The Dictionary of Contemporary Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek or ANW) is a corpus-based, digital dictionary of contemporary Dutch in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Caribbean. It describes words from 1970 to the present, more or less covering the period of post-war generations of adult language users.
While the ANW is a steadily growing lexicographical database that is updated daily, it is not yet a complete dictionary containing all the words of the Dutch language. The aim of the ANW editors is to describe the lexicon of the Dutch language as accurately as possible. The current focus lies on neologisms that have become part of the Dutch lexicon. The dictionary is synchronic, which means that it describes the contemporary language, leaving out any further information on the origin of words (etymology). An exception is made for the neologisms, the etymology of which is always described as accurately as possible. These established new words can also be found in the Dictionary of New Words (Woordenboek van Nieuwe Woorden or WNW).
The ANW is a general dictionary, not specific to any region, group of people or profession.
For corpus evidence, the ANW mostly uses the Corpus of Contemporary Dutch (Corpus Hedendaags Nederlands or CHN). This corpus also includes the ANW corpus, which contains over 100 million words from all domains of society and was compiled specifically for this project.