dictionary
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Use Wolfram Alpha As A Writing Tool
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Wolfram Alpha, the “computational knowledge engine” that’s steadily updating, has a good but hidden use as a word and language tool for use while writing. In other words, it can be a smart and snappy thesaurus/dictionary/translator/anagram tool. More »
Communicate
Wordnik Shows What The Web Knows About Words
1:00AM Kevin Purdy | Dictionaries and their online counterparts can give you the straight-up meaning, and maybe sentence context, of a word you’re fuzzy on. The Wordnik site wants to show you all the conversations, pictures and other talk about your word. More »
Communicate
Dictionary.com Defines And Pronounces Words From Your iPhone
1:00AM Kevin Purdy | iPhone/iPod touch only: The Dictionary.com iPhone app does just what you might expect it to, but also offers spoken word pronunciations, words of the day, and similarly-spelled options when you’re connected to the net. More »
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Cheapest iPhone And iPod Touch Dictionary Apps
5:00AM Gina Trapani | 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. More »
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Dictionary Cleaner Manages Your Mac’s Dictionary
10:00AM Gina Trapani | 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. Dictionary Cleaner [Two AM Software via Macworld] More »
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Turn Your Nintendo DS into a Translation Dictionary
7:00AM Adam Pash | 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. Turn your Nintendo DS into a Dictionary [Street Static] More »
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Lingro Bookmarklets Define, Translate Any Web Page Word
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | 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. lingro: bookmarklet [via Download Squad] More »
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Best Online Language Tools for Word Nerds
1:00AM Gina Trapani | 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. More »
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Pronounce Tells You How to Say It
9:00PM Gina Trapani | 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. Pronounce [Firefox Add-ons via gHacks] More »
