http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Help
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.
 Why isn't this word in your dictionary?
 How can I find out a word's pronunciation?
 What does this word mean?
 What do the phonetic symbols mean?
 What is the origin of this word?
 What do the codes in dictionary entries mean?
 Do you have an online thesaurus?
 What do sb and sth mean?
 What do the A1, B2, C1, etc. labels mean?
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.
Size is far less of an issue online, 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?
For most entries, we offer alternative words and phrases in our topics feature. When you look up a word
in a topic, you'll see other entries in that topic on the right-hand side - a group of words that are related to
the word you looked up. The words in the cloud are bigger or smaller depending on how frequently they
are used.
5.
How can I find out a word's pronunciation?
In all entries in the dictionary, you will see speaker icons (
) following the part of speech.
Clicking these will play a recording of the word spoken by an American (blue icon) and British (red icon)
speaker. In addition, all entries in the dictionary include phonetic transcriptions in the International
Phonetic Alphabet.
If you cannot play the pronunciations, you need to install Adobe® Flash. Please make sure you have
the following settings in your browser: (a) Allow sites to run JavaScript (b) Allow sites to run the Flash
plug-in
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.
9.
What do the A1, B2, C1, etc. labels mean?
These symbols show the English Profile level of a word, phrase or meaning, which indicates the level
when learners know this meaning.
A1 Beginner
A2 Elementary
B1 Intermediate
B2 Upper-Intermediate
C1 Advanced
C2 Proficiency