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These are answers to the most frequently asked questions about Cambridge Dictionaries Online. If you have a question which isn't in this list, or if the answer given does not satisfy you, please contact us with your question.

1. Why isn't this word in your dictionary?

   Our online dictionaries are simply electronic versions of our paper dictionaries. Obviously with paper dictionaries space is a major issue and you have to think very carefully which of the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language you are going to include. Our dictionaries are aimed primarily at learners of English, and so our policy is to concentrate on describing and reflecting as accurately as possible common contemporary English usage. Hence, we do not include particularly uncommon words or words whose use is restricted to a particular field of activity. Inclusion policy is based largely, but not exclusively, on a word's frequency in the Cambridge International Corpus, our 600-million-word database of contemporary English text.

   Obviously, in cyberspace, size is far less of an issue, and we could include as many words as we wanted. However, as this is a completely free service, we do not currently have the resources available to add any extra words to our online database.

2. What does this word mean?

   See above for our inclusion policy. Please note, if you cannot find a word you're looking for, we will probably not be able to tell you its meaning by email.

3. What is the origin of this word?

   We do not offer etymology (word origins) in our dictionary, as we prefer to focus our resources on describing and reflecting contemporary English usage. Again, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to tell you a word's origin by email.

4. Do you have an online thesaurus?

   We do not have a thesaurus online, but a similar feature is available on our dictionary CD-ROMs. For almost every word in the dictionary, you can see a list of Related words; these are words of a similar meaning or within the same subject area.

5. How can I find out a word's pronunciation?

   If there is a [Show phonetics] link in a dictionary entry, clicking it will display the word's pronunciation in IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet). Note also that on our dictionary CD-ROMs, you can hear a recording of almost every word spoken by both a British and American English speaker.

6. What do the phonetic symbols mean?

   You can see a full list of phonetic symbols used in our dictionaries, with examples of their pronunciation.

7. What do the codes in the dictionary entries mean?

   You can see a full list of grammar codes used in our dictionaries, with explanations of what they mean.

8. What do sb and sth in entries mean?

   sb means somebody, and sth means something.

See also... Top 50 Words 2006 Cambridge International Corpus

Resources Online Activities and Worksheets Cambridge English Language Teaching Data for language researchers