Comparing dictionaries

Dictionaries are a perfect tool to understand and learn a new language. There are many on-line tools to search information about new words, but anyone is better than a dictionary and we can use different ones. Well, we are going to compare four different dictionaries, searching the same word, in this case "revolution" for looking to the best one for our students.

The first is in the Oxford Dictionaries, and the search defines Revolution as "A forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system". Also it is "a dramatic and wide-reaching change un conditions, attitudes, or operation".

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it gives us a full definition and it defines revolution as: 

 A:  a sudden, radical, or complete change

 B:  a fundamental change in political organization; especially:  the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed

 C:  activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation

 D:  a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something:  a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution>

 E:  a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> <the foreign car revolution>

And according to Word Reference, revolution is a “forcible overthrow”, and then translates the word in Spanish. In this on-line dictionary also gives compound forms, which can be helpful if we are interested in a particular "revolution" as the "French Revolution", but the information given is more a translation than a definition. 

Finally, at the Learner's Dictionary defines Revolution as "the usually violent attempt by many people to end the rule of one government and star a new one".

All of these dictionaries are good enough for our class, but if I have to I probably choose the Learner's Dictionary or Merriam-Webster. The reason is, firstly that both dictionaries uses more or less the same definition, in the Learner's Dictionary we could find an easier definition, and for a class in 4th of ESO could be approximately more understandable than maybe the Oxford Dictionary. Also the Merriam-Webster had a very good definition, with many examples that could be easier for the student to understand the word. And the problem with Word Reference is that this dictionary gives a translation, and the students do not increase their knowledge for a new word.