http://dictionary.reference.com/

Started by I*heart*English, October 18, 2004, 09:53:02 PM

I cannot stress enough how wonderful this website is.  Not only does it have correct spelling, pronunciation, AND definitions, but also a thesaurus function.  A thesaurus is absolutely invaluable when it comes to writing sdescs as well as mdescs to give them variety and flavor, and it gives you plenty of other adjectives and adverbs to use in emotes to make them more colorful and less repetitive.

http://dictionary.reference.com/  Use it!

Yeah, dictionary.com has been my homepage for about 2 years now.
"A man's reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is."

Don't overdo it.
Quote from: Shoka Windrunner on April 16, 2008, 10:34:00 AM
Arm is evil.  And I love it.  It's like the softest, cuddliest, happy smelling teddy bear in the world, except it is stuffed with meth needles that inject you everytime

It has.
"A man's reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is."


The problem with a spellchecker, is that it doesn't know that you mean "you're" when you type "your." (That's just one example; there are dozens.) Both are spelled correctly. Each means something different.

Using a dictionary rather than a spellchecker will teach you what the word means, so you can be sure you're using the right one.

I know this works with Firefox. Not sure about other browsers.

Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks

Add a new bookmark.

Name it whatever you want.

Under 'location' put: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s

Under keyword put 'dict' (or some other easy to remember and short word).

Hit okay.

Now you can go to the address bar and type 'dict supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' and it will look that word up for you. Very quick and easy.


http://www.webster.com

No sign-up,. It is free. Better than your link, and you can listen sound files freely.
Quote from: Sir DiealotHow 'bout, instead of stopping app special apps, because some people are morons, you just stop those accounts from Special Apping? It would stop the mongoloids from constantly bugging you...

Delirium, I do think I could marry you alone for that suggestion. Thanks This rocks!
Quote from: roughneck on October 13, 2018, 10:06:26 AM
Armageddon is best when it's actually harsh and brutal, not when we're only pretending that it is.

Delirium rocks, and that tip should make it into the top three of mudding tools!
Another great site which I learned about on this board, and how to use it with that deliristic tip:
http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=%s&typeofrhyme=rel&org1=syl&org2=l
synonyms, definitions, examples, all you need :)

One more: a webster gateway if you need more than one opinion:
http://www.bennetyee.org/http_webster.cgi?method=exact&isindex=%s&db=*

%s already included - you only need to add the shortcut ;-) Those without firefox can use the base URLs:
http://www.rhymezone.com/
http://www.bennetyee.org/

Quo

PS: my favourite tool was the webster supllied with legendary NeXTStep. It would answer requests sent to it by telnet from the outside, so I had a definition in my mudclient for a command: def <word> and get the answer right in my mudding window. I loved it, but I can't find one reachable on the net any more, the local NeXT has been taken down some time ago.
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      .',  ||||   `/( e\
  -==~-'`-Xm````-mr' `-_\    Join the Save the Gurth campaign! [/code]

I've been using  for quite a while, too, having switched from Merriam-Webster because it wasn't comprehesive enough. They did have a bigger, stuffier variant as well, called Merriam-Webster Unabridged, but that one charged you for the service of perusing it. Fucking capitalist pricks...

Note that you can find Unabridged entries in dictionary.reference.com, which is somewhat of a search engine, in that it plucks entries from other dictionaries and shows them in order.

Anyway, I'll say this straight: if you want to make beautiful emotes, ignore the thesaurus, or at least, check it out to learn some new words, but don't use them straight off. Replacing one word with another that means exactly the same thing is called a metonymy. It's a very simple and primitive form of metaphor, which will forfeit any benefit writing could have on your own mind. Rather than simply changing a word, try to also see what expressions could represent or hint at its meaning, and how you can arrange the words to make it look more interesting/prettier. You might, for instance, take "the moon" and look it up in the thesaurus, but you won't find "that big wad of green cheese you can make out through the smog", or "the night sky's guardian" or "the white maiden Lirathu" or whatever else you fancy. Don't take shortcuts - creative writing can reshape your mind into a wonderous contraption, so long as it's actually creative.

Oh, and don't use sentences like "<something happens> as <something happens>" a lot. That's just lazy. See how the two things correlate, and write that.


Quote from: "Cavus"http://www.webster.com

No sign-up,. It is free. Better than your link, and you can listen sound files freely.

Dictionary.com has sound files, and last time I checked it's free.
Quote from: AnaelYou know what I love about the word panic?  In Czech, it's the word for "male virgin".


(This is an excerpt from a real conversation I recently had.  Censored of course...)

Q: you know dictionary.com will someday have definitive control over the entire english language
Tamarin: unless we stop using it
Q: its too convenient
Tamarin: true
Q: i can't stop using it
Tamarin: me neither
quote="mansa"]emote pees in your bum[/quote]

People with zMUD can also use this handy trick:

Create an alias, give it a nice name, and make its command:
"#url http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%1".

Now when you use this alias (and a thesaurus counterpart if you feel like it), you will conveniently be able to look up words without really leaving your client window.  Lookupword dapper - woohoo!


Also, people running Windows or Mac OS can just download CleverKeys.
It is a tiny program that lets you bind some keys so that you can lookup a highlighted word at the comfort of Ctrl+L.
Quote from: Vesperas...You have to ask yourself... do you love your PC more than you love its contribution to the game?

Quote from: "Seethe"Very interesting take on a thesaurus.

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online/

That is a very interesting site...  I actually interviewed a guy once who claimed to have invented that tree technology (something Xerox calls a hyperbolic tree, if I remember rightly)  

http://www.xrce.xerox.com/sys/htree/

Amusingly, this implementation seems to be cleaner and more fun than Xerox'

Didn't xerox invent the GUI (Graphical user interface) along with the mouse?

They're crazy inventing-and-not-capitalizing-machines over there.

I thought apple did that...
quote="mansa"]emote pees in your bum[/quote]

Quote from: "Tamarin"I thought apple did that...

Xerox PARC was the first interface to make use of the concept of task "windows."

That's cool.  I would have never figured it was xerox.
quote="mansa"]emote pees in your bum[/quote]

I would have thought Xerox copied someone else.
So if you're tired of the same old story
Oh, turn some pages. - "Roll with the Changes," REO Speedwagon

Quote from: "flurry"I would have thought Xerox copied someone else.

*rimshot*

ba dum bum...CHING
quote="mansa"]emote pees in your bum[/quote]

That visual thing is great. Thank you.
Quote from: Sir DiealotHow 'bout, instead of stopping app special apps, because some people are morons, you just stop those accounts from Special Apping? It would stop the mongoloids from constantly bugging you...

It also has a translator. Did somebody say that already?
I've been away from Zalanthas for some time, but I still think you all are kank shit. Don't worry, I'll come back and fix it up. By the way, has anyone found, like, water? This desert is getting old.

Have AIM? Try adding SmarterChild to your buddies, its a computer basically, tells you weather and stuff, you can do manicdotes, play hangman, talk to it, "define words" spellcheck things, etc.. Its amazing

Again add SmarterChild

To check a definition just type define "word"


p.s. along with that, it does translations and more!

Heh..
For FantasyWriter:
Never again will I be a fool, I will from now on, wrap my tool.