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Macworld runs down the cheapest iPhone dictionary applications; sadly, the one free option doesn't get the best review (though it's unsurprisingly the most popular). What's your favourite iPhone dictionary application? Let us know.
Mac OS X only: System preferences pane Dictionary Cleaner managers the words you add to your Mac's built-in dictionary. Add and remove words using Dictionary Cleaner's simple interface, shown. It's especially handy for removing misspelled words you added to the dictionary mistakenly, and it supports languages other than English, including French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Portugese, Polish, and Finnish. Dictionary Cleaner is a free download for Mac only.
The Street Static weblog provides a detailed step-by-step tutorial for turning your Nintendo DS into a portable translation dictionary. The process requires a free DS application called NewDictS, then takes advantage of previously mentioned StarDict's open-source dictionaries. When you're done, your Nintendo DS can translate and define English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, and more. We don't have a DS at Lifehacker HQ, so let's hear how it works for you if you give NewDictS a run.
Find yourself facing a web page loaded with words you're a little uncertain about, whether they're another language or a bit obscure? Web tool lingro offers two bookmarklet tools that make every word on a page able to pop up a definition or translation window when clicked on. There's two flavors of bookmarkleta, quick (one tooltip at a time, no toolbar) and full-featured, and users can contribute their own definitions and translations if lingro's Creative Commons-licensed sources can't fine one. A good tool to keep tucked away for those over-wrought essays friends link you to.
When you need a word's definition, translation, pronunciation, synonym, or antonym, you don't have to haul an enormous tome from the bookshelf, dust it off, and ruffle through its delicate pages like your grandparents used to do—you can just hop on the internet. Beside the standard-issue dictionary and spellchecker offered by most word processors and operating systems, there are several web-based language tools at your disposal that can get you just the information you need. Let's take a look at some of the best online language tools for word nerds and regular people who just want to say that word correctly in conversation.
All platforms with Firefox: Whether English isn't your native language or you're just tired of wondering whether you're reading that unfamiliar word in your mind correctly, the Pronounce Firefox extension is a very handy tool. With the extension installed, highlight a word on any web page, right click, and choose "Pronounce" from the context menu. Have your speakers on, because using pronunciation audio from the Merriam Webster dictionary, Pronounce will tell you how to say it (though with a US dictionary, words such as "leisure" and "router" likely won't work for the Australian tongue). But anyway, give it a try: milquetoast. Pronounce is a free download for all platforms running Firefox, and it's Firefox 3-ready.
Mac OS X Leopard only: Reader Ben points out that there's a lot more to Mac OS X's built-in Dictionary than definitions. He writes in:
I just noticed that in Dictionary.app (at least in Leopard), under to "Go" menu, there is an option labelled "Front/Back Matter." Clicking this brings up a whole slew of useful reference material, including a language guide (complete with a list of clichés to avoid), a list of the chemical elements, and the text of the Constitution. Next time I'm on a place, I think I'm going to brush up on the Bill of Rights.It's true: the Ready Reference area of Dictionary.app's Front/Back Matter is a treasure trove of good stuff for writers or anyone who wants to see if they can name the capital of all fifty states in the U.S. Thanks, Ben!
Del.icio.us user Tim Bonnemann puts the bookmarking service to clever use: to save words, slang, and phrases he wants to remember. Whenever he comes across words or an idiom or slang he doesn't know, Bonnemann looks it up on Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, or a German-to-English dictionary and tags the look-up page "dictionary" in his bookmark list. Fabulously clever way to increase your vocabulary and help yourself retain new words without too much effort. Here's Bonnemann's bookmarks tagged dictionary. Thanks, Marshall!
View the relationships between words using webapp Visual Thesaurus which displays synonyms, antonyms, adverbs, and adjectives for any particular search word. Enter a phrase in the search box. Your search term will appear in the center of the screen and additional nodes will crop up to indicate related terms. Click on any of these nodes to dig deeper and get more word associations. Mouseover any node to get a quick definition. Visual Thesaurus is a powerful tool that quickly builds vocabulary. The only downside is that the application runs for a limited amount of queries and then you're prompted to pay the $2.95/month fee. (Tip: Reopen the Java application and you can run additional searches.) Previously mentioned VisuWords does nearly the same thing (albeit slower) and is completely free.
Windows only: Freeware application Enso Words adds an always-accessible universal spell checker and dictionary to Windows. Enso Words is very similar to the much-maligned (by me, mainly) Enso Launcher, but focuses on, obviously enough, words. Highlight any text on your computer, invoke Enso Words, and type the spellcheck command for a quick spell check and autosuggest corrections. Enso Words also integrates with web searches at Answers.com to provide definitions or synonyms of either selected words or words you type into the define command. For other universal spellcheck alternatives, check out previously mentioned tinySpell and CleverKeys.
