What's New

May 2013 update - new words in Chinese, Russian, and Spanish

The latest update to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online saw the addition of new translations from Chinese, Russian, and Spanish into and out of English.

With entries including shopaholic (gòuwùkuáng) and decompress (jiěyā) added to the Chinese/English module; tweetable, phone hacking and hashtag added to Russian/English; and abismo fiscal (fiscal cliff) and comidista (foodie) to Spanish/English, this update provides the latest translations of words related to technology, society, politics, economics, entertainment, and more.

November 2012 update - new words in French and German

The latest update to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online saw the addition of new translations from French and German, into and out of English.

Additions including cyberdépendance, cybermilitant, cyberterrorisme, Cyber-Mobbing, Netzgemeinde, Spähsoftware, and Vernetzung reflect the impact of technology on language. The effects of the financial crisis can also be seen with the inclusion of new words défiscalisation, dette souveraine, piège du surendettement, refiscalisation, and Schuldenbremse. Ecological concerns and developments are noticeable with the addition of surpêche, Klimaskeptiker, Schiefergas, and Solarstrom.

May 2012 update – new words in Chinese, Russian, and Spanish

The latest update to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online saw the addition of new translations from Chinese, Spanish, and Russian into and out of English.

With entries including affluenza (fùyùbìng) and speed dating (shǎnyuē) added to the Chinese/English module; blogger and fracking added to Russian/English; and overparenting (sobreprotección excesiva) and tweeting (tuiteo) to Spanish/English, this update provides the latest translations of words related to technology, society, politics, economics, entertainment, and more.

November 2011 - Pinyin, plus new words in French, German, and Italian

Pinyin is now included for all Chinese translations, helping English speakers to know how to pronounce them. The new Oxford Chinese Dictionary was added to the site in May 2011.

New words in the French, German, and Italian online dictionaries

Many new words, phrases, and translations in French, German, and Italian have been added to the site, along with hundreds of revisions to entries. Examples of the new words:

English-French

API
awareness bracelet
discoverability
eco-resort
infographic
living statue
microbusiness
online dating
superinjunction
unfollow

French-English

badger
camera-piéton
décarboner
éco-prêt
géolocaliser
hackeur
mobinaute
réseauter
starisation
webdocumentaire

English-German

birth partner
couch-surf
Cyber Monday
digital native
fracking
memory foam
monetize
overparent
plasma TV
starter marriage

German-English

Abklingbecken
App
barrierefrei
Energiepass
Entschleunigung
Kostenschub
Nachhaltigkeit
Rettungsschirm
Sparpolitik
Wutbürger

English-Italian

Anthropocene
civil partner
couponing
energy drink
gagging order
overshare
page view
QR code
social entrepreneur
Zumba

Italian-English

archistar
biorario
cerchiobottismo
doppiopesismo
gastronomia molecolare
manovra economica
raffrescamento
scontrino parlante
tronista
tracciabile

NEW for November 2011 – the updated Oxford Language Dictionaries Guided tour.

REMEMBER you can widen your search results to find the terms you need. For example, if you’re searching for a phrase such as I’m sorry, type I’m sorry into the search box, change the search in filter to Full Text, and click GO.

FIND OUT MORE about learning languages at the OxfordWords blog.

May 2011 – new Oxford Chinese Dictionary, plus new words in Russian and Spanish

This update introduces a new simpler search functionality to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online which will take you straight to the word you’re looking for for all of the languages.

The largest, most up-to-date, and most accurate single volume English-Chinese / Chinese-English dictionary ever published is now available in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online – offering over 130,000 new headwords, it is designed for speakers of English learning Chinese as well as for speakers of Chinese learning English. Find how a Chinese dictionary is made at the OxfordWords blog. It includes:

• Up-to-date vocabulary including affordable housing, online gamer, podcasting, and tracker fund. There’s also a wide range of established vocabulary such as Afghanistan, bendy bus, credit rating, voluntary redundancy, and wedding bells. New Chinese words include 播客 (podcast), 数字化 (digitize), 碳排放 (carbon emissions), 电子书 (e-book), and 基因档案 (genetic profile).
• More extensive Tools and Resources, all linked from dictionary entries:
• improved and extended cultural notes
• improved and extended lexical usage notes;
• new sections on Chinese measure words and pronunciation
• new sections on Chinese and American British history and geography, cultural festivals, historical timelines
• new sections on Chinese kinship terms , surnames, and ethnic groups; improved and extended sample letters and emails, including sample CVs and new sections on Using the telephone, and SMS (text) messages
• Mouse over Chinese characters to enlarge them
• New drop-down compound feature on Chinese-English: a list of potential compounds starting with the character entered appears as you type
• Abbreviations from the print dictionary are spelled out in full (for example parts of speech, subject fields)
• More refined search filters. You can now narrow down a search to: more specific registers, such as honorific titles, onomatopoeia; more refined parts of speech, such as transitive verbs or intransitive verbs and (for English only) more regional variants of world English

