Category: News & Announcements

A New Voice for WILD!

Happy New Year! As we step into 2026, we are thrilled to share a major update to the WILD (Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary) experience designed specifically for our youngest explorers in Grades K-2.

Bringing Words to Life with AI-Enhanced Audio

We believe that hearing a word is just as important as seeing it when building foundational literacy. We have now integrated new, high-quality audio for definitions and example sentences throughout the WILD environment.

While these voices are generated by advanced AI technology, they aren’t just “automated.” Our team used carefully constructed prompts to ensure the tone and pace are pedagogically sound and perfect for young ears, helping children move beyond simple memorization toward true conceptual understanding.

Our New Year’s Gift: Full Access for Everyone!

To celebrate this launch and ensure every child can benefit, we are doing something special. For the next couple of months, we have temporarily lifted the lock on all subscription features in WILD.

• No subscription required: Every user can now access the full suite of WILD’s interactive tools.
• Explore everything: From our animations to our audio-supported entries and language support for Spanish and Chinese speakers.

We Want to Hear From You

As we continue to harness new technologies like LLMs to support “Conceptual Literacy,” your insights are our most valuable resource. We invite you to explore the new audio with your students or children and tell us what you think.

• How does the audio help your child engage with the definitions?
• Are there specific features you’d like to see next?

Explore WILD for Free Now!

Thank you for being part of our journey to make words a gateway to understanding the world.

The holidays are just around the corner, and we have a special surprise for you.

We are thrilled to officially announce the Grand Opening of the Wordsmyth Shop! For the first time ever, you can bring the educational quality you trust from our screens into your hands with our new line of beautifully-designed print books.

Whether you are a parent looking for meaningful gifts that keep kids engaged over the winter break (and beyond!) or a teacher stocking up for the new year, we have the perfect resources to spark curiosity and promote both learning and fun.

5 New Titles Available Now

All books are available as beautiful print books (perfect for gifts!) or instant digital downloads (start exploring today).

For the Visual Explorer

Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD)

The WILD book brings our interactive app to the page. This unique picture dictionary features two special sections: World and Collections. The “World” section lets children discover words in real-life settings, while “Collections” helps them see how different objects and ideas relate to one another. It’s more than just a picture dictionary, though. The WILD book is full of riddles to solve and fun facts to enjoy and is designed so that the content can be played as a game!

Perfect for: Curious explorers who love to see how things connect.

For Story Time

A Camping Adventure with Sam

Join Sam and his dad on a trip to the forest! This is a heartwarming story, but it is also a powerful vocabulary tool designed by lexicographers, one which helps children along in their reading by the inclusion of simple explanations of difficult words. This book bridges the gap between the printed page and our digital world—scan the QR code to explore the very same campground in our WILD app!

For Exploring Big Ideas

Concept Stories

The books Community and Cycle are the first of our Concept Story offerings. These books introduce big ideas to little learners, building deep conceptual understanding and early dictionary skills. Cycle explores the cycle of the seasons, the life cycle, and the water cycle, while Community explores abstract ideas such as service, neighborhood, tradition, city, and suburb–all charmingly illustrated.

For the Hands-On Learner

Synonyms & Antonyms Activity Book: Size & Shape

This brand-new activity book transforms abstract concepts into a fun, visual adventure. Through coloring, drawing, and matching, children master word relationships while exploring the concepts of size and shape.

Perfect for: Keeping minds active on cozy winter afternoons!

At Wordsmyth, we believe words are gateways to understanding the world. Thank you for letting us be a part of your child’s learning journey this holiday season.

Welcome back to a new school year!

The team at Wordsmyth has been busy this summer, and we’re thrilled to kick off the academic year with some exciting new tools and resources to support you and your young learners.

A New Front Door for Our Youngest Explorers!

We’re excited to announce a brand-new homepage for our K-2 dictionary, WILD (Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary)! This new page is designed specifically for teachers and parents, making it easier than ever to introduce the world of words to your students.

But that’s not all! To make exploring even more fun, we’ve created profile pages for our beloved WILD characters. Encourage your students to meet the characters and explore the different parts of WILD just like they do!
Explore the New WILD Homepage

Help Us Bring Wordsmyth to Your Bookshelf!

