Oxford Languages and Google

Google’s Portuguese dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages.

 

Oxford Languages is the world’s leading dictionary publisher, with over 150 years of experience creating and delivering authoritative dictionaries globally in more than 50 languages.

What is included in this Portuguese dictionary?


 

This Portuguese dictionary focuses principally on comprehensive coverage of Brazilian Portuguese. It contains more than 146,000 defined terms, plus examples, idioms, etymologies, and pronunciations to enrich users’ experience and understanding.

How are our dictionaries created?


 

At Oxford Languages, we are committed to an evidence-based approach to creating dictionaries in order to provide the most accurate picture of a language.
 
Our dictionaries are based on analysis of genuine uses of words collected from real-life sources to determine a word’s definition, spelling, and grammatical behaviour, and to offer guidance on a word’s use based on this research.
 
This evidence-based approach to creating a dictionary is known as descriptive lexicography. Our dictionaries aim to describe the way languages are and have been used by people around the world, rather than attempting to prescribe the way a language should be used.
 
We apply stringent quality checks to all dictionaries produced or acquired by our expert team so our users can feel confident in our ability to accurately and meaningfully represent each language.

Why do we include vulgar and offensive words in our dictionaries?


 

The role of a descriptive dictionary is to record the existence and meaning of all words in a language, and to clearly identify their status. Vulgar or offensive words are included in our dictionaries because such terms are a part of a language’s lexicon. Our dictionary entries label words that fit into these categories to reflect their vulgar or offensive status and usage in the language.
 
We monitor how offensive language changes over time and integrate the changes we observe into our dictionaries to reflect real-life usage. Any changes that are made to our dictionaries are based on empirical evidence collected and analysed through our language research programme.
 
We are always grateful when users inform us of cases they believe do not meet our rigorous quality standards, whether due to changing cultural sensitivities or for other reasons.
 
Learn more about how we label our datasets.

Why do we include slang and regional dialects in our dictionaries?


 

In order to accurately and comprehensively document all words in a language’s lexicon, our dictionaries record and describe language usage in all of its forms – including slang and regional dialects.
 
Slang terms and vocabulary from different regions and dialects are labelled in our dictionary entries so that users can be confident in a word’s language status and typical usage.

Why do we include example sentences in our dictionaries?


 

Example sentences are designed to help people to understand words in the context in which they are commonly used. These sentences do not replace our definitions but give additional information.
 
Our example sentences are selected to support a word in the correct grammatical and semantic context without distracting from the essential information the definition conveys.
 
We do our best to eliminate example sentences that contain factually incorrect, prejudiced, or offensive statements and always welcome feedback on specific cases you feel do not meet our rigorous quality standards.

Find out how Oxford Languages is responding to user feedback ⟶

 

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