New words in the Russian and Spanish online dictionaries

Many new words in the Russian and Spanish bilingual dictionaries for this update covering technology and social media, finance, science, politics, house design, and ecology. Examples of the new words:

English-Spanish

alternative vote
avoision
crowdsourcing
e-reader
infinity pool
microfinance
netbook
retweet
social media
unfriend

Spanish-English

acervo genético [gene pool]
balcón francés [juliet balcony]
ciberacoso [cyberbullying]
climatólogo [climatologist]
oscarizar [to award an Oscar to]
prima de riesgo [risk premium]
red social [social network]
rescatista [rescuer] [relatively rarely used before the Chilean miners’ rescue, 2010]
venta al descubierto [short selling]
virus del Nilo occidental [West Nile virus]

English-Russian

amuse-bouche
bromance
calendarize cognitive behavioural therapy
declutter
gazillion
high-definition TV
LOL
nanoparticle
staycation

Russian-English

кулер [water cooler]
льготник [recipient of privileges or social benefits]
МКАД [Moscow ring road]
предоплата [upfront payment]
продлёнка [after-school care facility]
психануть [ to freak out]
разрекламировать [to advertise widely]
скриншот [screengrab]
скринсейвер [screensaver]
твиттинг [tweeting]

Spanish spelling revisions

In 2010 the Real Academia Española [RAE], in association with the language academies of other Spanish-speaking countries, published the Ortografía de la lengua española. This work brought together and explained the rationale for Spanish spelling conventions in the widest sense. Some new conventions were introduced. These mostly reaffirmed as rules what had previously been announced as preferred options. Some were completely new and were controversial.

Spellings in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online now largely follow the conventions recommended by the Ortografía de la lengua española, but old forms will continue to be recorded for the following reasons:

• when there is sufficient evidence of use
• when forms will be found in older text
• where the RAE has made a strong recommendation, but has also indicated that it is not wrong to use conventions which it regards as superseded

In a few cases very controversial proposals will not be followed.

November 2010 - OLDO is now even more comprehensive!

The latest update to OLDO saw the addition of over 600 words, phrases and translations to our Italian, French, and German dictionaries. With entries ranging from zero-carbon to search engine optimization, you can be confident that your language learning is as up to date as possible.

The update also features some of the most topical words and phrases around today, including climate change sceptic, volcanic ash cloud, and Tiefseebohrung (deep-water drilling), which leaked into our everyday vocabulary as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

November 2009 - Oxford Language Web

This innovative feature offers a rich language experience for anyone who is interested in learning and using new languages in today’s global society. It is available to subscribers of one or more language modules within Oxford Language Dictionaries Online. For more information, see how to subscribe.

See, explore, discover, link, learn …

See at-a-glance translations in up to 13 languages for thousands of dictionary entries in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online

Explore multiple languages simultaneously: search and browse the Oxford Language Web in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Portugese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Arabic

Discover surprising similarities and differences between languages as you compare them side by side

Link directly between languages in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online without going through English*

Learn key vocabulary easily - get quick translations of over 7,500 words in 13 languages

*Depending on your subscription, this is available for key vocabulary in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese.

Interesting searches that explore relationships between languages

Loan words from English

New words for new technological concepts that originated in the English-speaking world are often assimilated into other languages. Some words like blog have been accepted into other languages as they are (see the German, Italian, Spanish translations), or adapted to fit in phonetically with the other language (see Chinese, Korean, Japanese). But for some words, such as email, computer, and Internet, certain languages have created their own equivalents – can you spot which ones?

Similarities between the Romance languages

The Romance languages (which include French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) are all related, as they descended from Latin. Similarities can be seen between these four languages at the following entries: milk, read, write.

Some Latin words developed in different ways in different languages. For example, words that begin with pl, cl, or fl in Latin, often preserve this in Spanish but change to pi, ci, and fi in Italian, with pl changing to pr in Portuguese: try looking up plate, beach, square (paved area in a town centre), flower, and plain (easily understood).

Similarities between the Germanic languages

English and German are both Germanic languages. You can see how English and German are sometimes similar to each other, and different from the Romance languages, at the following entries for example: snow, church, book.

Similarities between the Slavic languages

Russian and Polish are both from the Slavic language family, even though Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet and Polish uses the Roman alphabet. Many words in Polish and Russian sound very similar, although they look different – to hear how a Russian word is pronounced, click through to the dictionary entry and click on the soundwave icon. Try comparing: house, snow, rain.

Relationship of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

Although not considered by most linguistics to be in the same language family or related at all, Japanese and Korean have historically borrowed in writing features from Chinese much like English words get borrowed into a variety of languages today. In current usage, Chinese and Japanese do ‘share’ a large number of characters, although the meanings and pronunciations have mutated and changed over time. Historically, Korean also used characters borrowed originally from Chinese, and in cases some of these characters made their way into Japanese via Korean as well as directly from Chinese. Try comparing: student, country, home, book (noun), newspaper.

How Arabic has influenced English

Some English words can be traced back to Arabic words originally: see alcohol, coffee, orange.

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