This site has a real way with words
Where to find it: Merriam-Webster Online
– www.m-w.com
Who runs the site: The site is run by Merriam-Webster, the
company that has been providing word reference books such as
dictionaries to Americans since 1843.
This site has a real way with words
Where to find it: Merriam-Webster Online – www.m-w.com
Who runs the site: The site is run by Merriam-Webster, the company that has been providing word reference books such as dictionaries to Americans since 1843.
Who is likely to use the site: Wordsmiths, students, writers and anyone else who needs to find the definition or the spelling of a word with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Why it’s cool: The site quickly allows users to look up a word in the dictionary, search for similar words in the thesarus or translate from Spanish to English all for free. The site also has word games for those who want to take a break from the grind with a crossword puzzle or other battles of wits. Users can even sign up for a word of the day e-mail if they want to increase their vocabulary.
The site has a link for kids called word central where they can play games online or add their favorite slang words to an online dictionary.
Pros: When typing along, it takes a lot less time to look up a word at www.m-w.com than to search for the nearest dictionary. Also, the site is free and most decent dictionaries – not little paperback ones – come with a hefty price tag. And they take up a lot of space on bookshelves.
Cons: The online dictionary offered on the site is abridged so for those who want access to all 470,000 words in the American English language, the unabriged version requires a subscription. Users can pay $4.95 a month or $29.95 for an annual subscription – but this writer has seldom needed information that wasn’t available on the free site.
Another downside is that for those who actually pick up the dictionary, they might come across some other words along the way, which won’t happen when typing in just the word we need to know about. Also, if you’ve got a slow Internet connection, the page takes a while to load and playing the games won’t be possible. The site also has pop-up ads which are annoying, but overall its worth using.
