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rtiangha · 01-19-2020, 05:22 AM

The most comprehensive commercial English dictionary is the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition is 20 volumes and updating it to the 3rd edition started in 1994 and has a deadline to finish in 2037) and that's what Kindle uses (by default, I think?).

In terms of free dictionaries, the GCIDE takes the copyright free Webster's 1912 dictionary as its base and uses crowdsourcing and adds various Wordnet entries to modernize it a bit. A recent copy of the English Wiktionary would have more entries and more modern entries, though (although some would debate the quality of those definitions). So it depends on your definition of comprehensive.

Personally, I use a stylized version of Wordnet 3.1 combined with GCIDE definitions as my primary English lookup dictionary. It covers most of what I read, the Wordnet-specific definitions are concise but descriptive enough (with the Websters 1912/GCIDE entries where available providing more context if I need it), and some of the Wordnet entries list synonyms, antonyms and hypernyms which is something some commercial dictionaries don't even do.

You could also use penelope to combine a bunch of dictionaries to create your own custom one (for example, you could merge an English dictionary of your choice with a thesaurus to mimic what Wordnet offers, etc.). So there are lots of options.

01-19-2020, 05:22 AM	#3
rtiangha Evangelist Posts: 495 Karma: 356531 Join Date: Jul 2016 Location: 'burta, Canada Device: Kobo Glo HD	The most comprehensive commercial English dictionary is the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition is 20 volumes and updating it to the 3rd edition started in 1994 and has a deadline to finish in 2037) and that's what Kindle uses (by default, I think?). In terms of free dictionaries, the GCIDE takes the copyright free Webster's 1912 dictionary as its base and uses crowdsourcing and adds various Wordnet entries to modernize it a bit. A recent copy of the English Wiktionary would have more entries and more modern entries, though (although some would debate the quality of those definitions). So it depends on your definition of comprehensive. Personally, I use a stylized version of Wordnet 3.1 combined with GCIDE definitions as my primary English lookup dictionary. It covers most of what I read, the Wordnet-specific definitions are concise but descriptive enough (with the Websters 1912/GCIDE entries where available providing more context if I need it), and some of the Wordnet entries list synonyms, antonyms and hypernyms which is something some commercial dictionaries don't even do. You could also use penelope to combine a bunch of dictionaries to create your own custom one (for example, you could merge an English dictionary of your choice with a thesaurus to mimic what Wordnet offers, etc.). So there are lots of options. Last edited by rtiangha; 01-19-2020 at 06:09 PM.