As educators and parents, we know how important it is to balance screen time with other modes of learning. We’ve heard your desire for high-quality, offline resources that offer the timeless, tactile experience of a physical book.

That’s why our next big project is a new series of print books and activity packs!

To ensure these new books are as engaging and effective as possible, we are looking for a small group of dedicated teachers and parents to join an exclusive focus group. As a member, you’ll get a sneak peek at our new materials and provide invaluable feedback that will directly shape our final products.

If you are passionate about the power of physical books and want to help us create the next generation of Wordsmyth learning resources, please click the link below to learn more and sign up for consideration.

Yes, I’m Interested in the Focus Group!

A New Premium Feature: Meet Your Wordsmyth AI Helper!

To provide even more value to our subscribers, we’re launching a brand-new, exclusive tool: the Wordsmyth AI Helper!

Have you ever wondered how to create a glossary or track your students’ progress? This smart assistant is available now for all our subscribers to help you get the most out of Wordsmyth. Just ask a question and get a clear, step-by-step answer instantly. It’s like having a personal guide to all of Wordsmyth’s features and functionalities.

Find the help icon at the bottom right corner on any webpage, click to activate the dialog box, and start asking questions.

Try the New AI Helper Now!

Thank you for being such a valued member of the Wordsmyth community. We wish you a wonderful and productive school year!

We’re excited to introduce a new customization option in the Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD), designed to make learning even more adaptable for young learners, teachers, and parents!

What’s New?

Now you have the power to choose which dictionary fields to display or hide within WILD. With a simple selection process in the settings, you can tailor the learning experience to best fit your students’ or children’s needs.

Fields You Can Show or Hide:

✅ Syllabify Headword – Break down words into syllables for easier reading.
✅ Text Pronunciation – Display phonetic text to help with pronunciation.
✅ Part of Speech – Identify whether a word is a noun, verb, adjective, etc.
✅ Word Form – Show different forms of a word when applicable.
✅ Examples – Include example sentences for context.
✅ Images – Display visual representations of words.
✅ Spanish Translation – Provide Spanish-language support.
✅ Chinese Translation – Provide Chinese-language support.

Why This Matters

WILD is already a rich, interactive, and engaging dictionary for young learners in Kindergarten to 2nd grade. This new feature empowers educators and parents to customize the learning experience, ensuring that students get exactly the level of support they need—whether focusing on vocabulary development, pronunciation, or multilingual learning.

Unlock the Full WILD Experience

While WILD offers free access to looking up words, a Wordsmyth subscription unlocks even more tools to enhance vocabulary learning. Subscribing gives you full access to World, Collections, interactive activities, and additional customization options that make learning even more effective and engaging.

How to Use It

1. Click on the Settings icon on the footer in WILD.
2. Check or uncheck the fields you want to display or hide.
3. Enjoy a personalized, distraction-free learning experience!

At Wordsmyth, we’re always working to enhance our tools to better support young learners. We hope this update makes WILD even more useful in your classroom or at home!

Try it out today and let us know what you think!

Our dictionary database is updated for 2025!

Wordsmyth puts great effort each year into keeping its dictionaries up to date. In 2024, we focused particularly on the expansion of the newly released Elementary Children’s Dictionary, a part of the Wordsmyth Children’s Dictionary Suite, by making sure that words used in definitions in the Intermediate Children’s Dictionary were also well-covered at the elementary level and carefully defined in that dictionary’s simple, explanatory style.

Wordsmyth’s flawlessly-designed leveled dictionaries, in combination with the Wordsmyth Vocabulary Inventory (WVI), form the basis of Wordsmyth’s vocabulary system, which is a collection of tools to support school teachers and individual language learners of all ages. In the Vocabulary Center, teachers can create personalized wordlists at the appropriate levels for their students and use these lists with vocabulary tools to help them improve their English vocabulary systematically and efficiently through both practice activities and entertaining games. In the Teacher Tools, teachers can create and assign vocabulary lessons tailored to their students’ learning goals and keep track of their students’ progress.

Simple dictionary-only site

Some English language learners and parents of young children prefer a simple, no-distraction dictionary environment just for looking up words. If this is what you are looking for too, please bookmark the following URLs:

• Comprehensive Dictionary Suite for high school students and adult English language learners
• Children’s Dictionary for elementary and middle school students
• Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD) for K-2nd grade learners

To get a complete, no-distraction dictionary environment, please subscribe to our website to remove ads. Your subscription will support us so that we may continue to provide the best educational dictionaries and vocabulary learning tools online. We appreciate your support!

