dictionaries

Are you ever at a loss for words? Whether you're writing an essay, a letter, a business proposal, or even a novel, there are inevitably times when the right word is just out of your mind's reach. In the old days, you might pick up a dictionary or thesaurus to find a specific word, but now most people know that resources on the Internet are only a couple of clicks away. There's one program I like to use, however, that's even easier than opening your Web browser.

WordWeb is a free program that lets you highlight … Read more

Language Log notes that Apple's Dictionary program (v. 1.02 running in Tiger) gave an interesting pronunciation for "Myanmar:" It's pronounced "Burma."

I would tend to think this is an accident, but it's an interesting one. I've edited articles that required the country to be called Burma for political reasons and others that follow the international convention of calling it Myanmar. Either way, if I were manufacturing this sort of thing I might flag all the controversial geographical terms for careful review.

Another reason it is probably an accident (and not someone'… Read more

This excellent freeware program will stop you from ever fretting over a definition or antonym again. WordWeb offers hot-key lookup and offline resources in a smart package.

In addition to displaying definitions, synonyms, and antonyms, WordWeb can find sets of related words. The database has more than 150,000 root words and 120,000 synonym sets, and plenty of proper nouns, pronunciations, and usage tags. It can't tell you when you've split your infinitives or garbled your gerunds, but it gives great word accuracy on the fly.

It's often been unclear to us why anyone would want a standalone dictionary device, which seems like a lot of hardware to carry around just for text. Apparently Maxian agrees, because it recently released an upgraded version of its E900 media player with 60GB of storage to accommodate a built-in pocket dictionary.

The device also has a 4.3-inch display, USB ports, and Windows CE 5.0, according to MobileWhack, as well as support for audio and video. The dictionary combination makes particularly good sense for the Korean manufacturer, because it has already shown a penchant for cramming in … Read more

Ask.com, the fourth-ranked search engine, plans to increase its heft through an agreement to acquire Lexico Publishing Group, which operates the Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com Web sites.

Ask.com didn't release terms of the acquisition, but Lexico is "highly profitable, with high double-digit growth for a couple years," said Jim Safka, chief executive of the IAC-owned search site. And by using Ask.com's advertising relationship with Google on the Lexico sites, the company should be able to increase the ad revenue.

Adding Lexico's Web visitor count will increase Ask.com's … Read more

Google is slated to release a robust Chinese-English dictionary featuring 13 dictionaries in collaboration with Kingsoft, a producer of PC-based dictionaries, according to a Chinese blog that I will inadequately translate as "Dances With Google."

The new product will drop Thursday at 2:30 a.m. China time, according to the blog. It will include such things as menu items, which are often perilously mistranslated into English.

h/t Google Blogoscoped.

WordWeb is a handy utility that gives you the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of any given word without requiring you to go online, though it can connect to the Internet for expanded functionality. The interface should feel familiar, since it resembles many office application dictionaries. Users can manually type words into the Lookup text field, but the real strength of the program lies in the hot key function that lets users find definitions with a single keystroke.

The bottom pane offers tabs for such items as synonyms, antonyms, and related words. There are tools for changing the database to one … Read more

The inventor of the increasingly ubiquitous Pleco Chinese-English dictionary software for Palm and Windows Mobile devices said the company is "very seriously considering developing" an iPhone version.

In an interview in April's China International Business (not yet online), Michael Love tells of developing the 6-year-old product and how it's getting popular enough that many foreigners in China are buying PDAs or PDA phones just to use Pleco.

I, for one, would not have bought my Windows Mobile-running HTC Touch if not for this program, and untold dozens of my Beijing friends and acquaintances are carrying around … Read more

As so many electronics manufacturers try to cram as many technologies as possible in a single product, it's not surprising that the "convergence" bug has spread to such boring devices as electronic dictionaries. To wit: South Korea's Atree is combining a 100,000-word English-Korean dictionary with a video and MP3 player, according to Electronista.

Perhaps even more important, the combo gadget can also tune in digital TV broadcasts, which is a must for the many viewers who are hooked on Korean soap operas. For that reason alone, it wouldn't be a bad idea to expand … Read more