📖 Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper

🚀 Pull English word definitions, phonetics, audio, parts of speech, examples, synonyms, antonyms.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-07 · 📊 14 fields per record · English dictionary · definitions, phonetics, audio pronunciations, POS, examples, synonyms, antonyms

The Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper pulls structured English word definitions from a free public dictionary API. Output includes the headword, phonetic transcription, audio pronunciation URL, part of speech, definition, usage example, synonyms, and antonyms. Multiple entries per word are returned (one per part of speech / definition).

The Actor accepts a word list directly or a paragraph that it tokenizes. Stop-words ("the", "a", "of") are filtered out automatically. Useful for vocabulary apps, language-learning supplements, NLP corpora, and content tools.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Language-learning apps, NLP/ML pipelines, content marketers, writers, vocabulary builders, accessibility tools	Vocabulary builder apps, language-learning supplements, NLP training datasets, blog post enrichment, content writing

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📋 What the Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper does

Five filtering workflows in a single run:

• 📋 Word list lookup. Pass a list and pull each word's definition.
• 📝 Paragraph tokenizer. Paste a paragraph; the Actor splits it and looks up each unique non-stop word.
• 🔉 Audio pronunciation. Direct audio URL when available.
• 📚 Multi-entry per word. One row per (POS, definition) pair, capped at 4 per word.
• 🔗 Synonyms + antonyms. Both arrays included per definition.

💡 Why it matters: clean, server-side filtering and fresh data on every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan up to 1,000,000.
words	string	newline list	Words to look up.
paragraph	string	""	Paragraph mode: tokenizes input into unique non-stop words.

Example: look up specific words.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "words": "hello\nlanguage\nserendipity\netymology\nalgorithm"
}

Example: extract vocabulary from a paragraph.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "paragraph": "The serendipitous discovery led to a revolutionary breakthrough in modern computing science."
}

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📊 Output

Each record contains 14 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🔤 word	string	"hello"
🔉 phonetic	string	"/həˈləʊ/"
🔉 audioUrl	string	"https://api.dictionaryapi.dev/media/.../hello.mp3"
🏷️ partOfSpeech	string	"noun"
📜 definition	string	""Hello!" or an equivalent greeting."
📋 example	string	null
🔗 synonyms	array	null
🔗 antonyms	array	null
🔗 sourceUrl	string	"https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hello"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
📚	Free dictionary. No API key, no quota for moderate use.
🔉	Audio pronunciation. Direct MP3 URLs when available.
🏷️	Multiple entries. One row per part of speech and definition.
📝	Paragraph tokenizer. Paste text and extract vocabulary automatically.
⚡	Fast. 100 lookups in under a minute.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ This Actor	$5 free credit	English dictionary	Live per run	word list or paragraph	⚡ 2 min
Manual dictionary scraping	Free	All	Live	DIY	🐢 Days
OED API	$$	Larger but paywalled	Live	Yes	🐢 Subscription
Wiktionary scraping	Free	Mixed quality	Live	DIY	🐢 Days

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Find the Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick filters and maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

📱 Language-Learning Apps Vocabulary builder lessons Word-of-the-day content Pronunciation lessons Definition tooltips	🤖 NLP + ML Train word-definition embeddings Build synonym/antonym graphs Vocabulary classification corpora POS-tagging datasets
📰 Content + Writing Blog post vocabulary checks Synonym suggestions Reading-level analysis Writing-tool integrations	♿ Accessibility Reader-mode definitions ESL/EFL tooltips Vocabulary support for dyslexia tools Plain-language rewriters

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🔌 Automating Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows.

🎓 Research and academia Computational linguistics Reproducible vocabulary snapshots Course materials ESL/EFL research	🎨 Personal and creative Personal vocabulary databases Word-of-the-day newsletters Side projects Hobby word collection
🤝 Non-profit and civic Literacy outreach Free language tools Educational accessibility Heritage-language preservation	🧪 Experimentation Train POS classifiers Prototype vocabulary chat agents Build pronunciation tools Test text-mining pipelines

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Provide a word list, or paste a paragraph. For paragraph mode, the Actor tokenizes the text and filters stop-words automatically. Each remaining word is looked up in the dictionary.

📊 How many fields per record?

14, including word, phonetic, audio URL, part of speech, definition, example, synonyms, antonyms, and source URL.

📚 How many entries per word?

Up to 4 (one per definition under the first entry). For comprehensive coverage, look up specific words via word list.

🔉 Is audio always included?

No. Audio URL is included when the dictionary has a recording, which depends on the word.

🌐 Are languages other than English supported?

No. The dictionary covers English. For other languages, contact us via the Tally form.

🔁 Can I schedule runs?

Yes. Schedule weekly to capture new vocabulary additions.

⚖️ Is this data free?

Yes. The underlying dictionary is open and free. The Actor is a thin client over the public dictionary.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free plan covers preview runs.

🆘 What if a run fails?

Apify retries transient errors. Words not in the dictionary are silently skipped.

📝 What does the paragraph mode do?

Splits your paragraph into unique words, removes common stop-words and very short words, then looks up each. Returns up to maxItems definitions.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Dictionary Word Definitions Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications
• Airbyte - Pipe data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits
• Google Drive - Export datasets to Sheets

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by dictionaryapi.dev, Wiktionary, the Wikimedia Foundation, or any cited reference work. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.