If Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com don’t fire your synapses and get you excited about the English language like they used to, then you’ve come to the right place. The following collection of online reference tools puts the fun back into exploring the meanings and origins of the words – the common, the obscure, and the obscene alike – that make up our lovely English language.
Did we forget any cool reference tools? Don’t leave a fellow word nerd hanging! Share your favorite resources in the comments section below.
1. Wordnik (Voxy’s Pick)
“A place for all the words, and everything known about them”
2. Definr
The cutesy, “incredibly fast dictionary”
3. Snappy Words
The “free visual online dictionary”
4. Visuwords
The “online graphical dictionary”
5. Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus*
The interactive, word-mapping dictionary and thesaurus
*Subscription required ($2.95/month, $19.95/year)
6. OneLook Dictionary
A single search scans 19,044,138 words across 1062 dictionaries
7. Online Etymology Dictionary
Browse etymologies from the most reputable etymological print sources
8. The Foolish Dictionary
“An exhausting work of reference to un-certain English words, their origin, meaning, legitimate and illegitimate use, confused by a few pictures”
9. Urban Dictionary
“Urban Dictionary is the dictionary you wrote. Define your world. 5,619,528 definitions [from proper and legitimate to slang and questionable] since 1999″
10. The Online Slang Dictionary
The “American, English and Urban slang” dictionary with slang maps
How about the Longman Dictionary of Contemporany English ? http://ldoceonline.com