Literacy Website # 4: Wordnik

Wordnik is the world's biggest online English dictionary, by number of words. It is a nonprofit organization. The mission of wordnik is to find and share as many words of English as possible with as many people as possible. It shows definitions from multiple resources so that users can see many different takes on a word's meaning as possible. There is a search box where you can type in any word and it will show definitions from multiple sources. Wordnik also includes example sentences from major news media (such as the Wall Street Journal and USA Today) and from books from Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, as well as from other sources across the web, including blogs.

What interests me about this website is there were images that are related to the words and students can hear related sounds with the target word highlighted. For example, if a student want to know the meaning of Humpty Dumpty, this site is easier to find the meaning. It tries to show as many real examples for each word along with images and examples which are ranked by how useful they are in helping students understand the meaning of a particular word.  

            In addition to word definitions or meanings, Wordnik also has related words. The related words are synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, and same context. It also includes audio pronunciations from the "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright © 2008, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. This is great way for students who may not know how to pronounce the word. Wordnik has available audio to pronounce the word right.

            In order to add comments on Wordnik, you must sign up or log in first. It does not yet allow users to put their own definitions on the site unless he or she logged in. After logging in, he or she  can leave a comment or suggestions.  This is a great dictionary website since it offers meanings, images, and audio to the word you search on and  I recommend that students of all ages can use this online dictionary for free.