Dictionaries are Fun!

One of my happiest memories as a child was sitting with my family in our living room and talking about words. We had a big red Webster’s Dictionary, and when my parents asked me a question, I would flip through it to try to find an answer. I recently heard a radio story about how dictionaries are created, and I was happy to know that a lot of people have similar experiences.

Something interesting I learned in my linguistics class in college is that dictionaries are DESCRIPTIVIST rather than PRESCRIPTIVIST. That’s just a fancy way of saying that dictionaries reflect culture, rather than culture being controlled by dictionaries. So, when that person told you that you’re not allowed to use a word because it’s not in the dictionary, they were just being a “skibidi mid” who didn’t know what they were talking about.

According to that radio story I heard, dictionaries are increasingly on the internet, and are becoming more valuable to software programmers who need to feed information into their projects. Online dictionaries can contain thousands more words than physical dictionaries. As for my personal preference, I like the experience of interacting with a real book.

I’ve listed some of fun ones here. You don’t have to spend a lot of time studying them - even learning one word a day can be fun! Don’t get caught up in thinking that dictionaries are boring and dry. You can use them to help improve your Wordle game!

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

ISBN: 9780877796688

“An all new edition of this authoritative dictionary covering core vocabulary of everyday life. New words added from a variety of fields. More than 75,000 definitions, including updates to reflect current usage.”

DK Merriam-Webster Children's Dictionary

ISBN: 9781465424464

“Presents definitions for over 35,000 entries and includes more than 3,000 illustrations.”

 

 

 

Oxford Picture Dictionary: English/Spanish

ISBN: 9780194740098

“Labeled illustrations of words and expressions in English and Spanish are accompanied by brief passages to read, questions, and suggestions for conversations in English.”

 

Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary

ISBN: 9780192737502

The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary is the first of its kind, a brand new illustrated alphabetical dictionary of all the words and meanings students of Shakespeare need to know. Every word has an example sentence selected from the twelve most studied plays including Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Henry V. Usage notes and theatre notes provide additional background to Shakespearean times and the performance of his plays.

The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary

ISBN: 9780877794233

“The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary features more than 100,000 playable two- to eight-letter words, with many newly added entries. Variant spellings and expanded coverage of Canadian and British words are included. Each main entry consists of a brief definition, a part-of-speech label, and inflected forms for fast, easy word validation.”

 

Urban Dictionary

A website that collects definitions of slang words. This website takes contributions from anyone in the world who wants to contribute, so don’t take it as an authoritative source. It is a lot of fun, though.

Rhyme Zone

Sometimes you need to rhyme, and this website is a great resource for those occasions.

-Andrew, Lawrence Headquarters Branch