The Dictionary of Contemporary Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek or ANW) is a corpus-based, digital dictionary of contemporary Dutch in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Caribbean. It describes words from 1970 to now, more or less covering the period of post-war generations of adult language users. The dictionary is synchronic, which means that it describes the contemporary language, leaving out any further information on the origin of words (etymology). An exception is made for the neologisms, the etymology of which is always described as precisely as possible. Etymological information can also be found by clicking on Word family.
The ANW focuses on the standard language in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Caribbean (the former Netherlands Antilles). It is a general dictionary, not specific to any region, group of people or profession. An exception is made for youth language, which has a growing influence on the current Dutch language. Its main focus is on written Dutch. Apart from the main lexicon, the dictionary also describes neologisms (new words, new collocations, new idioms and new meanings to existing words).
The ANW is an online dictionary and is not based on a printed version. The dictionary entries are designed for this purpose, and from the start we have considered the different opportunities, demands and problems that come with the development of a new digital dictionary, with regard to both data collection, editing and publication. For example, where relevant, you may find images, videos or audio samples added to the description of a word. It is an interactive dictionary. The website is updated frequently to process additional information, corrections and revisions, and therefore your feedback is very welcome!
To edit words from the main lexicon, the ANW uses a corpus that contains more than 100 million words, which was compiled specifically for this project. It contains material from all domains of society. In addition, we make thorough use of relevant material from other sources as well, such as the Corpus of Contemporary Dutch (Corpus Hedendaags Nederlands or CHN), and the internet. Here you can find more information about the ANW-corpus.
Whether you are a professional linguist or a language enthusiast, we would like to be at your service. Another aspect in which the ANW distinguishes itself from other dictionaries, is that it offers the possibility to search the lexicographic database in many different ways, instead of just the traditional way, from word to meaning.
The great amount of information combined with the possibility to look up very specific information makes the ANW very useful for educational purposes at all levels. For that reason, we provided seven lesson plans for secondary education in which the ANW is used. The lesson plans are based on assignments of students of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and made by former ANW editor Dr. Josefien Sweep. Since then, the search options of the ANW have been edited and advanced and now the lesson plans are being updated. When they are finished, they will become available again.
The current version of the ANW contains 289.827 words, which are described in 86.720 keywords that contain a range of traditional dictionary articles. In total, the keywords have 45.919 meanings, 38.761 synonyms, 271.179 sentence examples, 140.245 combinations, 9847 set combinations and 316 proverbs. Furthermore, you will find 4842 images, 735 videos and 178 audio samples.
These articles will only give information on the part of speech, spelling, derivation and conjugation of words, and on word formation and details of use (such as language variety). These articles do not offer a definition, sentence examples, combinations or collocations yet. They do provide a maximum of 25 sentence examples (‘concordances’) from the Corpus of Contemporary Dutch (CHN). If you cannot find the word you are looking for in the corpus, there will be a notification.
The current version of the ANW contains 57.702 entries with a minimum profile, some of which will be edited later.
The ANW is a lexicographical database that is updated daily and is steadily growing. But it is not yet a complete dictionary that contains all the words of the Dutch language. The aim of the editors of the ANW is to describe the lexicon of the Dutch language as accurately as possible and to provide information about various important words of the Dutch language. Furthermore, the ANW gives extensive information about neologisms (new words, new idioms and familiar words with new meanings). A lot of these neologisms are used so often by now, that they have become part of the Dutch lexicon.
…the European Dictionary Portal is included in the ANW. The result of the COST Action European Network of e-Lexicography (ENeL). COST stands for European Cooperation in Science and Technology.
…the ANW provides new words for the Wordlist of the Dutch Language (Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal) that is for sale in its shorter paper version as the Groene Boekje.
…the Frisian Academy made an online dictionary of the Frisian language with the help of the ANW editor and the ANW materials.
Here you will find more information about the concepts and article structure of the ANW.
Publications on the ANW can be found in the bibliography.
Here you will find the list with words that are in the ANW. You will find the list on the left side of the screen.
The application has links to external websites for images, audio samples and videos. Images are shown in miniature as an example. We assume this is in conformity with Dutch copyright. If we link to an image on your website and you have any objections, please send an email to servicedesk@ivdnt.org.
The application uses software from the Apache Software Foundation, including Tomcat, Lucene, Xalan, Log4J, and Velocity. All are available under the Apache License 2.0.
The application uses MySQL as its database. This is available under the GNU General Public License.
The application uses c3p0 for database connection pooling. THis is available under the Lesser GNU Public License.
The application uses a few icons from the Silk Icons collection. These can be used, modified and distributed under the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. In some cases, we've modified the icons to suit our needs.
If you have any questions about our application, or if you run into any problems while using it, please send an email to our helpdesk.