Which one is the best Advanced Learner's Dictionary?

I found there are several Advanced Learner's Dictionary for ESL learners as following, but I'm not sure which one is the best. Could you guys give some comment or recommandation. Thanks in advance.

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th Edition
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 5th Edition
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, 6th Edition
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 3rd Edition
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2nd Edition
Merriam Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary, 1st Edition

The 'best' dictionary is always a matter of personal judgement. If possible, go to a bookshop offering all these dictionaries, and look up several words/phrases that have given you problems in the past. See which definitions and example sentences are clearest for you. List the features of each (for example: illustrations, special topic entries, coverage of phrasal verbs, idioms, words easily confused, collocations, usage notes, etc), and think about which are important for you.

Greetings,

I am a high school pupil from Singapore.

It depends on the learner. For example, the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries often list British words and put American ones as variants. Merriam-Webster does the opposite. Therefore, if you favour British English, then go for the first two options. I think that they are the best for British English leaners. I cannot say for American English learners, but I often find Oxford American Dictionary installed in my MacBook Air useful enough in most situations.

Cheerio,

Pham Duc Minh Anh

I personally find that a sentence dictionary works best when trying to fully understand the meanings and definitions of words. Dictionaries tell you what the word means, but they don't show you HOW to use them. Plus, the meanings in an advanced learner's dictionary are confusing and do little to build my vocabulary.


I'd check out Words In A Sentence - Defining Words With Sentences and see if they have your vocab words yet. It currently only has a few hundred words in sentences, but they're adding more to the site each day.


The site is very helpful and will certainly be a godsent for anyone who wants to learn complex vocabulary words. 8-)

I don't know why anybody, who isn't academic - just a learner, needs a paper dictionary. Their price is usually steep and moreover who nowadays wants to flick trough hundreds of pages if you can just type a word you are looking for in a good on-line dictionary (like dictionary.com ).

Use OneLook.com and search hundreds of dictionaries and glossaries with a single click.