Search for English collocations - words that are often used together

An English collocations dictionary is a specialized dictionary that lets you look up English collocations - words that are often used together. Each word entry shows the collocations of that word categorised based on different definitions, parts of speech, examples, and usage notes.

English collocations make your writing and speech sound more natural because you are using groups of words that native speakers of English normally use in their everyday communication. An English collocations dictionary sets you on this path, and it's also a good source of reference that you can always come back to.

A collocation is a word or phrase that is often used with another word or phrase, in a way that sounds correct to people who have spoken the language all their lives, but might not be expected from the meaning. A collocation can also refer to the combination of words formed when two or more words are often used together in a way that sounds correct.

In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme, meaning that it can be understood from the words that make it up. This contrasts with an idiom, where the meaning of the whole cannot be inferred from its parts, and may be completely unrelated.

There are about seven main types of collocations: adjective + noun, noun + noun (such as collective nouns), noun + verb, verb + noun, adverb + adjective, verbs + prepositional phrase (phrasal verbs), and verb + adverb.

English collocations are a natural combination of words closely affiliated with each other. Some examples are "wet paint", "make an effort", and "powerful engine". Collocations make it easier to avoid overused or ambiguous words such as "very", "nice", or "beautiful", by using a pair of words that fit the context better and that feature a more precise meaning. Skilled users of the language can produce effects such as humor by varying the normal patterns of collocation. This approach is popular with poets, journalists and advertisers.

Collocations may seem natural to native writers and speakers, but are not obvious to non-native speakers. For instance, the adjective "dark" collocates with "chocolate", but not with tea.

Some collocations are fixed. Others are more open, where different words might be used to give the same meaning, as an example "keep to" or "stick to" the rules.