Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners

The Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (MEDAL) was published by Macmillan Education from 2002 until 2023. This advanced learner’s dictionary aimed to provide clear definitions using a controlled vocabulary, accompanied by example sentences and grammatical collocation information. MEDAL introduced several innovative features: Collocation Boxes: Lists of high-frequency collocates identified through Sketch Engine software. Word Frequency Information: The most common 7,500 English words were highlighted in red and categorized into three frequency bands, reflecting Zipf’s law that a small number of words account for a large portion of texts. Metaphor Boxes: These illustrated how vocabulary for expressing common concepts often aligns with metaphorical frameworks, based on George Lakoff’s theories. Academic Writing Guidance: A 50-page section was dedicated to helping learners improve their academic writing skills, developed in collaboration with the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics in Belgium. Additionally, MEDAL was available as an electronic dictionary, which allowed for regular updates and included a thesaurus function. The online version featured a blog discussing language issues and an Open Dictionary where users could submit new words. However, both the electronic dictionary and the blog were closed on June 30, 2023