What is a dictionary? And how are they changing?

• Cambridge University Press — Cambridge Dictionary of American English, Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (British), and others — Provides an API  in July 2012. See announcement. Free up to 3,000 calls per month or nonprofit use, higher traffic available for licensing at ~$4 per thousand calls. — Also available for end users free online at dictionary.cambridge.org, and several mobile apps ranging from free to $22 for iOS and Android, and older platforms.
• Encyclopædia Britannica — Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Merriam–Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary — 1913 Edition is freely online by several hosts. An API allows 1000 queries daily, higher traffic or commercial use is negotiated. Latest collegiate dictionary is free online at merriam-webster.com; Third New International (unabridged) is $30/year or $5/month online, or a $60 iOS and Android app. — First published in 1806, Noah Webster, worked an additional two decades, learning 26 languages, to publish “An American Dictionary of the English Language” in 1828, with 70k entries, more than Johnson’s 1755 British masterpiece. After Webster’s death, George and Charles Merriam bought the rights, and published a revisions in the later 19th century and throughout the 20th centuries, expanding to a comprehensive unabridged dictionary of over 500k entries. Collegiate versions were abridged. Note, the term “Webster” is now generic (now rebranded as “Merriam-Webster”).
• Oxford University Press — Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Concise Oxford English Dictionary — All access, via their web site, or their API is behind their $295/yr or $30/month paywall; or $250/school for education. Their API is rate limited to 30 queries per minute. No app. — The most comprehensive dictionary, the OED is massive, with 600k words, 22k pages in print. It has a long scholarly history, focusing on literary uses, built on a huge corpus example usages. The shorter version is ~500k entries, and the concise version is abbreviated to 240k entries. First published in 1888 (after 30 years of work), last updated in 1997, with ongoing work. In 2010, they announced the 3rd edition was unlikely to ever be printed, but would be online only.
• WordNik — Free on the web at wordnik.com. — WordNik has a comprehensive API providing access to their pooled dictionary database. They currently have the best API, and the fastest underlying technology. Their database combines definitions from Wiktionary, WordNet, American Heritage (4th ed), Century Dictionary, and also examples of words in use from their corpus of sample sentences. Free access for most uses, including commercial.

For sale as mobile apps:

• Chambers Harrap — The Chambers Dictionary (TCD) — Free online at chambersharrap.co.uk; $7-10 iOS and Android app. — First published by W. and R. Chambers as Chambers’s English Dictionary in 1872, the 12th edition was published in August 2011. Includes words, phrases and meanings. Popular among British crossword solvers and setters.
• HarperCollins — Collins English Dictionary — Free online at collinsdictionary.com; $30 iOS and Android app. — Indirectly has an API via dictionary.com’s API. — First published in 1979, it was innovative at the tie for extensively using computer databases and typesetting. Available in both American and British English. Current edition is the 11th edition, published 2011.
• Houghton Mifflin — The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD) — Free online at: ahdictionary.com; also available via other web sites, including Wordnik; $25 iOS app or Android. Pocket editions are cheaper. — First edition in 1969. American Heritage magazine owner James Parton contracted with Houghton. The new dictionary was a reaction to 1961’s Webster’s Third, which Parton considered too permissive. The AHD used corpus linguistics for compiling word-frequencies and other information, and included both prescriptive information (how language should be used) and descriptive information (how it actually is used). The most recent edition, the Fifth Edition, was published in November 2011.
• John Wiley & Sons — Webster’s New World Dictionary — No web access; $16 iOS and Android app. — First published in 1951, revised and sold from publisher to publisher in the later 20th cent. Last updated in 1999 (when owned by Simon and Schuster). The college edition is the official desk dictionary of the Associated Press and The New York Times.
• Macmillan — Macquarie Dictionary — On the web for $40/year; $19-33 iOS and Android app. — Dictionary of Australian English, with considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally funded by a Brisbane-based publisher and the Linguistics department of Macquarie University in Sydney. Includes encyclopedic content, and many Australian people and places. Originally based on Hamlyn’s Encyclopedic World Dictionary of 1971, which in turn was based on Random House’s American College Dictionary of 1947.
• Oxford University Press — New Oxford American Dictionary, Australian Oxford Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of English (British), and Canadian Oxford Dictionary — Available for free within all Apple’s Mac OS X and iOS devices, and Amazon Kindle (e.g., to popup the definition of any word). Available online as part of bundled subscriptions for institutions ($250/school/year) via the OxfordReference.com portal. Free online at: oxforddictionaries.com; Available as iOS and Android apps for $20-$55. — First published in 1998, these are the major consumer dictionaries from Oxford, for American, Australian, British, and Canadian English. All four are based on the same word data, adjusted for use in each region. Despite the confusingly similar names, this was a new line of dictionaries, not based on the renowned “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED).
• Pearson Education — Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English — Free online at: ldoceonline.com; $30 iOS app; $32 Android app — First published by Longman in 1978.
• Random House Reference — Random House Webster’s — Not online. $15 iOS app.  — First published after World War II, was based on then out-of-print Century Dictionary and the Dictionary of American English. Expanded to be unabridged in 1966. First dictionary to use computers in its compilation and typesetting. Last updated 1993.

Not mobile:

• Macmillan — Macmillan English Dictionary — Free online at macmillandictionary.com. No app. — First published in 2002, with work by both British and American  lexicographers based on their own corpus of spoken and written texts. In November 2012, announced they would stop publishing a print edition, focused on mobile/online distribution. They have tools for web sites to popup their definitions, and have dabbled in crowdsourcing dictionaries. Starting in 2013, only available online (not in print).
• Pearson Education (previously Scott Foresman) — The World Book Dictionary — Only available online as part of multi-publication subscription. No app.  — Oriented toward children, originally published in 1963. A major reference materials for school children in American schools throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Vocabulary largely drawn from the Century Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, along with new analysis of word usage by Clarence Barnhart. Updated several times through 1997, not updated since.

Credits: The photos of a bulldog on a dictionary,  the book with letters flying out, and the word business from an old dictionary are courtesy of ShutterStock.