Virtual Reference Desk :
Dictionaries, Thesauri & Encyclopedias

Dictionaries: English Language

• American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
• BuzzWhack (for currently popular terms and buzzwords)
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press)
• A Dictionary of Slang
• Merriam-Webster OnLine
• The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English (Oxford University Press)
• Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) (historical background of words)
• The American Heritage Book of English Usage

Dictionaries: Acronyms and Abbreviations

• Acronym Database
• Acronym Finder
• E-mail & Online Chat Acronyms (dictionaries of acronyms used on the Internet)
• Netlingo (dictionaries of acronyms used on the Internet)
• The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations (Oxford University Press)

Dictionaries: Collections

• Dictionaries and Language Resources (searches multiple dictionaries at once)
• Onelook Dictionaries, The Faster Finder (searches multiple dictionaries at once)
• Oxford Reference Online
• Yahoo! Reference Dictionaries

Dictionaries: Computer-Related Terms

• E-mail & Online Chat Acronyms (dictionaries of acronyms used on the Internet)
• Netlingo (dictionaries of acronyms used on the Internet)
• Glossary of Internet Terms
• Internet Country Codes
• Webopaedia
• whatis.com

Dictionaries: Multilanguage

• The Concise Oxford-Duden German Dictionary: English-German (Oxford University Press)
• The Concise Oxford-Duden German Dictionary: German-English
• The Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary: English-French (Oxford University Press)
• The Concise Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary: French-English
• The Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary: English-Spanish (Oxford University Press)
• The Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary: Spanish-English
• Directory of Bilingual and Multilingual Dictionaries
• Foreign Language for Travelers
• The Pocket Oxford Italian Dictionary: English-Italian (Oxford University Press)
• The Pocket Oxford Italian Dictionary: Italian-English
• WordReference.com
• YourDictionary.com

Online Translators

• Babelfish (Altavista)
• Google Language Tools

Back to top

Thesauri

• The Oxford American Thesaurus of Current English (Oxford University Press)
• The Oxford Paperback Thesaurus (Oxford University Press)
• Roget's II: The New Thesaurus
• The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus

Back to top

Encyclopedias

• AccessScience @ McGraw-Hill
• Columbia Encyclopedia
• Encarta
• Enciclopedia Universal en Español
• Encyclopedia Britannica Online
• Encyclopedia.com
• Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
• Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
• Oxford Reference Online (includes several Oxford University Press encyclopedias)

Back to top