Comparison of English dictionaries

This is a comparison of English dictionaries, which are dictionaries about the English language. The dictionaries listed here are categorized into "full-size" dictionaries, "collegiate", and "learner's".

Full-size

These dictionaries generally aim for extensive coverage of the language for native speakers. They typically only cover one variety of English.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Entries	Words and definitions	Main dialect	Pronunciation guide
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language\|American Heritage Dictionary]	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	1969	5th	2011				American	Diacritical
Encarta Websters Dictionary of the English Language	Bloomsbury	1999	2nd	2004			400,000		IPA
Canadian Oxford Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1998	2nd	2004				Canadian	Diacritical
The Chambers Dictionary	Chambers Harrap	1872	13th	2014			620,000	British	Diacritical
Collins English Dictionary	HarperCollins	1979	14th	2023				British	IPA
Concise Oxford English Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1911	12th	2011				British	IPA
Macquarie Dictionary	Macquarie	1981	9th	2023				Australian	IPA
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	1828	18th	2022				American	Diacritical
New Oxford American Dictionary	Oxford University Press	2001	3rd	2010				American	Diacritical
Oxford Dictionary of English	Oxford University Press	1998	3rd	2010				British	IPA
Oxford English Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1895	2nd	1989				British	IPA
Random House Webster's	Random House	1966	2nd	2002				American	Diacritical
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1933	6th	2007				British	IPA
Webster's Third New International Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	1961	3rd	2002				American	Diacritical

Collegiate

These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries than their full-size counterparts but may contain additional material, such as biographical or geopolitical information, that would be useful to a college student. They may be revised more often and thus contain more up to date usage. Sometimes the term collegiate or college is used merely to indicate a physically smaller, more economically printed dictionary.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Entries	Main dialect	Pronunciation guide
The American Heritage College Dictionary	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt	2002	4th	2010			American	Diacritical
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	1898	11th, revised	2019			American	Diacritical
Webster's New World College Dictionary	HarperCollins	1953	5th	2020			American	Diacritical

Learner's

These dictionaries generally contain fewer entries than full-size or collegiate dictionaries but contain additional information that would be useful to a learner of English, such as more extensive usage notes, example sentences or phrases, collocations, and both British and American pronunciations. In addition, definitions are usually restricted to a simpler core vocabulary than that expected of a native speaker. All use the IPA to indicate pronunciation.

Title	Publisher	First published	Latest edition	Date	Pages	Usage examples	Main dialect
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary	Cambridge University Press	2003	4th	2013			British
Collins COBUILD Advanced Dictionary	Collins Cobuild	1987	10th	2023	1,920		British
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English	Pearson-Longman	1978	6th	2014			British
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners	Macmillan Education	2002	2nd	2007			British
Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's English Dictionary	Merriam-Webster	2008	2nd	2016			American
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary	Oxford University Press	1948	10th	2020			British