Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 10th Edition

The Oxford 3000 is a list of the 3,000 core words that every learner of English needs to know. The words have been carefully selected based on their frequency in the language and their relevance to learners. Every word has been assigned a level, from A1 to B2 on the CEFR, guiding learners from beginner to upper-intermediate level on the most important words to learn.

The frequency of the words was measured in the Oxford English Corpus (OEC). A corpus is an electronic database containing large numbers of written or spoken texts that can be searched, sorted and analysed. The OEC contains over 2 billion words from different subject areas and contexts, covering British, American and world English. Frequency is the most important criterion for deciding the importance of a word: the most frequent 2,000 words in English make up around 80 per cent of almost any English text.

The relevance of the words to English language learners was measured by their frequency in a specially created corpus of Secondary and Adult English courses published by Oxford University Press. This means that the list covers words that learners will come across in class and in their study texts, even if they are less frequent in a general corpus. These include, for example, words for everyday things and places (banana, cafe, T-shirt), words for describing feelings (amazed, annoyed, unhappy) and words connected with studying (dictionary, exam).

CEFR stands for the ‘Common European Framework of Reference’ for languages, which is a description of the language abilities of students at different levels of learning. The CEFR can be used to compare standards in language learning and create teaching programmes.

It grades language skills at six levels:

• A1 and A2 indicate elementary and pre‑intermediate levels of ability.
• B1and B2 indicate lower- and upper‑intermediate levels.
• C1 indicates advanced level.
• C2 indicates complete proficiency in the language.

The CEFR grades language skills – what students can do in the language, for example ‘can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics’ (at B2). It does not grade specific grammar points or vocabulary items. However, we have aligned the words in the Oxford 3000 to the levels of the CEFR from A1 to B2 in order to guide learners of English on the most important words to learn at each level. These levels are based on the same criteria of frequency and relevance: the corpus of Secondary and Adult English courses enabled us to track the frequency of vocabulary items at each level of a course.

The Oxford 3000 is the core word list for learners up to B2/upper-intermediate level. The Oxford 5000 is an expanded core word list for advanced learners of English. It includes an additional 2,000 words at B2-C1 level on the CEFR, guiding advanced learners on the most useful high-level words to learn to expand their vocabulary.

The words of the Oxford 3000 are shown in the main section of the dictionary in larger print and with a key symbol immediately following. The CEFR level for the core sense of the word is shown after the key. If he word has more than one meaning, a small key symbol will indicate each of the meanings that belong to the Oxford 3000. The CEFR level is shown for each of these meanings: some of the secondary meanings may have a higher level than the core sense.

The words of the Oxford 5000 are shown in the main section of the dictionary with a ‘key plus’ symbol and the CEFR level – B2 or C1 – for the core sense of the word. Again, if there is more than one meaning, there will be a key plus symbol and a CEFR level at each meaning that belongs to the Oxford 5000.

In order to make the definitions in this dictionary easy to understand, we have written them using the keywords of the Oxford 3000. Numbers and proper names are also used in definitions, as are a few language study terms, such as alphabet, noun and tense. When it has been necessary to use a specialist term that is not in the Oxford 3000, the word is shown in SMALL CAPITALS. Where appropriate, a GLOSS (= a short explanation of the meaning) of the specialist term is included in brackets.

The entries for all words in the Oxford 3000 have been re-edited for this edition, using the most up-to-date corpora. Many of these entries have been expanded in order to include more information about the most frequent collocations and examples of different grammatical patterns used with these words.

For more information on the Oxford 3000 and Oxford 5000, and to see the full lists, visit  www.oxford3000.com.