Talk:Comparison of English dictionaries

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Books: Reference works

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will update...

DISCLAIMER : the prices in the article may or may not be reliable

--Umar1996 (talk) 14:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You don't really need to put a disclaimer, since Wikipedia already has one at the bottom of each page. AlexWolfx (talk) 14:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing

Gave it a good fixing, removed all the unnecessary crap. Keep adding more stuff.--TheAmericanizator (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

incorect information about entry counts

according to: http://nws.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_cmark_top

the word count for W3ID is: America's most comprehensive dictionary is fully-searchable online and includes:

   More than 263,000 main entries
   476,000 entries
   700,000 definitions
   143,000 etymologies
   100,000 quotations
   107,000 verbal illustrations
   3,100 pictorial illustrations
   1,100 synonymy paragraphs

so there are about 263k in main entries not 476K! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.162.219.111 (talk) 08:40, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Webster vs OED

So, it seems that what you refer as "unique lemmas" are "Main entries". There are ~263K unique entries, so it's on par with OED's ~291K in that respect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.162.219.111 (talk) 08:46, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Webster's New World College Dictionary

The fifth edition came out on 26 August 2014, and I'm thinking about buying it; if I do, I'll report updated information about it. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Other Full-Size Dictionaries

Bloomsbury English Dictionary (Microsoft Encarta Webster's)

Does anyone have the latest version of this corpus-based compendium of world English? I recently got the first version (Encarta Dictionary) from 1999 on the cheap, but the 2005 update is very expensive. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chambers English Dictionary

My understanding is that this is a well regarded dictionary of British English, on par with Collins and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Macquarie Dictionary

This is the authoritative dictionary of Australian English. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regional Oxford Dictionaries

These include the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and New Zealand Oxford Dictionary (to my knowledge, the most authoritative dictionaries for their respective varieties of English), and also the Australian Oxford Dictionary and New Oxford American Dictionary. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nelson Canadian Dictionary

This is a bit outdated (1997), but it is the only other major dictionary of Canadian English that I know about. Julyo (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Real full size dictionaries

I don't understand why this article makes no mention of actual full size unabridged dictionaries like the Cambridge Unabridged Dictionary that has millions of entries and takes up about 6 feet of library book space. I used that dictionary at a public library regularly about 20 years ago and it included every word every published in any English language book or article and gave a full list of all possible definitions past and present as well as a history and origin of the word. THAT is a real dictionary. It was my go to dictionary and I would buy a copy today if I had the resources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.190.183.221 (talk) 23:29, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You must have confused this with Oxford, see OED. This dictionary is mentioned in the article. The Cambridge University Press did not publish their own dictionaries, until the 1990s when their started to make up their dictionary for ESL learners (this is also mentioned).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Opinion

Online or electronic dictionaries are not real dictionaries. An article about dictionaries should only include dictionaries printed on paper. This is to ensure that the edition cited is static and not changeable. Online dictionaries, like online encyclopedias, are in a constant state of flux and therefore cannot be trusted to be accurate ever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.190.183.221 (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In most cases electronic dictionaries are just copies of the printed ones. It also gives very convenient opportunities such as extensive and elaborate search which you can never do with the paper. Printed dictionaries are also to become outdated sooner or later and often fail to represent the modern language. In any case this article puts emphasis on printed dictionaries anyway.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:19, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Online or electronic dictionaries are not real dictionaries.". "In most cases electronic dictionaries are just copies of the printed ones."

Ahah very funny. I don't know if you know what you are talking about. Have a look on "online dictonaries", compare, and come back. I mean now, not the check you did 5 or 10 years ago.

Arguments based on nothing, an personal opinions based on nothing factual.

There are tons of dictionary with an online version AND a paper version nowadays, and they are not the same, the online version is specially made for this use, a different content, and some very famous dictionary are ONLY online.

So: Wikipedia is not an encyclo, because it's only online. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 16:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Useful section is missing

I really don't understand why there's no online dictionaries section. They are English dictionaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 16:16, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Cambridge dictionary and list update required

1. The really important British dictionary, Cambridge, published by the Cambridge University Press, is not listed. This is a major omission.

2. The free online Oxford Dictionary, latterly known as Lexico, has fully merged with Dictionary.com. I think this should now no longer be a considered a British dictionary, but an American one.

3. As fas as I am concerned, online versions of printed dictionaries are just as good, if not better, than the printed versions for the simple reason that they are kept up to date dynamically. (This is in reply to comments elsewhere in the Talk section disparaging the online versions.) Dori1951 (talk) 15:02, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

- what about Funk & Wagnal’s? It was an American standard for 100 years! Lots of citations — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.55.57.200 (talk) 16:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Mix-up between headword count and "words, phrases, and definitions".

The count used for Chambers is headword count (source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=VaHoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA95&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false). But the count used for COD is "Words, phrases, and definitions" count. The headword count of COD is 64,679 words (Source: https://www.slideshare.net/khaleel81/compiling-dictionaries). The headword count for Collins has no citation, nor could I find any. I counted a few pages and multiplied it with number of pages. My estimation varied between 110,000 and 130,000 headwords. I think Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary should also be part of this list. Its headword count is 65,000 (source: https://www.monokakido.jp/en/dictionaries/oald10/index.html) Subhasiscgr (talk) 14:38, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Should the English Wiktionary be included in this article?

Hello,

(I am unfamiliar with how the MediaWiki markup works, so I've used a
markdownish/LaTeXish sort of markup instead. If anyone wants to
reformat this so that it's done properly, please feel free.)

Wiktionary is a sister project of Wikipedia, and the English Wiktionary,
found at \texttt{<https://en.wiktionary.org>} is a very comprehensive
and useful dictionary, including extensive information about etymology
and cognates in other languages, as well as (importantly) providing its
sources so that further research may be done by the reader if they so
choose. Furthermore, the English Wiktionary is Free (as in `freedom'),
whereas most dictionaries are proprietary.

However, the English Wiktionary hasn't been included in this article.
Is that because this article only covers printed dictionaries? Or is it
because the English Wiktionary includes definitions for words from
languages other than English? Or perhaps it's just that no one has
thought to add it?

I am rather curious about this, so I am looking forward to gaining
insight on the matter.

\indent{} Thanks!
\indent{} --- mqyhlkahu
Kotnen (talk) 00:47, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Basic version of Merriam-Webster in Full-Size section?

The row and data for "The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (MWD)" was added in 2019 by https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_English_dictionaries&oldid=908615666, updated in 2023 by by https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_English_dictionaries&oldid=1163393546.

However, the book version referenced is their most basic non-specialty dictionary, in the smaller "mass-market" size, and less than half the entries of every other Merriam-Webster book in the whole article. Given that, it doesn't seem like this book specifically should have been added here in the first place. I can't speak to the other "Full-Size" dictionaries with similar entry counts, but perhaps those warrant an extra check as well.

GordonW 50.46.239.37 (talk) 18:09, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]