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Dictionaries

Many dictionaries are available digitally, as well as on paper. For dictionaries with information about contemporary language it is usually the case that comprehensive, reliable dictionaries are not free. This is true, at least, for the dictionaries published by commercial publishers such as Van Dale and Oxford University Press. They are, however, available for VU staff and students, through licences purchased by the University Library. You can find them as e-resources through the University Library. In order to access these dictionaries (which are marked with an asterisk [*]) from outside the VU, you have to log in via SURFconext.

Good, older dictionaries can usually be accessed online free of charge.

Below you will find a brief overview of reliable digital dictionaries. For Dutch, and for translation to and from Dutch (from many European languages), you can use

Van Dale Online Woordenboeken *

Dutch:
Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek (ANW: woordenboek hedendaags Nederlands)
Historische woordenboeken Nederlands en Fries online (Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal)

English:
Oxford English Dictionary * (comprehensive dictionary of the English language, containing over 300,000 entries)
Cambridge Dictionaries Online (modern British English; entries have limited information)
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionay (modern US English; entries have limited information)
Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan)

Latin:
Woordenboek Latijn/Nederlands * (Amsterdam University Press)

Spanish:
Diccionario de la lengua española (standard monolingual dictionary of Spanish)
Diccionario Básico Escolar (basic learner's dictionary of Spanish containing many illustrations)

French:
Centre Trésor de la langue française informatisé
Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (access to multiple lexical sources)

German:
Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jh.

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