Vocabulary/Word Websites
for Students and Teachers
Dictionaries
and Word References
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm
The Mirriam-Webster OnLine Website.
This website offers not only an excellent dictionary and thesaurus, but also in
the Word for the Wise section contains brief informational and humorous
articles on specific words or phrases (e.g., brass tacks). The Online dictionary is free, and includes
high-quality pronunciation(s) of the word (including alternate pronunciations).
Included with each entry is a link to the Top 10 Search Results for “Word” and
a link to Britannica.com for more information on the word.
In
addition, there is a special section for kids (tab at top of page
Merriam-Webster FOR KIDS). This section has a student dictionary and allows
student to put their own words and definitions into a dictionary (Build Your
Own Dictionary link). There is also a cool link called Daily Buzzword that
presents each day a new word of the day, including pronunciation, meaning,
usage, and sample sentences that let the student test whether they have learned
the word or not.
Show dictionary [make sure Dictionary
is clicked in upper right box, and not Thesaurus]
- Enter palimpsest
- Click pronunciation—both of them
- Click Top 10 Search Results for “palimpsest”
- Click link to Britannica.com
- Click Thesaurus—but no synonym for this word
- Show
thesaurus [click Thesaurus in upper-right, not Dictionary]
- Click
tab Mirriam-Webster FOR KIDS
- Click
in upper-left circle DAILY BUZZWORD
- Click arrow to right of WORD FOR THE WISE on homepage [upper
left list in a box], then click ARCHIVE and look up one or two words.
There is also access to Encyclopedia Britannica,
Mirriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, and Mirriam-Webster Unabridged
Dictionary, but access to these is not free.
http://dictionary.reference.com
A Website that offers dozens and dozens of links to
word puzzles, language resources, dictionaries, word of the day access. Also
includes a thesaurus.
This Website accesses more than 900
Online dictionaries and 5,000,000 words. It also translates words and has a
reverse dictionary page where you type a description of the concept, and the
OneLook Reverse Dictionary finds words that might match that description. This
is handy when you cannot find the word for something you want to say.
- Click Browse Dictionaries link and just scroll through the
pages
- Click home, enter “basilica”
- Scroll down to #27, Catholic Encyclopedia and click
- Go back to Home
- Write erased writing
can still read
- click Search all Dictionaries
- click Search
http://www.hyperdictionary.com
An online dictionary, no more, no less.
At this site you may access the famous Roget's Thesaurus. This site is a product of Project
Gutenberg. It is simple to use; enter the word on the minimalist home page and
click submit. All the various meanings of the word appear, each with a list of
synonyms. This online thesaurus allows you to click many of most of the various
meanings or the differing synonyms which then lets you further explore shades
of meaning of your word or similar words.
This site contains an encyclopedia, dictionary,
thesaurus, quotations, and English Usage section. What’s great about it are links to many references such as
several online dictionaries, thesauruses, and books containing quotations.
www.vocabulary.com
This site is called Vocabulary University. It allows students to pick a difficulty
level for the many activities contained within this site. Once the child has chosen a level, they may
then choose from a wide variety of word activities such as fill in the blanks,
definition matching, and a game called synonym and antonym encounters. Again, this is a great site for middle to
upper elementary students.
This site uses Jeeves as a search engine. When looking for a definition, the user has
the ability to obtain definitions from several dictionaries at once. This site also contains links to numerous
online dictionaries and thesauruses.
www.agameaday.com/kidsindex.htm
The name of this site is A Game a Day, and it is
just for kids. There are a variety of
word games for kids to choose such as word within a word and a compound word
game. The theme of this site is a word
game for each day of the month.
This site contains a variety of fun word games such
as hangman, plaid libs in which the user fills in words to create stories, word
scram which allows players to take turns trying to make words out of a
collection of randomly picked letters, and brain teasers which places words
into various shapes or positions to form a word or saying. This is for students
who read reasonably well, say grade five or higher.
www.cooper.com/alan/homonym.html
This site is simply a list of homonyms—just as
often called homophones. In grades two
and three, children enjoy challenging themselves to come up with as many
homonyms as possible. This site may be
fun for students to see the many homonyms that exist in our language. For more, see (http://www.taupecat.com/personal/homophones/),
another homophone Website.
