Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (www.ldoceonline.com) is a monolingual dictionary for intermediate to advanced learners of English.

• Headwords are all defined using the 2000-word Longman Defining Vocabulary. (This is the same set of 2000 words explained in the Learn These Words First dictionary.)
• Double-click any word to look up its meaning.
• Definitions include information about grammar, usage, idioms and phrasal verbs.

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Other learner's dictionaries

The Learn These Words First dictionary explains 2400 headwords using a 360-word defining vocabulary (for beginning-level learners).

You can look up many additional headwords in larger learner's dictionaries, which often use between 2000 and 3000 words in their defining vocabularies (for intermediate-level learners).

Tip: When you look up a word in an intermediate or advanced dictionary, if the definition contains some unfamiliar words, you can copy and paste the definition into the Word Finding Tool. It can show you where to find a simple explanation for each word used in the definition.

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NSM-LDOCE Non-Circular Dictionary

Can every word in a dictionary be explained using Natural Semantic Metalanguage?

The NSM-LDOCE research dictionary was created to test the expressive power of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its tiny set of semantic primes. In this dictionary, NSM was used to paraphrase definitions for each word in the controlled defining vocabulary of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). The definitions were written using mostly NSM primes, mixed with a few other words from the LDOCE defining vocabulary.

Chains of circular definitions were detected using a computer program. Most were resolved by rewording one of the definitions in the chain, but three were resolved by adding tentative semantic primes (colour, number and shape).

The resulting NSM-LDOCE dictionary is non-circular, and by extension provides non-circular definitions for all the words in the LDOCE.

The NSM-LDOCE research dictionary served as the basis for creating Learn These Words First. New non-circular definitions for colour, number and shape were written and tested, so these three tentative primes could be removed. Other definitions were improved to eliminate more than half of the 700 words used as "semantic molecules" in NSM-LDOCE.

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