary and a little confusing.

On the other hand, you can look up phrasal verbs and idioms directly.

Also, it has real-life examples which are pulled from the internet, although they aren’t

always accurately classified.

For example, some of the examples for ‘talk’ as a verb are actually the noun form.

Having reviewed these dictionaries, I’ve switched my go-to online dictionary from Cambridge

to Longman and Lexico.

Honestly, I was surprised at how badly Cambridge came out of these tests.

Although I think Longman is the best, I would actually recommend Lexico for most purposes.

It gives you complete information, and it’s so easy to use.

What about you?

Which dictionary do you use?

Are you planning to switch to a new one?

Do you have anything to add to our reviews?

Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for watching!