Webliography

Dictionaries

One Look Dictionary Search In my experience this is by far the most useful dictionary site on the web allowing you to search a multitude of dictionaries at once. Also you can put wild card entries in such as *ace which will give you all entries ending in ‘ace’.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary This site has a search which provides access to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It also has many other useful English resources. Access to the full OED is by subscription only.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary Just as the Oxford English Dictionary constitutes what is generally regarded as the best British dictionary, the Merriam Webster Dictionary constitutes what is generally regarded as the best British dictionary.

The Wiktionary Although far less well known than the Wikipedia, the Wiktionary is an excellent resource. Unusually it provides English definitions of foreign language words and even Ancient language words. So if you enter the Latin word ‘bellum’ it will inform you that this means “war”.

Cambridge Dictionaries This is useful because it offers a dictionary of phrases (that use a specific word) and it offers a dictionary of American English.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language This is a Yahoo! capability and is very comprehensive. Recommended.

Dictionary.com This is Ask.com’s dictionary capability. Also very comprehensive and with a very good associated Thesaurus.

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 A searchable version of a truly comprehensive copyright-expired dictionary.

RhymeZone Rhyming Dictionary Not only good for rhymes, but also synonyms and homophones.

Sources for Etymology

Some of the above Dictionary sources offer etymological notes along with the definitions of words. The following resources can also be useful.

Online Etymological Dictionary I use this as my primary source of etymology. It’s not so good for obscure words, but very good for just about everything else.

Etymologically Speaking This is not comprehensive, but it does list a good many words with curious word origins.

English Words Derived from Latin-Greek Origins Good for Latin and Greek etymology.

Quotations

WorldofQuotes.com No nonsense quotes site. Recommended.

The Quote Garden Very useful and nicely laid out site.

Bibliomania Useful site because it has Grocott’s Quotations complete and searchable.

Creative Wit Good source of humorous quotes.

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations An older version of the classic quotations resource, which is now in the public domain.

Unusual Words

I have built my own collection, but there are others out there which I’ve consulted. They include:

The Phrontistery Word lists on various topics, very intelligently arranged

Grandiloquent Dictionary Another list of unusual words, now in its third edition.

Luciferous Logolepsy A very large compilation of strange rarely used words.

SKB’s List o’ Nifty Words Another good list of obscure words.

Miscellaneous

Tutor Hunt This a completely free service for both tutors and students (of pretty much any subject)  to locate each other.