A survey of dictionary APIs
A survey of application programming interfaces (APIs) on the Internet which provide access to lexicographic content in machine-readable formats. This page accompanies my talk Lexicographic APIs: the state of the art at the eLex 2021 Conference.
Lexicala API
By K Dictionaries, the developer of many mostly bilingual dictionaries, including the well-known Password series of "bilingualized monolingual" learners' dictionaries. The API contains many monolingual and bilingual dictionaries in 50+ languages.
- URL
- https://api.lexicala.com/
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- JSON.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Oxford Dictionaries API
By Oxford University Press. The API contains several monoligual English dictionaries (intended for for native speakers of English) and bilingual dictionaries in 30+ languages paired with English.
- URL
- https://developer.oxforddictionaries.com/
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- JSON.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Oxford Learner's Dictionaries API
Yet another API by Oxford University Press. This one is for their monolingual English dictionaries for learners.
- URL
- https://languages.oup.com/oxford-learners-dictionaries-api/
- API format
- REST + JSON or XML.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- XML or HTML.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Macmillan Dictionary API
By Macmillan, the publisher of a monolingual English dictionary for learners. The API gives access to this dictionary.
- URL
- https://www.macmillandictionary.com/tools/aboutapi.html
- API format
- Unclear, probably REST.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- No, you need to sign up first.
- Entry format
- No information available, you need to sign up to find out.
- Entry schema
- No information available, you need to sign up to find out.
Cambridge Dictionaries API
By Cambridge University Press. The API gives access to their monolingual English dictionaries for learners.
- URL
- https://dictionary-api.cambridge.org/
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- No. Trial account for 30 days.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- XML or HTML.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
PONS Dictionary API
An API for bilingual dictionaries in 13 languages with German, from the German dictionary publisher PONS.
- URL
- https://de.pons.com/p/online-woerterbuch/fuer-entwickler/api
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- JSON.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary API
An API for a few monolingual English, an bilingual with English, dictionaries by the US dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.
- URL
- https://dictionaryapi.com/
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- JSON peppered with some home-baked inline makup.
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Collins API
Collins is the publisher of the legendary Collins COBUILD monolingual dictionary for learners of English. This API provides access to that dictionary, and to a handful of their other bilingual dictionaries with English.
- URL
- https://www.collinslanguage.com/collins-api/
- API format
- Unclear, probably REST.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- No, you need to sign up first.
- Entry format
- No information available, you need to sign up to find out.
- Entry schema
- No information available, you need to sign up to find out.
ABBYY Lingvo dictionaries API
An API for 15 bilingual dictionaries (with Russian) from the Russian dictionary publisher ABBYY.
- URL
- https://developers.lingvolive.com/
- API format
- REST + JSON.
- Usable free account
- Yes.
- Publicly available documentation
- Yes.
- Entry format
- JSON (highly complex, with lots of inline markup).
- Entry schema
- Their own.
Honorable mentions
-
The Europe-wide ELEXIS project has published a specification for dictionary APIs called ELEXIS Protocol for accessing dictionaries. It is not clear whether any publicly available dictionaries implement it.
-
The website najdislovo.cz, which hosts two Czech retrodigitized onomasiological dictionaries, has an API: documentation here.
-
The Electronic Lexical Database of Indo-Iranian Languages, currently under construction at the Czech Academy of Sciences, will have an API: documentation here.