''The Free Dictionary'' is an American

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...

and

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

that aggregates information from various sources.

Content

The site cross-references the contents of ''

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' (''AHD'') is an American dictionary of English published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969. Its creation was spurred by the controversy ...

'', the '' Collins English Dictionary'', the '' Columbia Encyclopedia'', the ''Computer Desktop Encyclopedia'', the ''

Hutchinson Encyclopedia The ''Hutchinson Encyclopedia'' is an English-language general encyclopedia. It is a single volume designed for use in the home, libraries and schools. It attempts to be readable by reducing the use of technical language. A small subset of the Enc ...

'' (subscription), and

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read referenc ...

, as well as the Acronym Finder database, several financial dictionaries,

legal dictionaries Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...

, and other content. It has a feature that allows a user to preview an article while positioning the mouse

cursor Cursor may refer to: * Cursor (user interface), an indicator used to show the current position for user interaction on a computer monitor or other display device * Cursor (databases), a control structure that enables traversal over the records in ...

over a link. One can also

double-click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Bill Atkinson of Apple Computer (n ...

on any word to look it up in the dictionary.

Site operator

The site is run by Farlex, Inc., located in Huntingdon Valley,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

. Farlex also maintains a companion title, ''The Free Library'', an online library of out-of-copyright classic books as well as a collection of periodicals of over four million articles dating back to 1984, and definition-of.com, a community dictionary of

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-g ...

and other terms.

Wikipedia Mirror

content is hosted at the sub-domain encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com, which is excluded from search-engine indexing in its entirety by Farlex with the use of

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s. This is done to avoid duplicate content in the search-engine results and prevent user traffic that would otherwise go to Wikipedia.

''The Free Library''

''The Free Library'' has a separate homepage. It is a free reference website that offers full-text versions of classic literary works by hundreds of authors. It is also a

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, po ...

, offering articles from a large collection of periodicals containing over four million articles dating back to 1984. Newly published articles are added to the site daily. The site comprises a selection of articles from open-access journals that can in many cases also be found on a journal's own website. It is a sister site to ''The Free Dictionary'' and usage examples in the form of "references in classic literature" taken from the site's collection are used on ''The Free Dictionary'''s definition pages. In addition, double-clicking on a word in the site's collection of reference materials brings up the word's definition on ''The Free Dictionary''.

References

External links