Highlighting Wordsmyth”s “hidden feature”–the thesaurus!

We’re often asked, “Where’s the thesaurus in your dictionary?” What some users don’t recognize right away is that synonyms, similar words, and antonyms are matched with each sense of a word and appear directly under the appropriate definition for a particular headword. A user doesn’t need to click anywhere to get thesaurus information for the word they’ve looked up and doesn’t need to leave the page in order to see it.  In other words, the thesaurus is not a separate entity, but something built into the dictionary entries themselves. This is why we call it an “integrated thesaurus.” If it’s indeed a “hidden feature,” then it’s hiding in plain sight!

Learn more about Wordsmyth features.

The word cloud above, representing some of the look-up trends of 2024, is made up of words that people found at kids.wordsmyth after searching the internet for child-appropriate definitions. At this time of the year, we normally ask our users to participate in the selection of Word of the Year. Instead of sending your opinion to us, this year we would like to invite you, our users, to have a Word of the Year conversation with your family and friends during the holiday season.

Sometimes, people find it difficult to come up with a word if they are asked bluntly “What is your word of the year?” Here are seven engaging conversation starters to help people reflect on and discuss their Word of the Year for 2024:

1. Reflective Prompts

• “If this year, 2024, was a chapter in a book, what single word would best describe its plot?”
• “Think about a moment in 2024 that truly surprised or moved you. What word captures the emotion of that moment?”

2. Emotion-Based Approaches

• “What feeling do you hope to cultivate more of in the coming year?”
• “When you close your eyes and imagine your ideal 2025, what word comes to mind first?”

3. Interactive Techniques

• “Let’s play a word association game. I’ll start: When I say ‘2024,’ the first word that pops into your head is…”
• “If your year had a soundtrack, what would its title track be called?”

4. Storytelling Prompts

• “Tell me about a challenge you overcame this year. What word represents your journey through that experience?”
• “Share a moment of personal growth. What word symbolizes your transformation?”

5. Future-Oriented Questions

• “If you could write a one-word intention for yourself in 2025, what would it be?”
• “What word represents the person you’re becoming, not just the person you’ve been?”

6. Metaphorical Approaches

• “If your year was a weather pattern, what word would describe it?”
• “Imagine your year as a landscape. What terrain or natural phenomenon represents your experience?”

7. Creative Exercises

• Bring a collection of magazines and have people cut out words that resonate with them.
• Create word clouds together using digital tools or hand-drawn methods.
• Have people write their words on sticky notes and create a collective visual representation.

Hope you have fun with Word of the Year 2024. Write to us (support@wordsmyth.net) if you would like to share your story about an interesting conversation you had with your family or friends.

Teachers and parents, we welcome your thoughts and ideas concerning how Wordsmyth can help engage young learners in thought-provoking activities related to Word of the Year in the future.

Have a joyful holiday season and Happy Wordsmything!

Introducing our NEW dictionary: the Elementary Children’s Dictionary! 

Our NEW Elementary Children’s Dictionary, written specifically for children in grades 3 to 5, defines words in a highly readable, full-sentence style that explains word meaning to kids.  It’s full of easy-to-understand definitions for both basic and academic vocabulary, multiple meanings of headwords, and child-friendly example sentences. And it’s brimming with clear and helpful illustrations and engaging photos. 

Go ahead and explore a few entries from the Elementary Dictionary and get a taste of how this exciting new resource explains meaning to kids! Here are links to “authority,” “territory,” “devote,” “sacrifice,” and “evidence,” all words taken from our list of most looked-up entries at the children’s level.

The Children’s Dictionary Suite

The addition of the Elementary Dictionary transformed the former Wordsmyth Children’s Dictionary into a dictionary suite that contains two levels:

• Elementary Dictionary for grades 3-5
• Intermediate Dictionary for grades 6-8

You can choose either level as the default for your students.

