Using the Oxford Collocations Dictionary

What is collocation?

Collocation is the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing. For example, in English you say strong wind but heavy rain. It would not be normal to say heavy wind or strong rain. And whilst all four of these words would be recognized by a learner at pre-intermediate or even elementary level, it takes a greater degree of competence with the language to combine them correctly in productive use.

Why is collocation important?

Collocation runs through the whole of the English language. No piece of natural spoken or written English is totally free of collocation. For the student, choosing the right collocation will make his or her speech and writing sound much more natural, more native-speaker-like, even when basic intelligibility does not seem to be at issue. A student who talks about strong rain may make himself or herself understood, but it requires more effort on the part of the listener and ultimately creates a barrier to communication. Poor collocation in exams is also likely to lead to lower marks.

But, perhaps even more importantly than this, language that is collocationally rich is also more precise. This is because most single words in the English language – especially the more common words – embrace a whole range of meanings, some quite distinct, and some that shade into each other by degrees. The precise meaning in any context is determined by that context: by the words that surround and combine with the core word – by collocation. A student who chooses the best collocation will express himself or herself much more clearly and be able to convey not just a general meaning, but something more precise. Compare, for example, the following two sentences:

This is a good book and contains a lot of interesting details.

This is a fascinating book and contains a wealth of historical detail.

Both sentences are perfectly ‘correct’ in terms of grammar and vocabulary, but which communicates more? Clearly, the second, which is also more likely to engage the reader with its better style.

Why use a Collocations Dictionary?

A normal dictionary, whether monolingual or bilingual, splits up meaning into individual words; it has a lot of power in dissecting the meaning of a text. Its power is more limited when it comes to constructing texts. Good learners’ dictionaries give as much help as they can with usage, with grammar patterns clearly explained, register labels and example sentences showing words in context. Modern dictionaries are increasingly giving attention to collocation. But they are still hampered by trying to provide a whole range of information about any word besides its collocations. A collocational dictionary doesn’t have to generalize to the same extent: it covers the entire language (or a large part of it!) on a word by word, collocation by collocation basis. It manages this by not attempting to account for every possible utterance, only for what is most typical.

By covering the language systematically from A-Z, a collocations dictionary allows students to build up their own collocational competence on a ‘need-to-know’ basis, starting from the words they already know – or know in part.

Which collocations are included in this dictionary?

The approach taken to this question was pragmatic, rather than theoretical. The questions asked were: is this a typical use of language? Might a student of English want to express this idea? Would they look up this entry to find out how? The aim was to give the full range of collocation – from the fairly weak (see a movie, an enjoyable experience, extremely complicated), through the medium-strength (see a doctor, direct equivalent, highly intelligent) to the strongest and most restricted (see reason, burning ambition, blindingly obvious) – for around 9,000 headwords.

Totally free combinations are excluded and so, for the most part, are idioms. Exceptions to this rule are idioms that are only partly idiomatic. An idiom like not see the wood for the trees has nothing to do with wood or trees, and is therefore excluded; but drive a hard bargain is very much about bargaining, even if the expression as a whole can be considered to be idiomatic.

Typical use of language

The first question (Is this a typical use of language?) required that all the collocations be drawn from reliable data. The main source used was the Oxford English Corpus. A corpus is a collection of texts of written or spoken language stored in electronic form. It provides us with the evidence of how language is used in real situations, which we use as the basis for our dictionary entries. The Oxford English Corpus is a database of almost two billion words of text in English taken from up-to-date sources from around the world, ensuring that we have the most accurate information about word behaviour possible.

By analysing the corpus and using special software, we can see words in context and find out how they combine with other words. Compilers of the dictionary were able to check how frequently any given combination occurred, in how many (and what kind of) sources, and in what particular contexts. The corpus also helped in the preparation of example sentences, most of which were based on the authentic texts included in the corpus, with minor modifications to make them more accessible (but without, of course, altering any collocations).

A productive dictionary

The second question asked (Might a student of English want to express this idea?) led to a focus on current English: language that students not only need to understand but can be expected to reproduce. Consideration was given to the kind of texts that students might wish to write. Primary attention was given to what might be called ‘moderately formal language’ – the language of essay and report writing, and formal letters – treating all subjects – business, science, history, sport, etc. at the level of the educated non-specialist. In addition, the dictionary includes some of the most important collocations from some specialist areas, such as law, medicine, politics, current affairs and sport; collocations from fiction, particularly useful in treating more personal subjects such as feelings and relationships; and informal collocations and those very frequent in spoken language and Internet communication (blogs, emails, etc.). Technical, informal and journalistic uses are labelled as such.

