Dictionary - M-W Premium

Merriam-Webster Inc.

About this app

Get America’s most useful and respected dictionary, optimized for your Android device. Continuously updated with the newest words and meanings, this is the premier Android app for English language reference, education, and vocabulary building.

And now we’ve added new word games! It’s never been more fun to learn new words and test your vocabulary for everyone from English learners to total word nerds. Hundreds of words to test your skills.

Offline access: You’ll have complete access to definitions and synonyms whether or not you’re connected. You will need a connection to view illustrations, hear audio pronunciations, and use voice search.

Features:

* No ads
* Integrated Thesaurus: more than 200,000 word choices with examples of their use
* New Vocabulary-Building Quizzes: fun, fast quizzes to learn new words or test your vocabulary
* Voice Search: look up a word without having to spell it
* Word of the Day: learn a new word every day
* Example Sentences: understand how a word is used in context
* Audio Pronunciations: voiced by real English speakers, not text-to-speech robots
* Favorite Words and Search History: keep track of the words that are most important to you
* Favorite Word Syncing: share your favorites between devices
* Premium Content: over 1000 graphical illustrations, and over 15,000 additional entries covering people and places
* For Tablets: browse the entire dictionary with a scrolling index

Ratings and reviews

My primary concerns have to do with privacy issues - this app asks for many permissions tied to Google. And I loathe the goog (read the "1984" story). Of course, I've switched most of these off, but also, I've lost some functionality by doing so. Otherwise, entries, word count, and range are all as described. The only difficulties originate from a failure to fully mesh with my device, a Samsung Note 10+, as the default dictionary which is horrible.

Works great if the voice search worked. I get an error message after tapping the microphone stating that it's not available without an internet connection. That is, while I am connected to my WiFi with internet connection; go figure! And, there are no settings in this app, zero settings, so there is no way to correct this voice search issue that is NOT my issue. I won't invest in an upgrade and may stop using this app since there are many other dictionary apps like Oxford, Cambridge, & OneLook.

This app is missing words (e.g. "plotz") that are present in the free web version, which seems unacceptable for a paid app. Some of the features from the website (such as recent usage examples and search suggestions) are also missing from the app. There are also cases where tapping a word in a definition takes you to the wrong link (e.g. "Muslim" sends you to the old-fashioned "Moslem"). On the positive side, the layout is very clean and easy to read, better than the web version.

What's new

Dictionary update with new entries and revised definitions.
Bug fixes and other small tweaks.