Dictionary.com?! Dictionary.com?! Seriously?! Why, yes, something that seems so simply and basic has it's place on the World Wide Web (yes, I'm aware of the irony!), but fear not...it's not as basic as it seems!
Rather than just typing in a word to discover its definition, dictionary.com does provide a far greater service. Since it's launch way back in 1995 (were websites even around then?!), it's one of the world's most popular services, as naturally many people will just type in 'dictionary.com' into their browser if they need to find the definition of a word...even if they don't know the website exists, it makes sense to have a crack at it!
The website does provide a thesaurus option, translator and encyclopaedia...for anyone even contemplating steering away from Wikipedia, God forbid! But there are other quirks to the website which make it more than just an obvious text-based website.
Firstly, there's a daily crossword, then there's various word games to test your knowledge, and even help you learn. You can follow the dictionary.com team on Twitter (but I'm sure you're already doing that!), and look up random words in the "Staff Favourite's" section. This all sounds terribly thrilling, but on a serious note it's clear that this is a business attempting to expand it's market, and make money. There's plenty of advertising dotted around the place, but in theory with it being such an obvious domain name, and with the millions of people using the site, it's a great place to advertise...at the time of typing there were 14,721,295 words searched today. Proves my point!
Perhaps most importantly though, what kind of feedback do you get when you type in a word? Well, when I type in 'dictionary' it comes up with the kind of definition you'd find in a regular dictionary...have a look...
"1. A book containing a selection of the words of a language, usually arranged alphabetically, giving information about their meanings, pronunciations, etymologies, inflected forms, etc., expressed in either the same or another language; lexicon; glossary: a dictionary of English; a Japanese-English dictionary.
2. A book giving information on particular subjects or on a particular class of words, names, or facts, usually arranged alphabetically: a biographical dictionary; a dictionary of mathematics.
3. Computers; A) A list of codes, terms, keys, etc., and their meanings, used by a computer program or system. B) A list of words used by a word-processing program as the standard against which to check the spelling of text entered."
It does provide you with word origins and related words too...in this case, 'dictionaries'!!
Be warned you may want your pop-up blocker on when visiting the site, as there's one around every corner. But that aside, it's a handy, free website that you'd be foolish not to use next time you're caught short!
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