The Best Spanish Dictionary on the Internet

SpanishDict

🏆 Best Overall Spanish-to-English Dictionary

SpanishDict is an extremely accessible online dictionary that has a clean, sleek interface, making it a leading tool for those learning Spanish.

Besides their Spanish-to-English dictionary, SpanishDict also has a great conjugation tool, a word-of-the-day feature, quizzes, easy-to-understand grammar lessons, and more. It’s also a neat resource for people who want to try their hand at interactive Spanish word games.

SpanishDict gives you audio recordings of each word so that you can learn how to pronounce the Spanish words you look up. Make sure to bookmark this one so that you can pull it up easily any time you need to look up a word!

Just because we love SpanishDict doesn’t mean that you will, or that it’s necessarily best suited to your needs. Here are some other great Spanish dictionaries. Test them out and see what you prefer!

Diccionario de la Real Academia Española

🏆 Best Monolingual Spanish Dictionary

This Spanish dictionary is considered the authority on the Spanish language. And as a Spanish language learner, you’ll find that their online dictionary provides an extremely simple dictionary lookup that makes it ideal for daily use.

The only caveat is it’s a monolingual dictionary. In other words, this is the dictionary that a native speaker would turn to.

Depending on your level, this could be a really great thing, or it could make your search quite frustrating! Deducing a word’s translation by reading what it means in Spanish is an incredible way to practice your skills! So this is the best online Spanish dictionary for students.

However, if you’re a beginner, getting the translation straight away is probably more helpful.

On the same website, you may also be interested in checking out the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, a webpage dedicated to questions on Spanish word usage between the different Spanish-speaking regions and countries. Some of the top Royal Spanish Academies from every Spanish-speaking country provide answers.

AsiHablamos

🏆 Best Regional Spanish Dictionary

Since Spanish is spoken in so many countries, it’s no surprise that each country (and even each region) has its way of speaking the language. These regional dialects include many specific words and phrases that other Spanish speakers might not even know about!

That’s where this dictionary comes in. It’s meant to help speakers of different regional dialects of Spanish understand each other. It’s a collection of regional Spanish words and phrases, including their definition and what country or countries they are used in. What’s really cool is that it’s a crowd-sourced effort: the dictionary is built entirely by people submitting definitions. If you’re looking for the definition of a Spanish slang word, you’ll find it here!

AsiHablamos would be extra helpful any time you’re immersing yourself in real-world Spanish, not just the more standardized stuff that’s made specifically for learners.

Minucias del Lenguaje de la Academia Mexicana de la Lengua

🏆 Most Interesting Spanish Dictionary

If you aren’t looking for a definition on a tight schedule, we highly recommend spending some time “leafing” through Minucias del Lenguaje.

Unlike traditional dictionaries, which only provide a definition or translation, this is more like a collection of short essays about words and expressions in Spanish. The author explores topics related to linguistics and offers commentary from “phonetic, morphological, lexical, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic” points of view as well as sociolinguistic perspectives.

He specializes in how the language is used in Mexico and the Americas, so if you’re learning one of those varieties you’re sure to find some interesting tidbits!

If you’re looking to enrich your knowledge of the Spanish language, this is a wonderful resource!

WordReference

🏆 Best Spanish Language Forum

This vocabulary genie is useful, comprehensive and adapted to everyone – from professional translators to casual learners.

What’s great is they give you far more than a definition. When you type in a word or phrase, you get the definition, a recording of it, a few examples, and compound words. For example, the entry for corazón (heart) will also turn up presna del corazón (gossip magazine).

Best of all, you can join or visit the forum posts on that word. Nearly every entry has at least one forum thread populated by native speakers, translators, and students. While it’s a great one-stop shop, WordReference earns its spot as the ultimate resource if you still need help understanding that word or phrase.

You can even use it on your iPhone or Android with the free dictionary app!

Linguee

🏆 Best For Learning How Spanish Is Used

And to round out our list, here is a multilingual dictionary best suited to advanced learners.

While it does feature simple translations, where it really shines is its plethora of examples. And here’s the thing, their examples come from real-life translations from all over the web.

Personally, I’ve found Linguee to be the most helpful when I’m writing in Spanish. If you’re unsure of how to use a phrase, simply type your word into their search bar. You’ll see how professional translators (including from organizations such as the EU and UNESCO) have translated it.

Linguee works best with phrases and compound words.

That’s it for our list of the best online Spanish dictionaries and why we love them. If you know of another online Spanish dictionary that should be on this list, feel free to mention it in the comments section.

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tuBabel

Edit: This Spanish slang dictionary unfortunately isn’t online anymore. We’re keeping an eye out in case it comes back and we’ll be sure to let you know if it does.

🏆 Best Spanish Slang Dictionary

One thing that most traditional Spanish dictionaries lack is the use of slang.

If you want to learn Spanish so that you can immerse yourself in a Spanish-speaking country, learn a little slang. Knowing a few Spanish slang words will allow you to converse more fluidly. Sound less like a robot and more like a local!

This is why tuBabel is so useful and is considered the best dictionary of Spanish slang. It’s similar to Urban Dictionary, just in Spanish!

Click a flag to explore slang words from various Spanish-speaking countries. You’ll really impress your conversation partner if you bring up a specialized phrase from their country in conversation.

Bonus: there’s even a section on Spanglish!

This website is only available in Spanish. So, you’ll already have to know a bit if you want to be able to use it effectively.

Los Diccionarios del Periódico El Mundo

Edit: This Spanish dictionary doesn’t seem to be available anymore, which is a real shame! In the meantime, they have added a translation feature powered by Reverso.

The website of the famous Spanish newspaper El Mundo (which also includes videos and articles you can use to learn) has its own online Spanish dictionary. This may not be the best Spanish dictionary on the Internet, but it definitely comes close.

The main reason this site finds itself on our list is due to its completeness. It offers definitions, sure. But it also can give you antonyms, synonyms, examples, and translations.

Besides this, Los Diccionarios has a French-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-French translation tool for those of you who speak French.

Lastly, if you are a healthcare professional who wants to learn Spanish for your job, this website has a special dictionary for medical terms.