The Children’s Dictionary Suite also contains a hidden advanced level, which satisfies the needs of the most curious and advanced students. The Wordsmyth Advanced Dictionary includes over 100,000 entries.  If a word is not found in either of the Children’s levels, the entry from the Advanced Dictionary will become available, regardless of the default level chosen for the Children’s Suite.  Inappropriate entries for children are blocked by the Parental Filter.

For your convenience, we’ve created a number of wordlists for you to use or to just get a sense of the new Children’s Dictionary Suite. The words in these lists are derived from the most looked-up words in our original Children’s Dictionary since January of this year. These links will take you to the Activities page. Simply click “Preview” to see each list of words with their definitions. Be sure to click “Show examples” to get a richer sense of what the dictionaries offer.

Special discount on our Educational Group Subscription for school districts

The Wordsmyth Educational Group Subscription is designed for educators to manage and interact with their students using Teacher Tools.  These tools allow teachers to set up their classes, create lessons with desired wordlists, and monitor their students’ vocabulary learning.

At the beginning of this new school year, we will offer a 20% discount for all school districts in the United States having more than 1000 students. Please contact us at support@wordsmyth.net by the end of October 31 to receive this discount.

The Wordsmyth team is working hard to add more new features in accordance with our users’ requests. Please contact us with your feedback, and stay tuned for future updates!

Wordsmyth Dictionary database has been updated

Wordsmyth puts great effort each year into keeping its dictionary up to date. In 2023, we focused particularly on adding words related to history, weather, and geography.  Here are a few examples of our new additions:

• cooping
• atmospheric river
• Naypyidaw

Great news for our users on mobile devices!

With this recent update, Wordsmyth websites (www.wordsmyth.net and kids.wordsmyth.net) have been optimized for use on all devices regardless of screen size. Now you can make full use of Wordsmyth on any mobile phone or tablet.  Check it out! 

If you’re not already a subscriber, please consider joining us! Subscription helps us continue our work and gives access to all our premium dictionary features, including Parental Filter, Word Parts feature, Spanish support, Grammatical Patterns, and the Word Combinations feature.  Subscription also allows for full access to WILD and higher level use of the Vocabulary Center. And don’t forget that we always welcome your feedback. It’s invaluable in helping us improve our products and services.

A new Language collection has been added to WILD 

To help teachers explain the complex concepts of parts of speech to young children, we have added a Parts of Speech collection to our other collections that focus on language concepts.  All of the entries (“part of speech,” “noun,” “verb,” “adjective,” etc.) are defined within a controlled vocabulary for children and are fully animated.  Clicking to see the full entry for each of the items in the collection will bring up more detailed definitions and example sentences to give additional support for the teaching of these concepts.

Choose Wordsmyth Educational Group Subscription to give your Pre-K to 2nd grade students full access to WILD. No Registration or login is required for students. Wordsmyth does not collect any personal information related to your students. 

1. Word of the Year writing contest submission

Word lovers, vocabulary learners, teachers, and students: it is time to start thinking about the Word of the Year 2023!

1. Choose your word.
2. Write about it.
3. Submit your word and essay!

Read more about Wordsmyth WOTY Essay contest for 2023. Find inspiration from the most searched-for words so far this year.

2. Free vocabulary resources in the Wordsmyth blog

In addition to Wordsmyth dictionaries and vocabulary tools on our website, the Wordsmyth blog is also a great resource for language learners and teachers. And it’s completely free. For example, Language Notes is one of our most popular topics. Here are a few highlights:

• In addition…. Moreover…, and furthermore…!
• Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs
• The meaning of quantity expressions

Check out other free resources in the Wordsmyth blog. For our subscribers, there are additional features that appear in individual dictionary entries that help users understand how the word they looked up is formed, what other words tend to be combined with the word, and what ways the word can be used in a sentence.

3. Hidden features in the Wordsmyth site

Wordsmyth has many hidden but very useful features for our most serious users.

If you are a curriculum director in a school district, you may be using the Wordlist Maker frequently. Did you know that you can sort your list in several different ways to help you organize it so that it best suits your purpose?

If you are a kindergarten teacher and have a child who only speaks Spanish, it may help you to know that you can use the search box to look up a Spanish Word in WILD and get the equivalent English entry.

If you are interested in using Wordsmyth to its highest potential, we provide a series of help documents to assist you. Take a look!

Thank you for using Wordsmyth!