- Click
go to the list, scroll and display
An “Homonymical Poem” by Janet E. Byford on this
site. WebMaster tells Ms. Byford to Take
a bough.
An
Ode to the Spelling Chequer
Prays the
Lord for the spelling chequer
That came
with our pea sea!
Mecca mistake
and it puts you rite
Its so easy
to ewes, you sea.
I never used
to no, was it e before eye?
(Four
sometimes its eye before e.)
But now I've
discovered the quay to success
It's as
simple as won, too, free!
Sew watt if
you lose a letter or two,
The whirled
won't come two an end!
Can't you
sea? It's as plane as the knows on yore face
S. Chequer's
my very best friend
I've always
had trubble with letters that double
"Is it
one or to S's?" I'd wine
But now, as
I've tolled you this chequer is grate
And its hi
thyme you got won, like mine.
—Janet E.
Byford
The “Word Play” section on this site (on left in Activities section) allows the
user to play games such as find the antonym.
To play this game, a word is followed by four meanings. Three of the meanings are similar and one word
is an antonym. There is also a section
devoted to word meanings in which a word is followed by five possible
meanings. The user must choose the one
that they feel is the closest possible meaning. If the user is incorrect, the correct definition is displayed.
The games are not instructional, other than correcting incorrect answers or
acknowledging correct answers.
- Click
Word Play in the Activities section on left
- Scroll
to click the particular game you want.
www.anagramgenius.com/server.html
The name of this site is The Anagram Genius
Server. The site allows the user to
download a free copy of this software for windows. The visitor to this site types in any name, phrase, or sentence
and receives a slew of anagrams. This
makes for an interesting play on words.
The title of this site is The Linguistic Fun
Page. This site offers a variety of
links that have fun with words such as color related idioms, the book of
clichés, and crazy English which discusses some of the strange words that the
English language contains. There are
also links to sites that contain articles about English as well as links to
sites which contain puzzles and word games. Site is in construction but
functioning. This site is for good readers at the middle-grade level or better.
rinkworks.com/words
Fun with Words is the name of this
site. There are a host of different
topics, types of words, issues, and engaging activities available on this site.
This site lists commonly confused words such as adverse and averse, affect and
effect. After each set of words, there
is an explanation of each of the words and its use. This site would be interesting to middle and high school students
who have an interest in words.
www.wordspy.com/diversions/fave-words.asp
The title of this site is The Word
Spy. The author of this site includes
many interesting words that are fairly uncommon and writes about their meaning
and derivation. The author also lists
words that are “new” terms that have been spotted multiple times in magazines
and newspapers. The word’s meaning as
well as a quote of where the word was spotted are included. This site is appropriate for upper level
middle and high school students. It is
interesting to see the read about the new words that are created in the English
language. It would be a wonderful
activity to challenge high school students to locate a “new” word in print.
There is also a very lengthy set of quotations.
http://library.thinkquest.org/J001156/games/sl_dictionary.htm
This site includes a variety of word
games that can be played in the classroom or at home for example. In
addition to the games, there are many other interesting links and activities. The directions for the games are well written and are easy
to follow. Some of the games listed are
hink pinks (ike riddles), hangman, scrabble, mad libs, and a homophone game
called right write. Many of these games
can be easily incorporated into the classroom language arts instruction.
- Click Visit Site
- First thing to appear are directions to the
Dictionary Game (also included in the handouts).
- Scroll to bottom and click Word Games.
- More than a dozen word games are
available—from very easy to moderate.
Offers links to dictionaries, quotes, thesauri,
slang and word games. Strictly for upper grades and college.
www.wave.net/upg/immigration/dot_index.html
This site offers a fun way to explore the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles. Any student reading
grade four or higher might find this sight interesting for a short while.
- Click
L
- Click
Leacher-Lexicographer
- Click
Leacher (paper & pulp)
- Note
what a leacher is
The best part of this site is the word of the day.
Students may also have the word of the day sent by email. Each word is not only
defined, but is pronounced and used in authentic texts.
