Built to be read by everyone

Conformance

The Last Dictionary is designed to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at level AAA, with the exceptions listed below. Every text colour has at least a 7:1 contrast ratio against its background in both the light and dark themes, no text is smaller than 14 pixels, body text is 18 pixels with generous line spacing, and standalone controls are at least 44 by 44 pixels.

What the site does

• Keyboard. Everything works without a mouse. The search opens with ⌘K or Ctrl+K and is navigated with the arrow keys; the ← and → keys move between neighboring words on an entry page. Focus is always visible.
• Single-key shortcuts can be turned off. The / shortcut and the arrow keys can be switched off in the footer, for people who use speech input or who prefer not to have them.
• Screen readers. Pages use landmarks and headings; lists are lists; the part of speech and labels are spelled out; cross-links inside a definition carry the plain-words definition of the word they point to, so it is announced on focus; filter and search result counts are announced as they change.
• Themes and contrast. Light, dark and system themes; a higher-contrast palette when the system asks for more contrast; Windows High Contrast and other forced-colour modes keep the chart, the level meter and selected rows visible.
• Zoom and spacing. The layout reflows to 320 pixels wide and to 400% zoom without horizontal scrolling, and text can be given wider line, letter and word spacing without anything being cut off.
• Motion. Animations are removed when the system prefers reduced motion. Nothing flashes, autoplays or moves on its own.
• Plain words first. Every entry opens with a definition anyone can follow before the precise one. Unusual terms are linked to their own entries, and abbreviations are explained on the About page.
• Other languages. Names in other scripts, such as Chinese or Russian, are marked with their language so screen readers switch voice.

Documented exceptions

• Target size (2.5.5, AAA). Dense indexes such as the A–Z letter pages and the timeline years list hundreds of words per page. Their links are spaced to the AA requirement (2.5.8) rather than enlarged to 44 pixels each, which would make the pages several times longer and harder to scan. Every one of those words can also be reached through the search, whose results are large targets. On small screens the bars of the decade chart are narrower than 44 pixels too; the timeline page lists the same decades as full-size links.
• Reading level (3.1.5, AAA). The precise definitions are technical by nature. The plain-words line at the top of every entry is the lower-reading-level version.
• Formulas. Mathematical formulas are rendered as MathML, which most screen readers now read, but some older ones do not.

How it was tested

Automated checks run on every change: the colour palette is checked for 7:1 contrast in both themes, and axe-core runs with the WCAG 2.2 A, AA and AAA rule sets on every kind of page, in light and dark themes, on desktop and phone sizes, including the open search dialog. A change that introduces a violation cannot be merged. Keyboard navigation, screen reader output, zoom, text spacing, reduced motion and forced colours were checked by hand. Last full review: 20 October 2026.

Tell us

If something on this site does not work for you, please open an issue on GitHub, or edit the page directly; the site and every entry are open source. We aim to answer within a week.