Children’s Dictionary API
The Oxford Dictionaries API includes age-appropriate dictionary datasets designed for education, literacy, and assessment use cases.
These datasets provide simplified, age-appropriate definitions and curated vocabulary while using the same endpoints and workflows as the Dictionary API.
Available Children's Dictionary datasets:
American Children’s Dictionary (en-us-childs)
The American Children’s Dictionary is designed for education, assessment and literacy applications and is built using the Oxford Children’s Corpus, a collection of texts written for and by children.
It is designed to reflect realistic language exposure and prioritises clarity, suitability, and predictability over full language coverage.
Key characteristics
- ~15,000 curated headwords
- ~30,000+ entries including inflected forms
- Simplified, child-friendly definitions
- Child-appropriate example sentences
- Pronunciation respellings included
- Age-appropriate sense selection
- Excludes adult or developmentally inappropriate meanings
Why use a children’s dataset?
In children-facing applications, extensive dictionary coverage is not always desirable.
A curated dataset helps:
- Ensure age-appropriate language
- Avoid complex or sensitive meanings
- Reduce the need for filtering or moderation
- Provide consistent and predictable outputs
This is particularly important in education and assessment environments. A smaller vocabulary is an intentional feature of this approach.
How it differs from a standard dictionary
| Children’s dictionary dataset | Standard dictionary dataset |
|---|---|
| Curated vocabulary | Broad coverage |
| Age-appropriate meanings only | All meanings and contexts |
| Simplified definitions | Extensive linguistic detail |
| Designed for predictability | Designed for completeness |
How developers use it
Children’s datasets are accessed through the Dictionary API using the same endpoints.
Typical workflow
- Use Search to check if a word exists in the children’s dataset
- Retrieve dictionary content using the Words endpoint
- Treat missing results as intentional
If a word is not found, it indicates the term is either incorrect or falls outside the curated vocabulary. In children’s datasets, this acts as a safeguarding mechanism rather than a technical failure.
How to access the dataset
Use the children’s dataset language code when making requests. For example, to retrieve child-appropriate dictionary content for the word “apple”:
When to use a children’s dataset
Use this dataset when:
- Your application is child-facing
- You need predictable, age-appropriate outputs
- You want to reduce safeguarding risk
Use the standard dictionary when:
- You need full language coverage
- Your users are advanced learners
- You require extensive lexical detail
Relationship to the Dictionary API
The Children’s dataset is part of the Dictionary API capability, which means it:
- Uses the same endpoints
- Requires no additional integration
- Is selected via language code (en-us-childs)
It is possible to license both the standard and children’s dictionary together. This pairing is recommended for applications designed for a wide age range, ensuring appropriate definitions for both younger and older audiences.
→ See Dictionary API capability
Future datasets
Additional age-appropriate dictionary datasets may be introduced in other languages over time. Please get in contact if you would like to be a part of shaping future children’s dictionary releases.
FAQ
Do you offer a children’s dictionary API?
Yes. The Oxford Dictionaries API includes child-focused dictionary datasets designed for education, literacy and assessment applications.
What happens if a word is not found?
This indicates the word falls outside the curated vocabulary. This is intentional and supports predictable, age-appropriate outputs.
Can I combine this with a standard dictionary?
Yes. Educational applications can use the children’s dataset for core experiences and optionally fall back to standard dictionary data where broader coverage is required.