Shorter Oxford English app for iPhone and iPad


4.2 ( 5232 ratings )
Reference Education
Developer: MobiSystems, Inc.
29.99 USD
Current version: 10.0.3, last update: 7 years ago
First release : 30 Jul 2013
App size: 132.54 Mb

The dictionary has an incredible one-third of the coverage of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary. It also includes all words in current English since 1700 to the present day, plus the vocabulary of Shakespeare, the Bible and other major works in English, written before 1700.

With new coverage of global English, as well as slang, dialect, technical, historical, and literary terms, rare and obsolete words, the Sixth Edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 600,000 words, phrases and definitions. The entries provide coverage of the language from the entire English-speaking world: from North America and the UK to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean. It has been fully updated with 2,500 new words and meanings, based on ongoing research at Oxford Dictionaries and the Oxford English Corpus.

LATEST APP UPDАТES:
 • Learn in style with any of the four colorful new themes – the colorful layout will turn your learning experience into an enjoyable routine. Customize your dictionary and benefit from the cheerful mood your favorite color brings you.
 • Dive right into the intricacies of the language - with a new and convenient Home page, sleeker and more intuitive visual layout, as well as innovations in the speed of searches - you can now get to the desired entry faster than ever.
 • Translate and learn as you speak with Talk & Translate – use this speech recognition & text-to-speech app by downloading it for Free from the App Store. The great synergy between the two apps will help you optimize your studies.

SEARCH TOOLS - quickly find words with the functional, clean and easy-to-use interface. Designed to provide the most comprehensive search experience, the dictionary combines several search tools to match or predict what are you looking for, including:
 • Search autocomplete helps you find words quickly by displaying predictions as you type.
 • Keyword lookup allows you to search within compound words and phrases.
 • Camera search looks up words in the camera viewfinder and displays results in seconds.
 • Voice search helps you find an entry using your speech.
 • Automatic ‘Fuzzy filter’ that corrects word spelling and a ‘Wild card’ that allows you to replace a letter or entire parts of a word with * or ? when you don’t know how it`s spelled.

LEARNING TOOLS - engaging features that help you further enhance your vocabulary. Designed to give you the freedom to structure your studies, this dictionary combines several learning tools to help you be more organized:
 • ‘Favorites’ that allow you to create custom folders with lists of words.
 • Recent list which helps you to easily review looked-up words.
 • Swipe-to-delete functionality in the Recent and Favorites menus.
 • Word-of-the-day option to teach you a new word every day.

Feel excited by the new word or definition you just learned? Share your discovery with friends on social media, email or any other option available on your device.

Pros and cons of Shorter Oxford English app for iPhone and iPad

Shorter Oxford English app good for

parfait, mais on attend toujours les 20 volumes "vrais" Oxford English Dictionary. svp !!! !!!
For some reason some of the words I earmarked as favorites redirect me to a different word when I tap on them. Could you please fix that? The other things Id like are secondary: being able to use the old search method (faster loading), sorting options for favorites. Otherwise its great

Some bad moments

Wow! I just wasted my money on a garbage. Worst dictionary design i have ever seen. It confuses you when you try to look up or find something. What a "messed up" app!
Love this app. Indispensable. New visuals are fine. But why on Earth have you taken away the sidebar? Now, to see other options/forms for a word, I have to delete in the search box these irritating things: [1 noun]. VERY clumsy. Easy browsing is half the fun and utility of dictionaries, and youve eliminated that function. Please correct.
I have been waiting a long time for a decent app for the Oxford Dictionary and this is it. I have the print edition of the SOED and from what Ive seen this app is an replicates the print edition except for some of the usage guidelines. However, I would like to see a truncated popup of the IPA pronunciation key similar to the way the online OED allows you to hover over the pronunciation key and display only the pertinent symbols. Also, I think the Favorites needs enhancements: It would be nice if you could sort the favorites in various ways, say, ascending/descending order of date entered and ascending/descending alphabetically. I would like the default order to remain as it is now so that you could peruse and edit your most recent entries easily.
Wow! I cant believe Im holding the OED in the palm of my hand! Well, its only 1/3 of the full OED, but its a carefully selected 1/3, which covers all current words.
Very good, but I wish it has the (British) pronunciations of the earlier version of the reference work that was in the App Store — and like the newly re-released American Heritage Dictionary has for American pronunciations.
The SOED would be greatly improved with the addition of audio files. What should also be included is the pop-up pronunciation guide found in the Mac app. It would then be perfect. Having to leave the entry to go to the pronunciation guide is a drawback, especially for those of us who are less familiar with linguistic pronunciation symbols.

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