Comparison of English dictionaries

This is a comparison of English dictionaries, which are dictionaries about the English language. The dictionaries listed here are categorized into "full-size" dictionaries (which extensively cover the language, and are targeted to native speakers), "collegiate" (which are smaller, and often contain other biographical or geographical information useful to college students), and "learner's" (which are even smaller, targeted to English language learners, and which all use the International Phonetic Alphabet to indicate pronunciation).

Full-size

These dictionaries generally aim for extensive coverage of the language for native speakers. They typically only cover one variety of English.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Entries (approx.)	Words and definitions (approx.)	Main dialect	Pronunciation guide
American Heritage Dictionary (AHD)	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	1969	5th ( ISBN   0-547-04101-2)	2011	2,074	200,000 [a]		American	Diacritical
Encarta Websters Dictionary of the English Language [b]	Bloomsbury	1999	2nd ( ISBN   1-58234-510-4 , 0-7475-6243-1)	2004	2,166	100,000 [3]	400,000 [4]		IPA
Canadian Oxford Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1998	2nd ( ISBN   978-0-19-541816-3)	2004	1,830		300,000 [5]	Canadian	Diacritical
The Chambers Dictionary	Chambers Harrap	1872	13th ( ISBN   978-1-4736-0225-0)	2014	1,920	62,500 [c] [6]	620,000 [d] [7]	British	Diacritical
Collins English Dictionary	HarperCollins	1979	14th ( ISBN   978-0-00-851134-0)	2023	2,336		732,000 [8]	British	IPA
Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COED)	Oxford University Press	1911	12th ( ISBN   978-0-19-960108-0)	2011	1,728		240,000 [9]	British	IPA
Macquarie Dictionary	Macquarie	1981	9th ( ISBN   978-1-76126-774-1)	2023	1,856			Australian	IPA
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (MWD)	Merriam-Webster	1828	18th (rev., ISBN   978-0-87779-095-2)	2022	960		75,000 [e] [10]	American	Diacritical
New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD)	Oxford University Press	2001	3rd ( ISBN   0-19-539288-4)	2010	2,096		350,000 [11]	American	Diacritical
Oxford Dictionary of English	Oxford University Press	1998	3rd ( ISBN   0-19-957112-0)	2010	2,112		350,000 [12]	British	IPA
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)	Oxford University Press	1895	2nd (20 vols., ISBN   0-19-861186-2)	1989	21,730	600,000 [13]		British	IPA
Random House Webster's	Random House	1966	2nd (rev., ISBN   978-0-375-42599-8)	2002	2,258	315,000 [14]		American	Diacritical
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED)	Oxford University Press	1933	6th (2 vol., ISBN   978-0-19-920687-2)	2007	3,804	220,000 [f] [15]	600,000 [16]	British	IPA
Webster's Third New International Dictionary (W3)	Merriam-Webster	1961	3rd ( ISBN   0-87-779201-1)	2002	2,820	476,000 [17]		American	Diacritical

Collegiate

These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries (and fewer definitions per entry) than their full-size counterparts but may contain additional material, such as biographical or geopolitical information, that would be useful to a college student. They may be revised more often and thus contain more up to date usage. Sometimes the term collegiate or college is used merely to indicate a physically smaller, more economically printed dictionary.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Entries (approx.)	Main dialect	Pronunciation guide
The American Heritage College Dictionary	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	2002	4th [g] ( ISBN   0-547-24766-4)	2010	1,664		American	Diacritical
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	1898	11th, revised ( ISBN   0877798079)	2019 (01.08)	1,664	165,000	American	Diacritical
Webster's New World College Dictionary	HarperCollins	1953	5th ( ISBN   0358126614)	2020 (02.06)	1,728	163,000	American	Diacritical

Learner's

"Learner's dictionary" redirects here. For other uses, see Advanced learner's dictionary and Monolingual learner's dictionary.

These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries than full-size or collegiate dictionaries but contain additional information that would be useful to a learner of English, such as more extensive usage notes, example sentences or phrases, collocations, and both British and American pronunciations (sometimes multiple variants of the latter). In addition, definitions are usually restricted to a simpler core vocabulary than that expected of a native speaker. All use the IPA to indicate pronunciation.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Usage examples (approx.)	Main dialect
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary	Cambridge University Press	2003 [h]	4th ( ISBN   9781107619500)	2013 (24.06)	1,856	140,000	British
Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary	Collins Cobuild	1987	10th ( ISBN   978-0008444907)	2023 (13.04)	1,920		British
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English	Pearson-Longman	1978	6th ( ISBN   9781447954194)	2014 (17.04)	2,224	165,000	British
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners	Macmillan Education	2002	2nd ( ISBN   9781405025263)	2007	1,748		British
Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	2008	2nd ( ISBN   9780877797364)	2016 (01.10)	1,994	160,000	American
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1948	10th ( ISBN   9780194799485)	2020 (09.01)	1,960	185,000	British

See also

• List of Canadian English dictionaries
• List of dictionaries by number of words

Notes

1. The third edition contained "more than 200,000 boldface forms" (entries). ^[1] The fourth and fifth editions each added roughly 10,000 "new words and senses". ^[2] It is not clear how many of these were new words.
2. First edition titled Encarta World English Dictionary. Second edition also published in the UK as Bloomsbury English Dictionary.
3. 12th edition
4. 12th edition
5. This figure is for definitions only.
6. 4th edition
7. The 2010 "4th edition" of The American Heritage College Dictionary ( ISBN   0-547-24766-4) is the second revision of the original "4th edition" published in 2002; it was originally derived from the 4th edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which was published in 2000.
8. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary was originally published as Cambridge International Dictionary of English in 1995.

References

1. Soukhanov, Anne H. (1992). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. vi. ISBN   0-395-44895-6.
2. Pickett, Joseph P. (2011). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. vi. ISBN   9780547041018.
3. Rooney, Kathy (2004). Bloomsbury English Dictionary (2nd ed.). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. xi. ISBN   0747562431.
4. Rooney, Kathy (2004). Bloomsbury English Dictionary (2nd ed.). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. Back cover. ISBN   0747562431.
5. "Canadian Oxford Dictionary | Edited by Katherine Barber | 9780195418163 | Oxford University Press Canada". www.oupcanada.com. Archived from the original on 2024-07-23. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
6. Kaminski, Mariusz (2013). A History of the Chambers Dictionary. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 95–96. ISBN   9783110312737.
7. "Internet terms make mark on new Chambers Dictionary". BBC News. 2011-08-25. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
8. "English Dictionary Complete and Unabridged edition with slipcase by". Collins. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
9. "Concise Oxford English Dictionary". global.oup.com. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
10. "The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Newest Edition". Merriam-Webster Shop. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
11. Stevenson, Angus; Lindberg, Christine A., eds. (2011-01-01), "New Oxford American Dictionary", New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195392883.001.0001/acref-9780195392883, ISBN   978-0-19-539288-3 , retrieved 2025-03-18
12. "Oxford Dictionary of English". global.oup.com. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
13. "The Oxford English Dictionary". global.oup.com. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
14. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd ed.). New York: Random House. 2001. pp. Front cover. ISBN   9780375425998.
15. "The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary". blackwells.co.uk. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
16. "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary". global.oup.com. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
17. "Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged". Merriam-Webster Shop. Retrieved 2025-03-18.