Dictionaries Online

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 2/8/05 11:53:41 AM, JMB at STRADLEY.COM writes:


>         I think the American Heritage, http://www.bartleby.com/61/, is 
> probably the best free modern dictionary online.  For a far more comprehensive 
> (though now somewhat dated) dictionary, though, check out the Century 
> Dictionary, all twelve volumes of which are at 
> http://www.global-language.com/century/.  Urbandictionary.com is unreliable but can be a useful guide to recent 
> slang.  I don't use Merriam-Webster's online website, http://www.m-w.com/, 
> because I have the collegiate dictionary on my desktop.  I'd love to have a 
> subscription to the online OED, but Jesse needs to lower the price first.
> 
> John Baker
> 
> 

Because M-W and A-H are online, I keep a hard copy of the New Oxford American 
on MY desk (as did Larry Horn in recommendingof A-H, I should come out and 
say that I am doubtless a BIT prejudiced towards NOAD because I am on the 
Editorial Advisory Board, but I also should say that I am proud to be associated 
with NOAD and that it is a wonderful desktop dictionary). 

None of these is an unabridged dictionary, however. If you pay M-W, they will 
give you access to their online "unabridged" dictionary, and I do pay them 
because it is quite good. But it is nothing like the OAD online. I am fourtunate 
in that I can get OAD online through Duke University, but if I couldn't, I'd 
be willing to pay an awful lot for it. The OAD online takes unabridged 
dictionaries to a totally new level of usability. There has never been anything like 
it in the history of dictionary making.