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/symbolismproject/symbolism.html
This Dictionary
of Symbolism endeavors to provide some possible cultural
significances of various symbols, and suggest ways in which those symbols may
have been used in context. Most symbols are not code signals, like traffic
lights, where red means stop and green means go, but part of a complex language
in which green can mean jealousy or fertility or even both, depending on
context. It is up to each of us to explore works of art sensitively, and decide
for ourselves how the symbols in each work function. This website is offered as
an aid in that enriching activity.
·
Click B
·
Click Bee or Bat
http://www.libraryspot.com/dictionaries
An amazing site with hundreds of links to important
references, including words. Created by Northwestern University, this page is
like going to a reference desk (some of the major links are shown following
this paragraph). Links to eight or nine major online dictionaries, including
American Heritage, Cambridge, Dictionary.com, Mirriam-Webster and OneLook
Dictionaries. A good page to start searches for word meanings.
|
Acronyms |
Calendars |
Government |
Statistics |
|
Almanacs |
Countries |
Grammar/Style |
Thesauri |
|
Associations |
Current Events |
Medical |
Time |
|
Ask an Expert |
Dictionaries |
Music |
White Pages |
|
Biographies |
Directories |
People |
Yellow Pages |
|
Business |
Encyclopedias |
Quotations |
Zip Codes |
|
Calculators |
Genealogy |
States |
|
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/wordplay2.html
Not a site for meaning vocabulary, but many
interesting activities for word reading activities. Sir Gawain’s jousting game
with onsets and rimes is cool.
http://www.funbrain.com/words.html
Many word activities—as well as math, science and
all other topics—but little focus on word meanings.
Crosswords probably do little to increase
vocabulary specifically, words used in them are seldom recalled or useful in
writing or speaking. But crosswords might facilitate interest in words.
Crosswords, scrambled words and hundreds of other
non-word games.
www.kidskonnect.com/Games/WordGames.html
Mostly consists of links to other word Websites.
Some very cool “Wordies,” which is to translate the
arrangement of letters, numbers, and symbols into a familiar phrase, saying or
cliché (e.g., what is r/e/a/d/i/n/g—“reading between the lines”).
Learning new concepts is the essence of
meaning vocabulary. This means that students need to learn many new
things—objects, ideas, actions, feelings. Some use the word “stuff” instead of
things. This Website tells how many things work or what they are: e.g. , how an
internet search engine works, how a hand grenade works, how batteries work, how
airplanes work. Many concepts are presented, and the words that signify those
concepts. Suppose you want to know how bowling pinsetters work:
- On Home Page, type “pinsetters” in Search
HowStuffWorks.
- In From HowStuffWorks box, click How Bowling
Pinsetters Work.
Areas include ComputerStuff,
ScienceStuff, HomeStuff, MoneyStuff and more.
http://www.sikids.com/games/slang
The entire SIKids Website is cool, and that
includes the three sections on slang in sports: one each for baseball,
basketball and football. Animated with sound, these are up-to-the-date sites
with the edge to them you would expect from SI.
www.vocabulary.com Offers puzzles & games that build
vocabulary for students who can earn a diploma from "Vocabulary University."
(Gr. 3-12)
www.askanexpert.com Allows students to
1) contact “real world experts” who answer questions about specific subjects,
and 2) learn the meanings of new words. (Gr. 3-12)
www.encyclopedia.com Contains
information on many subjects, includes important events in world history that
happened on this day, and connects to a “Reference Desk” with links to
dictionaries, almanacs and thesauruses. (Gr. 3-12)
www.surfnetkids.com/games/
Provides a directory of games listed by type (such as crossword or jigsaw) and
topic (such as science or history) and a search function for specific games.
(Gr. 3-12)
www.m-w.com/game Introduces a new "Word
Game of the Day" in different puzzle formats (i.e., “Transform Brainstorm”
lets players change a word into another word one letter at a time using clues
to the word’s meaning). (Gr. 3-12)
www.randomhouse.com/words/
Presents slang, technical vocabulary, and other new words by decade, answers
student questions about words, accepts suggestions of new words, and provides a
variety of vocabulary games. (Gr. 3-12)
www.maps.com Contains map and geography games
that teach and test student knowledge of place names around the world. (Gr.
4-12)
www.wordsmith.org/awad/index.html
Introduces a word a day (around a weekly theme) with definition, pronunciation,
etymology, usage, quotation, etc. Students can subscribe and receive it
automatically. (Gr. 6-12)