Oxford Dictionaries
Oxford Dictionaries
Oxford Dictionaries API provides authoritative Oxford English dictionary data — definitions, etymology, synonyms, translations (30+ languages), morphology.
Oxford academic authority (gold standard in linguistics)
Paid (per-call after free trial)
Register an app at developer.oxforddictionaries.com for application key + ID. GET /api/v2/entries/en-us/{word_id} for word lookup.
Uptime · 30-day window
About this API
Oxford Dictionaries API exposes Oxford University Press's centuries of linguistic authority via API. vs. Wordnik (multi-source aggregation): Oxford is single-authority — all data from Oxford editorial team (linguists, lexicographers), extremely high quality but relatively conservative coverage (slow to include new words, slang). Most valuable endpoints: entries (full word records), lemmas (word form normalization — searching "ran" matches "run"), translations (bidirectional, 30+ languages), thesaurus (synonyms/antonyms with clear relationships). Used by professional English learning apps (IELTS/TOEFL prep, academic writing support), research tools. Commercial products recommended over Wordnik (higher authority, more stable API).
What you can build
- 1Professional English learning apps (IELTS, TOEFL prep)
- 2Dictionary app backends
- 3Translation assistance tools
- 4Academic writing support
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Oxford academic authority (gold standard in linguistics)
- Provides lemmatron (word form normalization: running → run)
- Bidirectional lookup in 30+ languages
Limitations
- Paid (per-call after free trial)
- API docs relatively complex
- Weak Chinese coverage (Oxford is English-focused)
Example request
curl https://oxforddictionaries.com/<endpoint>Getting started
Register an app at developer.oxforddictionaries.com for application key + ID. GET /api/v2/entries/en-us/{word_id} for word lookup.
FAQ
Oxford vs. Wordnik pricing?+
Oxford bills per hit (free 1000/month + paid from $50+/month). Wordnik's free tier is more generous, but commercial high-traffic also requires payment.
Can it look up bilingual dictionaries (English-Chinese)?+
Partially. Oxford bilingual series covers major European languages; Asian languages like English-Chinese have limited depth.
Technical details
- Auth type
- unknown
- Pricing
- unknown
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- javascript, python, php, java
- Response time
- 596 ms
- Last health check
- 5/12/2026, 7:38:03 AM