📖 English Dictionary & Audio Pronunciation
Dictionary lookup for English words: definitions, parts of speech, IPA phonetics, example sentences and audio pronunciation, sourced from Wiktionary.
What English Dictionary & Audio Pronunciation Does
This tool looks up an English word and returns its parts of speech, definitions, example sentences, phonetic transcription and — where available — audio pronunciation.
The definitions come from Wiktionary, the collaboratively edited dictionary, served through the Free Dictionary API. That provenance matters more than it might sound. Wiktionary is not a lesser version of a traditional dictionary; it is a different kind of thing, with different strengths and a different failure mode, and knowing which one you are reading changes how much weight to put on an entry.
Two practical notes before you use it. The upstream service is slow — measured at about twenty seconds per lookup, consistently — so the wait is the API rather than your connection. And only the first four senses per part of speech are shown here, which for a common word is a small fraction of what exists.
How to Use English Dictionary & Audio Pronunciation
- Type any English word into the search input
- Click Search or press Enter
- Review grammatical definitions, usage examples, and click the audio button for pronunciation
Formula Used by English Dictionary & Audio Pronunciation
How much of a word this page actually shows
displayed = 4 senses × number of parts of speech
- sense
- One numbered definition within a part of speech
- part of speech
- Verb, noun, adjective and so on — each carries its own numbered list
Worked example
The entry for "run", fetched live on 11 September 2026.
- Parts of speech returned: 4 — verb, noun, verb, adjective
- Total senses across all of them: 63
- Shown here: up to 4 per part of speech, so at most 16
Result: Roughly a quarter of the entry at best. "Run" is an extreme case and a famous one — it is among the most polysemous verbs in English — but the pattern holds for any common word, and it is the reason a short definition list should not be read as the whole meaning.
What This Is, and What It Is Not
A collaboratively edited dictionary and a traditionally edited one differ in method, not merely in quality.
| Wiktionary (this tool) | A traditional dictionary | |
|---|---|---|
| Written by | Volunteer editors, openly | Salaried lexicographers |
| Coverage of new and internet usage | Fast — often current within months | Slower, deliberately so |
| Coverage of rare and historical senses | Strong, and sometimes exhaustive | Strong, with dated citations |
| Consistency between entries | Variable — entry quality differs markedly | High, enforced editorially |
| Usage labels and register | Present but uneven | Systematic |
| Citation evidence | Sometimes, often to Wikisource | From a curated corpus |
| Cost | Free, reusable under CC BY-SA 3.0 | Mostly paywalled or ad-supported |
Measured Behavior of the Source
Timed directly on 11 September 2026, two consecutive requests.
| Property | Observed |
|---|---|
| Response time | 19.9 s, then 19.9 s — consistent, not transient |
| License returned with the data | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
| Source attribution in the payload | Links to the corresponding en.wiktionary.org entries |
| Audio pronunciation | Present for common words, absent for many others |
| Phonetic transcription | Sometimes absent even when audio exists |
How to Read Your Result
CC BY-SA is a reuse license with obligations
The definitions here are free to use, including commercially, which is why a small tool can offer them at all. The license attaches two conditions: attribute the source and identify the license, and license any adapted version on the same terms. This page attributes Wiktionary and names CC BY-SA 3.0 for that reason — it is a requirement, not a courtesy. Anyone copying definitions out of a tool like this one into their own work inherits the same obligation, which is worth knowing before pasting them into something published.
Dictionaries disagree, and that is not an error
Look a word up in three dictionaries and you will get three different sense divisions, three different orderings and occasionally three different judgements about whether a usage is standard. Lexicography involves deciding where one meaning ends and another begins, which is a judgement rather than a measurement. Wiktionary tends to split senses finely and to include rare and regional uses that a desk dictionary would omit. Neither approach is wrong; disagreement between sources is the normal state.
The first definition is not the most important one
Sense ordering follows an editorial policy, not frequency of use. Some dictionaries lead with the historically earliest meaning, others with the most common current one, and Wiktionary is inconsistent between entries because different editors wrote them. Taking the first numbered sense as "the" definition is a reliable way to misread a word, particularly one whose original meaning has drifted.
For anything that has to be right, use a named dictionary
Settling an argument, checking a usage before publication, or anything where the answer carries weight is better served by Merriam-Webster, Oxford, Cambridge or Collins — edited, consistent, accountable, and citable by name. This tool is convenient for a quick check and for its breadth on informal and technical vocabulary. It is not an authority, and a page that claimed otherwise would be selling you something.
Limitations & Accuracy Notes
- Slow. The upstream API takes roughly twenty seconds per lookup, measured repeatedly. Nothing on this end can speed it up.
- Shows at most four senses per part of speech. Common words have far more — "run" returned 63 senses, of which at most 16 could be displayed.
- English only. No translation, no other-language dictionaries, and no etymology.
- Wiktionary-derived, so entry quality is uneven between words in a way an edited dictionary's is not, and coverage of usage labels and register is inconsistent.
- Audio and phonetic transcription are frequently missing, and their absence carries no information about the entry's quality.
- No synonyms, antonyms, word origin, inflected forms or frequency data. For rhymes and synonyms, see the rhyme and synonym finder on this site.
- Single words only — no phrases, idioms or multi-word expressions.
- Not an authority. For a citable definition, use a named dictionary.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the online English dictionary work?
Can I listen to how words are pronounced?
Where do the definitions come from?
Why is a lookup sometimes slow?
Why does a word return nothing?
Does it show British or American spellings?
Can I use the definitions in my own work?
Is my search recorded?
References & Further Reading
- Wiktionary — The source of every definition shown by this tool, via the Free Dictionary API. Content is licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 and attribution is a condition of that license
- Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 — The license governing reuse of these definitions, including the attribution and share-alike obligations that pass to anyone who copies them onward