How to use this dictionary

First make sure you have learned the 360 words from the lessons. You can learn or review these words by going through the lessons and answering the questions.

Each lesson is divided into groups of three or four words. After each group of words, there is a question to test your understanding. You will see a sentence containing a blank space, followed by three blue phrases that could go in the blank space. Click the best phrase to answer the question.

After you have learned the 360 words from the lessons, you can read the definitions for the other 2000 words in Learn These Words First. They are all explained using only the 360 words from the lessons.

See your progress

Learn These Words First keeps track of which questions you answered correctly in each lesson.

(Note that JavaScript and Cookies must be enabled for this to work.)

You can see all your progress on one page by clicking here: Show Progress.

On this page you can also click the "Clear Progress" button if you want to erase all your progress and start over.

Find words quickly: Find on Page

From the main contents page of Learn These Words First, you can find words quickly by using your browser's "Find on Page" command. In many browsers, you can show the "Find" box by pressing the Ctrl+F or Cmd+F keys.

In the "Find" box, type the first several letters of the word you want to find. This will highlight the matching word on the contents page.

Then click the word to go to its definition.

To go back to the contents page, press your browser's "Back" button.

Find words quickly: Lessons and Words menu

On the main contents page of Learn These Words First, click the blue header at the top of the page to show the Lessons and Words menu. You can use this menu to move quickly to different sections in the table of contents.

Lessons: Click a number to move to that lesson number.
Words: Click a letter to move to the list of words that start with that letter.

On other pages, you can click the blue header to go back to the contents page.

Find words quickly: Word Finding Tool

You can use the Word Finding Tool to help you find words and learn what they mean.

Using this tool is easy:

Go to the Word Finding Tool.
Type or paste your words or sentences in the box.
Then click the "Find These Words" button.

Your words will be listed in three groups:

The black words can be found in the lessons. (Click a word to go to its definition or lesson.)
The blue words are explained in this dictionary. (Click a word to go to its definition.)
You can search for the red words in another dictionary. (Click a word to look it up in the Longman English Dictionary Online.)

(Note that each word you click opens in a new window. In some mobile browsers, you may need to press and hold the word and then click "Open link in new window.")

Regular and irregular inflections

In the Learn These Words First lessons, the regular and irregular inflections of each headword are listed:

Nouns: singular, plural.
Verbs: singular (1st, 2nd, 3rd person), plural, infinitive, present participle, simple past, past participle.

In the alphabetical dictionary section, only the base word and its irregular inflections are listed. Regular inflections are not shown and are formed from the base word like this:

Adding "-s" or "-es" to make a noun plural or a verb 3rd-person singular.
Adding "-ing" to form a verb's present participle.
Adding "-ed" to form a verb's past tense or past participle.
Sometimes changing the final "y" to "i" before an inflected ending.
Sometimes dropping the final "e" or "y" before an inflected ending.
Sometimes doubling the final consonant before an inflected ending.

British spelling and American spelling

For some words, the British spelling is different from the American spelling.

The Learn These Words First dictionary uses British spellings, but headwords are listed with both spellings: first the British spelling, followed by the American spelling in parentheses.

Here are some examples of headwords where the British and American spellings differ:

colour, (color).
centre, (center).
metre, (meter).

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