Dictionary.com is a convenient dictionary app. It also offers additional features, such as a thesaurus and word puzzles. It’s a multi-purpose app, which bases itself around words and education. It provides tools to encourage users to learn more and have fun with words.
Overall, the app makes for a more engaging experience than a mere dictionary that just defines words. However, the app does have its disadvantages. We will explore both the pros and cons in this review.
Dictionary.com App Review
When it comes to dictionary apps, this is definitely one of the most well known. It comes with audio pronunciation, daily content and everything else you need to improve your vocabulary.
The Dictionary.com app offers a range of features for users to explore as they like, targeting a wider audience. Unfortunately, it has an upgrade system, which makes using the app less pleasant for non-paying users.
Free to Use – But Not Ad-Free
Although the app is free to download and use, it’s not ad-free. Ads pop-up fairly frequently as you press on different options.
There are also some features that are inaccessible unless you pay for them. There are several payable upgrades for the app, including an option to go ad-free. These are all one-time payments so they won’t be too much of an investment.
However, these upgrades each having an individual sum, makes the overall cost higher than your average upgrade. It’s also a more daunting purchase as you have to pay repeatedly for each upgrade.
On the other hand, most of the upgrades are additional features that aren’t necessary to the core purpose of the app, such as the medical dictionary feature.
With the exception of the ad-free upgrade, this means the app doesn’t make purchasing the upgrades a necessity. It is still usable as a free app.
Nevertheless, the frequency of the ads makes the user experience quite disruptive and unpleasant. It’s difficult to try out the app when ads are appearing every few taps.
This makes it difficult to see if the app is something new users wish to invest in. It can also discourage new users, or non-paying users, from the app if they require an upgrade to even use it without disruptions.
Shallow Learning Curve
The app’s UI is easy to understand and navigate. There are quite a few settings but the options are all named using common terms. This makes them easy to comprehend so there is a shallow learning curve to using the app.
New users will be able to pick-up the app quickly, which is very useful since the app’s purpose is to give you easy access to information.
The large amount of features can be intimidating, however, since users will most likely be expecting a simple dictionary app. Dictionary.com has many additional uses, which can make the app harder to learn.
But, since the features are all clearly labelled, users should know what each one does. They can easily avoid clicking into features they don’t intend to use.
Multi-use
Dictionary.com offers many fun and engaging activities on top of the basic dictionary-based features.
For example, it provides various word games and puzzles. This allows users to learn and engage with words in a more practical sense than just reading their definitions. It encourages applying knowledge as well as gaining knowledge.
Furthermore, the app doubles as a thesaurus.
The app also showcases ‘words of the day’ to consistently try and expand their users’ knowledge of words.
Dictionary.com seems to have a great focus on educating users past merely defining words. As a further example, when clicking onto a word to find its definition, there are additional features available.
There’s an option for looking at synonyms, and sentence examples along with their explanations. This can help further users’ knowledge of the word.
Additionally, the app offers various different facts on a range of topics. This can help cater to a wider audience, as it makes the app a useful source of information for specific fields.
For example, there’s a section for writing tips to help educate and improve writing skills.
Convenient
The app makes searching for words very convenient, which makes it simple to utilise as an every-day dictionary. There’s a search bar on the home page for easy access.
It also provides an option to voice search.
Alternatively, there’s an option to ‘browse’ through all the words by letter, which is also accessible from the home page. It provides a filter system, where you can filter words using certain letters. It also provides its own search bar.
The searching system is quite extensive, which makes finding words very simple to do. This makes it a great dictionary app.
Cluttered Home Page
One of the downsides of the app originates in its messy home page layout. It is cluttered with many different things, and can be intimidating and visually unappealing to users.
The different sections are mostly segmented by headlines, so certain parts blend together. Each section is also not clear in its purpose.
Since the app’s main purpose is to be a dictionary, any excess functions shouldn’t appear on the home page without a clear explanation.
Pros
- Free to use. There’s no trial period.
- Multi-use. As well as a dictionary, it serves as a thesaurus, and a supplier of facts.
- Shallow learning curve.
- It’s easy to search for words.
- Tailors to a large audience. It offers information for various topics, such as science and literature.
- It offers word games you can play to test your knowledge. It makes for a more engaging user experience.
Cons
- There’s ad pop-ups and they’re fairly frequent. This makes it hard to test the app out, and determine whether it’s worth paying for.
- You have to pay in order to get rid of the ads.
- All the purchasable upgrades are individually priced.
- The home page is very cluttered.
Common Questions about the Dictionary.com app
Is the Dictionary.com app free?
Yes, the Dictionary.com app if free to download and use. However, there are adverts that pop-up as you use the app. There is an upgrade you can buy to get rid of the ads, as well as other upgrades that unlock or add certain features.
What does the Dictionary.com app do?
The Dictionary.com app acts as a dictionary, which you can use to search for words and their definitions. The app also doubles as a thesaurus. There are also word games you can play to test your knowledge – combining it with a good book summary app is a sure way to become smarter.
How do I contact the developers if I have an issue?
Go to https://www.dictionary.com/e/contact/ and fill out the form to submit your issue to the support team.
Conclusion
To conclude, whilst the Dictionary.com app offers various features to make for an engaging learning experience, the frequent ad pop-ups are very disruptive.
They make it difficult to use the app as a non-paying user. It also makes it hard to test out the app, and gauge whether it’s worth investing in.
However, it is a useful dictionary app overall. It offers a range of features that can help better the understanding of a word. For instance, the ‘learners’ feature goes into detail about the meaning and purpose of a word in different sentence examples.
The app is worth paying for if you want a useful tool that helps you better comprehend words in a simple manner. The ad-free upgrade is definitely worth the purchase if you want to use the app in the long-term – it is only a one-time purchase of £2.49.
The other upgrades require more thought as they’re not necessary features to have. There’s no way of testing them out or previewing them so it can be difficult to determine whether it is an upgrade you want.
However, the upgrades are fairly easy to understand. For some of them, such as the encyclopaedia upgrade, the app already provides an indirect preview with the existing facts they offer. You can use the app’s existing features to determine whether the upgrades are worth purchasing.
