About the Macmillan School Dictionary

The Macmillan School Dictionary is the third in a series of new learners' dictionaries from Macmillan. 

The Macmillan English Dictionary, published in January 2002, was written for learners of English who are at a good intermediate to advanced level. Within a year, it had become the best-selling advanced learner's dictionary, and the success of this first year was crowned with the prestigious Duke of Edinburgh English-Speaking Union English Language Book Award. In March 2004, the full package of Macmillan English Dictionary products won the British Council Innovation Awards. Click here for more information about this dictionary.

The Macmillan Essential Dictionary followed on in the footsteps of its pioneering elder brother, in April 2003. This dictionary is for intermediate learners of English.
To find out more about this dictionary, click here.

The Macmillan School Dictionary has been specially written for students learning through the medium of English. The information it provides is up to date, carefully researched, and above all completely relevant to the needs of young people who are studying a wide range of subjects and preparing for school examinations. The dictionary explains – clearly and accurately – the vocabulary needed for successful study in any of the key school subjects. But it also does much more than this.

At every stage in the writing of the dictionary, experienced teachers, textbook writers, and syllabus designers have contributed their expertise, giving us a clear idea of what the dictionary’s users really want to know. We have also benefited from the unique Macmillan Curriculum Corpus, a 20-million-word computer database containing hundreds of school textbooks and exam syllabuses, for every subject from agriculture to zoology. Click here to see how this corpus was collected and used.

Click here to see all the other interesting features we have built into the dictionary for you.

In addition to the dictionary, there is a CD-ROM. This contains the whole text of the Macmillan Essential Dictionary. All the words in the dictionary have been recorded by both British and American speakers, and so you can hear them all pronounced in both varieties. You can also record your own pronunciations, andcompare them with those on the CD-ROM. If you know how a word is pronounced, but do not know how it is spelled, you can type in the phonetic symbols, and find the spelling. If you are interested in a particular subject, for example the Internet, you can get a list of all the words that refer to the Internet in their definitions, or you can get all the examples which include the word Internet. As an added extra for users of the Macmillan School Dictionary, we have produced a fully-searchable compendium of curriculum vocabulary via this website. You can increase your knowledge of a particular school subject by searching for all curriculum words within that topic, or find the meaning of a curriculum word you come across in your textbook.
Click here to find out more about the CD-ROM.