Wordnick

Yesterday was Dictionary Day, which may be why Jonathan Chambers and 8th Grade Students at the Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus, wrote about a website called Wordnick, and how to use it, in a post on The Articulator, a Journal of Applied English.

I went to the Wordnick page, wrote "civilization" in the search bar, to check out the site.

Wordnick describes itself as "a new way to discover meaning. This page will give you a quick overview of what you can do, learn, and share with Wordnik...We try to show as many real examples as possible for each word. These examples are ranked by how useful we think they are in helping you understand the meaning of a particular word, especially words that may not have traditional dictionary definitions."

Screenshot of http://www.wordnik.com/words/civilization?suggested_from=Civilization

Wordnick generates a page of definitions, examples, related words, current usage, images, and audio pronunciation files,  on a clear, color-coded, easy to read page.

As Mr. Chamers writes:  "So go and bookmark this website NOW: Wordnik!"  You might also want to subscribe to the Word of the Day, and to the Wordnick Blog.