Looking up a collocation in the dictionary

The third question asked (Would a student look up this entry to find this expression?) led to the exclusion of noun collocates from verb and adjective entries. When framing their ideas, people generally start from a noun. You might think of rain and want to know which adjective best describes rain when a lot falls in a short time. You would be unlikely to start with the adjective heavy and wonder what you could describe with it (rain, breathing, damage, gunfire?). Similarly, you might be looking for the verb to use when you do what you need to do in response to a challenge. But you would not choose meet and then choose what to meet (a challenge, an acquaintance, your death, the expense).

Types of combination

The dictionary covers the following types of word combination:

Noun entries:

• adjective + noun: bright/harsh/intense/strong light
• quantifier + noun (... of): a beam/ray of light
• verb + noun: cast/emit/give/provide/shed light
• noun + verb: light gleams/glows/shines
• noun + noun: a light source
• preposition + noun: by the light of the moon
• noun + preposition: the light from the window

Verb entries:

• adverb + verb: choose carefully
• verb + verb: be free to choose
• verb + preposition: choose between two things

Adjective entries:

• verb + adjective: make/keep/declare sth safe
• adverb + adjective: perfectly/not entirely/environmentally safe
• adjective + preposition: safe from attack

In addition, short phrases including the headword are included: the speed of light, pick and choose, safe and sound.

Sets of words

Most of the collocations in the dictionary can be called ‘word collocations’, that is, these are the precise words that combine with each other: small fortune cannot be changed to little fortune, even though small and little would seem to be synonymous. There is another area of collocation that might be called ‘category collocation’, where a word can combine with any word from a readily definable set. This set may be quite large, but its members are predictable, because they are all words for nationalities, or measurements of time, for example. At the entry for walk, one of the groups of collocates is given as three-minute, five minutes’, etc.: the ‘etc.’ is to indicate that any number may be substituted for ‘three’ or ‘five’ in these expressions. At the entry for passport, the collocates given include Canadian, Mexican, Swiss, etc., indicating that any nationality may be used with passport.

Modifiers

With adjectives, often a wide range of modifying adverbs can be used. To indicate that the adjective can be used with a full range of modifiers, the adverbs section gives extremely, fairly, very, etc. The main modifiers which are used in this way are:

• extremely
• fairly
• pretty
• quite
• rather
• really
• somewhat
• very

Quite is used especially in British English, but is also used in American English, where the meaning is similar to ‘very’. Somewhat is used especially in American English. Rather is used in British English more than in American English. Pretty is mainly used informally in both British and American English.

Another group of modifiers is indicated by a little, slightly, etc.:

• a bit
• a little
• slightly

A bit is often informal and is used especially in British English.

Defined sets

It also happens that certain sets of words share all or most of their collocations. This is particularly true of very strictly defined sets such as days of the week, months and points of the compass, but it also applies to slightly less rigid, but still limited sets such as currencies, weights and measures, and meals. In order to show how these collocations are shared by a number of headwords, the dictionary includes usage notes, each treating the collocations of a particular set. A full list of the usage notes and where they may be found is given here.

The 9,000 headwords include most of the commonest words in the language that upper-intermediate students will already know, plus some words that they will start to encounter as they move to a more advanced level of English. Some very common words – such as the verbs make and do – do not merit entries of their own. This is because these verbs have no real collocates of their own. They themselves are the collocates of lots of nouns, and appear in the entries for those nouns. There are also Study pages addressing this notorious area of difficulty.

How to use this dictionary

This dictionary is intended for productive use, most typically for help with writing. The collocations in each entry are divided according to part of speech; within each part of speech section they are grouped according to meaning or category. For example, at the entry for pollution, avoid, eliminate and prevent are roughly synonymous, as are combat, control, fight and tackle, and so on. The groups are arranged in an order that tries to be as intuitive as possible: in this case from the ‘strongest’ form of action (avoid/eliminate/prevent) to the ‘mildest’ (monitor). Many collocate groups have illustrative examples showing one or more of the collocations in context.

