English dictionary

American  

[ing-glish dik-shuh-ner-ee, ing-lish] / ˈɪŋ glɪʃ ˈdɪk ʃəˌnɛr i, ˈɪŋ lɪʃ /

noun

• English dictionaries
  plural

1. a dictionary in which most of the entry words and all of their definitions, as well as supplementary material, are in English; a monolingual English dictionary, such as Dictionary.com. Terms from other languages that are commonly used by speakers of English are given language labels and often the foreign as well as Anglicized pronunciations.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• English dictionaries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of English dictionary

First recorded in 1720–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

English dictionary

Robert Cawdry released "A Table Alphabeticall" in 1604, making it the "first single-language English dictionary ever published," according to the British Library.

From Fox News ● Oct. 16, 2021

He said his group developed software to help speed the process by removing all words that were not in an English dictionary, though he acknowledged it was not perfect.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 17, 2020

The word, "covfefe", was not included in any English dictionary.

From BBC ● May 9, 2019

The sequence of words is meaningless: a random array strung together by an algorithm let loose in an English dictionary.

From New York Times ● Jan. 16, 2018

Thus, Hickes maintained that nine tenths of the English dictionary were Saxon, because there were only three words of Latin origin in the Lord's prayer.

From Lectures on The Science of Language by Max Müller