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92 votes
8 answers
120k views

Is there any online tool to read (pronounce) IPA and APA written words?

I am looking for a tool to read a word written as phonetic transcription (IPA or APA). I need it to provide users with a tool to verify if they've chosen the correct IPA transcription (users will need ...
0 votes
1 answer
240 views

Any online tool that highlights what grammatical case each word in a sentence belongs to?

I'm absolutely confused when it comes to cases in English, and more so when I'm studying other languages (leisurely). I've tried to learn cases at least three times in my life and every time it just ...
6 votes
1 answer
210 views

Why does the online OED show precipitous declines in new word entries in the 20th and 21st centuries?

Using a simple trick, the online OED provides counts of new word entries from its earliest recorded years (1400 CE) to the present. New Word Entries are defined to be the year a word first appeared in ...
11 votes
3 answers
10k views

What are some good sites for researching etymology? [closed]

I'm wondering about the origins of a particular word and, while my first thought was to ask the ELU community, I decided I should do the work myself. Where should I start looking? I'd love to see ...
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

What online resource can I use to find sentences that use a word in a specific part of speech?

I recall there is an online service that lets you search for a word (like "sky") and shows you sentences that use that word but you can filter by part of speech (the noun "sky" vs. the verb "to sky"). ...
7 votes
3 answers
9k views

Order of definitions in dictionaries

Are dictionary definitions for words with multiple meanings ordered based on chronology, hierarchy, or frequency of usage? Is/was there a standard format?
0 votes
0 answers
422 views

Is there an "article searcher" for a certain list of words?

If I want to practice some new English words, and I need to understand them in a better way- to read them in various articles, is there a tool for that? For a set of very few words, search engines ...
8 votes
0 answers
2k views

Dictionary of English constructions [closed]

There is a family of grammars called construction grammar that started perhaps in the 80s with the work of Fillmore & Kay among others. Examples of constructions include: the time + away ...
8 votes
2 answers
3k views

When did 'wyrm' lose its meaning as dragon?

I'm interested in finding out (roughly) when the Old English word 'wyrm' began to lose its meaning as 'A serpent, snake, dragon' due to the competing 'draca' and the later borrowing 'dragon'. I've ...
1 vote
1 answer
97 views

Usual combinations of nouns/verbs and prepositions

Following Macmillan Dictionary, we can find out that word list can be used together with the preposition of (example sentence: A list of the world’s richest people). We are looking for a collection ...
10 votes
1 answer
3k views

What is the 1896 source for the origin of "dyke"?

I've been doing research on LGBTQ+ terminology recently and I've come across pretty much the same sentence about the origin of the English derogatory/reclaimed term "dyke": a source from 1896 lists ...
8 votes
2 answers
16k views

Is there such a thing as an idiom thesaurus that delivers synonymous phrases? [closed]

Is there a resource that anyone knows of that is a searchable idiom list that can provide synonymous phrases for idioms. For example, I saw on your site: step-by-step, day-by-day, inch-by-inch, and ...
4 votes
5 answers
3k views

Which thesaurus best describes the differences between several similar words? [closed]

Which thesaurus (online or paper) best describes the differences between several similar words? As a non-native English speaker, it is often difficult for me to distinguish the slightly different ...
3 votes
0 answers
3k views

A thesaurus with archaic and obsolete words [closed]

Can you point me to any online thesaurus that contains obsolete, archaic, out-of-use synonyms for contemporary words? Google search is horribly unhelpful, yielding hundreds common thesaurus and ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Good online thesaurus? [closed]

Does anyone know of a good online thesaurus? I've used http://thesaurus.com/ and http://www.merriam-webster.com/. Especially something that's good with phrases, figures of speech or idioms.
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

English synonym online database?

Is there a good english synonym database available in the Internet? I imagine that it should work like a translator: you enter a word and synonyms for this word are displayed. The reason for asking ...
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Were to find synonymous for very + adjective?

As an exercise, I am going thorough I paper I wrote and trying to replace all (or most) adjectives in the form of "very + adjective" with a word. I feel that if done good this would greatly improve my ...
2 votes
3 answers
604 views

Proper definition of validation and verification [closed]

I'm trying to find a definite, peer-reviewed and generally accepted definition of the words validation and verification when applied in the context of data acceptance (computer science). In a related ...
10 votes
2 answers
3k views

Idiom thesaurus? [closed]

Can you recommend some searchable resource that maps given expression onto idioms meaning that thing? There are quite a few dictionaries that contain a list of idioms containing a given word which is ...
12 votes
6 answers
12k views

Large amounts of English text needed [closed]

I must admit that I'm unsure whether or not this is the right forum for this question. It may belong to statistics and AI also. If there exists a more suitable forum, then tell me. The thing is, I ...
8 votes
2 answers
431 views

Percentages of meanings in an English dictionary

Often when you look for some new word in a dictionary, you will find many definitions or meanings of the one word. For example when you look for a word to in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary you ...
2 votes
2 answers
4k views

Does an online tool exist that can find words of a certain length given an input of certain characters?

Can anyone think of a tool with which I can pass it many optional parameters such as the length of the word I'm looking for, and a few letters in that word and have it spit out a list of words?
5 votes
1 answer
2k views

Obscure/archaic/unusual English word-of-the-day RSS feed? [closed]

I seek to embiggen my lexicon. Does anyone know of an obscure/archaic/unusual English word-of-the-day (with authoritative (preferably OED) definition) RSS feed? I've found the OED WotD feed, but a ...