Because this is a type of dictionary that may be totally new to many students, it is recommended that users familiarize themselves with how the dictionary works by working through some of the exercises in the Study pages. The first of these aims to show the overall concept of the dictionary by looking at a single entry (idea) in some detail. The next few exercises take users systematically through the different sections of the entries for nouns, verbs and adjectives. Two pages of exercises get students thinking about the common verbs make, do, have, give and take; and the remaining exercises range across the whole dictionary, testing collocations linked to various themes, including politics, jobs and money.

British and American English

The dictionary includes the most frequent and useful British and American collocates for the 9,000 British and American headwords. Where appropriate, headwords, meanings and collocations are labelled to show that they are used only, or especially, in one variety of English or the other. The labels used are:

• North American English
• British English
• especially North American English
• especially British English

The labels especially North American English and especially British English indicate that the headword or collocation is used especially in that variety. It may be used in the other variety, but is significantly less frequent. Other collocations may be more frequently used to express the same idea, or it may have a special meaning in one variety but not in the other.

For example, the headword pavement is labelled British English. All the collocates given at this entry are also therefore to be understood as British English. A cross-reference to sidewalk indicates the American equivalent of the headword.

A word may be labelled as British English or American English, but may include some collocations which are actually found in both varieties. An example is the entry shop, which is labelled especially British English. Gift shop, pet shop and souvenir shop, however, are used in American English as well as British English, so these are labelled British English, North American English.

These labels always refer to the preceding collocate only. The labels all British English, all North American English, etc. and both British English, both North American English, etc. indicate that all or both of the collocations in that group are British English or American English.

Example sentences may also be followed by a British English or North American English label where that particular usage is more restricted than the collocate itself is.

Where a collocate has different spellings in British and American English it is given as a slashed alternative: colour/color.

Some collocations are used far more frequently in British or American English simply because they refer to institutions that are particular to the UK or the US. High schools are found in the US, not normally in the UK; but the term may be used in British English to refer to this type of US school. Collocates like this are labelled in the UK or in the US. Collocates referring to particular sports, etc. that are more popular in one country than another are labelled in cricket, in baseball, etc., but are not given a geographical label.

Other information in this dictionary

The focus of this dictionary is very much on collocation. In order to make the collocational information as comprehensive and accessible as possible, non-collocational information has largely been excluded. Definitions of headwords are given only insofar as they are necessary to distinguish different senses of the same word, when they have different collocations and need to be treated separately. These are not full definitions, but rather ‘sense discriminators’, just detailed enough to allow the senses to be distinguished.

Formal and informal

Register information (whether a word is formal or informal) is given when any pair of words in combination takes on a different register from the two words separately. Examples would be do drugs (informal) – though neither do nor drugs is informal in itself – or hear a lecture (formal). Collocations are also labelled if they belong to a particular field of language such as law or medicine. For a full list of the usage labels used in our dictionaries, see here. In addition to these labels, more specific usage restrictions such as in football or used in journalism are given in brackets.

Figurative use

The most frequent usage label used in the dictionary is figurative. It is a feature of English that when the meaning of a word is extended and used in a non-literal sense, the collocations of the literal sense are often carried over: that is, both literal and figurative meanings of a word may share collocations. The dictionary indicates where this is so: for example, at way, the collocation lose is given, followed by the examples: She lost her way in the fog and This project seems to have lost its way (figurative). This shows that lose your way can be used in both a literal and a figurative way. With strong collocations that are slightly idiomatic, a short explanation of the meaning may be given. For example, at bargain, the phrase drive a hard bargain has the gloss (= force somebody to agree to the arrangement that is best for you).

Special pages

The dictionary also includes ten Special pages on different topics such as business, meetings and sport. These pull together collocations from the different topics and can be used as the basis for topic work in class, or for brainstorming vocabulary for an essay, for example. A full list of Special pages is given here.

It is hoped that this dictionary will be of use not only to students of English of upper-intermediate level and above, but also to teachers (both non-native speaker and native-speaker teachers, looking for ways to present collocations to their students), translators, academics, business people, and all who wish to write fluent and idiomatic English. The whole dictionary has been designed to be accessible, and (we hope) enjoyable to use.