Dictionaries, glossaries, and etymologies

Dictionaries
Glossaries
Translation tools
Word origins, word play

Dictionaries
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. http://www.m-w.com The online version gives you everything the printed volume does, plus it will pronounce your word and link you to sites where it's used.

OED Online. http://www.oed.com If you've got $550 handy, subscribe and watch the ongoing revision of the world's largest dictionary. Etymologies, pronunciation, quotations, and spelling variations can be toggled on and off.

yourDictionary.com. http://www.yourdictionary.com/index.shtml With 1,800 dictionaries in 250 languages, yourDictionary has a credible claim to being "the language portal of record." You can check the spelling of "supersede," but if you need a Breton or Chamorro grammar, they're there, too.

Cambridge dictionaries. http://dictionary.cambridge.org Five are online, including the Cambridge International Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Phrasal?

Dictionary.com. http://www.dictionary.com Dictionaries, plus a store, language forum, ask the expert, and index of writing resources.

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Glossaries
Babylon.com. http://www.babylon.com Browse through thousands of glossaries. Build your own specialized multilingual glossaries for business and professional use or download what you need from the site. Site also does quick multilingual translations of single terms.

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Translation tools
Babelfish Translations. http://world.altavista.com Hours of fun running texts back and forth through the translating machine. Try forcing a paragraph from Finnegan's Wake into Korean and back again. Hey, now it makes sense!

SYSTRANet Translation Technologies. http://www.systranet.com/systran/net Improve translation accuracy by using one of 21 subject-specific dictionaries. Enterprise language solutions, including Web site translation.

FreeTranslation.com. http://www.freetranslation.com Free, yes, but the pop-up ads fly thick and fast. Sometimes too busy to translate for you.

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Word origins, word play
World Wide Words. http://www.quinion.com/words Lively, erudite site from Michael Quinion, the former curator of the Cider Museum in Hereford, England, and current consultant to the OED. Weekly e-mail newsletter.

The Word Detective. http://www.word-detective.com Online version of Evan Morris's witty newspaper column.

Wordorigins.org. http://www.wordorigins.org The highlight of the site is a lively, well-organized discussion forum.

Take Our Word for It. http://takeourword.com "The weekly word-origin Web-zine," including an "etymology book store."

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