Best Spanish dictionaries for intermediate learners

Looking for Spanish dictionaries aimed squarely at intermediate learners? These 4 picks, 2 of them free, are the ones worth your time — starting with Diccionario de la lengua española (RAE), Wiktionary and Forvo. Everything here is ordered free-first and hand-vetted for quality.

4 resources · 2 free

The official monolingual Spanish dictionary from the RAE and the 22 language academies.

Dictionaries Free IntermediateAdvanced
vocabularyreading
Details

The authority on what a Spanish word means, including regional labels showing which country a sense belongs to — the thing to reach for when a bilingual dictionary gives you three English words and no way to choose. Free, ad-free and continuously updated online. Definitions are written for native speakers in dense academic Spanish, so it is not a beginner tool; use SpanishDict until monolingual definitions stop being harder than the word itself.

Wiktionary

Multi-language

Free multilingual dictionary with etymologies, IPA and full conjugation tables.

DictionariesWebsites Free BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
vocabularygrammarpronunciation
Details

Over 100 language editions; the English edition alone has millions of entries covering hundreds of languages, with IPA, declension and conjugation tables, etymologies and usage notes that commercial apps usually paywall. The etymology sections are quietly one of the best vocabulary-retention tools available. Being crowd-sourced, coverage is uneven and rare entries can be wrong — cross-check anything unusual against a native-language dictionary.

Forvo

Multi-language

Crowd-sourced pronunciations of nearly any word by native speakers.

DictionariesTools Freemium BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
pronunciationlistening
Details

Around 6 million words recorded by native speakers across 400+ languages, usually with several accents per word so you can hear regional variation. Free to search on the site; the paid tiers are aimed at API users and bulk audio downloads. Indispensable for names, place names and anything a TTS voice would mangle — many learners wire it directly into Anki for card audio.

The default English–Spanish dictionary, with the best free conjugation tables online.

DictionariesWebsitesTools Freemium BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
vocabularygrammarreading
Details

Every entry gives multiple translations with example sentences, regional labels and audio from both Spain and Latin America, and the conjugator covers every tense of any verb you type. The free tier is genuinely enough for daily lookups; Premium mostly adds ad removal and extra lessons. Its own grammar articles are clear but shallow — fine for a quick answer, not a substitute for a real course.