
Google Dictionary - chanux
http://www.google.com/dictionary
======
mdemare
Good dictionaries are hand-compiled by experienced lexicographers. Not
Google's strength, to put it mildly.

What Google would be extremely good at is creating corpora for all these
languages. An example of an excellent Spanish corpus is the following:
<http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/x.asp>

~~~
ntoshev
Good encyclopedias are compiled by experienced... oh wait.

No idea if this specific effort is any good, but Google have done a lot of
interesting things with language already.

~~~
jacobolus
Good encyclopedias are written by large numbers of individual contributors
with expertise in specialized fields, who barely get paid for their efforts,
most of the money from encyclopedias going to pay for the organization,
compilation, editing, etc. It turns out that the latter can now be much more
effectively decentralized than ever before, and contributors no longer need to
be explicitly recruited. (which is certainly not to say that Wikipedia isn’t
dramatically different from other encyclopedias)

Dictionaries are still compiled by experienced lexicographers.

* * *

Incidentally, does anyone know of a good online thesaurus, now that
thesaurus.com is no longer using decent source material (after being hit with
a lawsuit for essentially stealing it). All the ones online seem to use
_Roget’s II_ , which is vastly inferior to the original Roget’s.

~~~
derefr
It depends on how we're [re]defining "dictionary." A dictionary has the
_potential_ to be a set of pairs of words, and any of the following:

1\. how the word is used,

2\. what the consensus is on how the word is used,

3\. what the consensus is on how we 'should' use the word,

4\. what the consensus of people who are, by consensus, considered
"experienced lexicographers", is, on how the word is used,

5\. and what the consensus of people who are, by consensus, considered
"experienced lexicographers," is, on how the word 'should' be used.

Google is trying the first approach, defining words by trying to learn them
itself, like a person who naturally "absorbs" a word by hearing it used in the
right context enough. The second is how people usually learn words, by asking
others what they mean when they hear them. The third is prescriptivism, but
ruled by the majority: words such as "ur" 'should' be valid, and so on, in the
majority's opinion. The forth is what dictionaries try to contain, and the
fifth is what books of "advice" like Strunk and White contain. All are
different, though some overlap (as, e.g., 3 may be influenced by 5.)

~~~
mdemare
I don't see how Google does that. I see Google collecting online all the
online dictionaries they can find, and uniting them under a single interface,
but I haven't found any dictionaries where they have contributed content.

I think they _should_ do that, though.

~~~
derefr
You mean like Wiktionary?

------
tszyn
It's great that they used definitions from the Collins COBUILD Advanced
Learner's English Dictionary (<http://www.antimoon.com/how/cobuild-
review.htm>). Collins was the pioneer of corpus-based full-sentence
definitions back in the 90s. Nowadays, there are better choices for an English
learner (e.g. the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English), but COBUILD is
still miles ahead of open projects like Wiktionary.

Overall, good news for English learners in the short term, but not so much in
the long run (who's going to make dictionaries if you can no longer sell them
for money?).

~~~
pasbesoin
On the off chance, does anyone have recommendations for similar resources in
German, French, and/or Spanish?

~~~
algorias
For translations to/from German from/to (English, Spanish, etc), dict.leo.org
is pretty decent. Not sure that's what you're looking for.

~~~
pasbesoin
Thanks for the recommendation. I've used LEO. However, I was looking for
something more comprehensive, (perhaps more authoritative), and also in a more
readable format.

------
psyklic
I've always typed "define: <word>", but this seems to be superior.

~~~
sofal
It would be nice if there were a way to get straight to it from a regular
search though. It is still more convenient for me (in Firefox) to hit
Command+k and type "define:".

Also, it'd be nice if Google could just read my mind instead of me having to
laboriously type in search queries.

~~~
pvandehaar
1\. open the link

2\. right-click on the search box, select "add a keyword for this search"

3\. for "keyword: " type "def" , for "name: " type "Google Dictionary Search"

Now in your address bar, type "def uniquity"

While you're at it, replace all your search engines with this method and
remove your search box. optional: install tiny-menu, move everything from your
navigation-toolbar to your top toolbar, hide navigation-bar.

~~~
sofal
That sounds awesome, but it doesn't work for me. I did all that and yet FF
just does an "I'm feeling lucky" for whatever I type in.

Edit: It only works when I add keywords to the already installed search
engines.

~~~
sofal
Ignore the above comment. I must have been up way too late last night. Thanks
for that piece of info.

------
rabidgnat
For some test English words, it doesn't look any better than Wiktionary:

<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pants>
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ostensibly>

[http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&...](http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&q=ostensibly&hl=en)
[http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&...](http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&q=pants&hl=en)

As a plus, Wiktionary lets you download their data :). If Google opens this
up, then it could get pretty interesting

~~~
furyg3
I'm learning Dutch, and it's even worse. Really basic, commonly used words
aren't there.

Good dictionaries are _hard_ to build. At the same time, the web isn't
constrained by space the same way a physical book is, which means that a
result should have even more information. You shouldn't accept an online
dictionary that gives you _only_ one simple usage of a word.

A good dictionary will list the short & sweet definition, alternative
definitions, forms, example usages, pronunciation, history, usages in various
situations/jargon, idioms, and word history. This dictionary just points you
to a wiki.

~~~
mdemare
I'm Dutch, and I use the electronic Van Dale Groot Woordenboek (€99). Google
will give you wiktionary for the word "slim" (
<http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim> )

Van Dale gives you this: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/381493/van_dale_slim.jpeg>

~~~
furyg3
You should really check out this website, which I love with all my Dutch-
learning heart.

<http://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/>

"Slim" isn't a very good example for that dictionary, but check out something
with a lot of possible EN-NL translations, usages, and jargon.

[http://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/vertalen.php?src=NL&des=EN...](http://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/vertalen.php?src=NL&des=EN&woord=verbinding)

That site refers you to "Babylon 8", another installable dictionary which just
came out with a Mac version. I'm not sure if it returns the same results as
the site, but if it does I'd say it's a pretty good competitor for the VDGW
(which is truly fantastic, itself).

------
matt1
_"hackers plural

1\. A computer hacker is someone who tries to break into computer systems,
especially in order to get secret information.

2\. A computer hacker is someone who uses a computer a lot, especially so much
that they have no time to do anything else."_

[http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en%7Cen&q=hack...](http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en%7Cen&q=hacker&hl=en&aq=f)

I guess we're number two?

~~~
CWuestefeld
Tried the first word that randomly popped into my head.

 _panoply /p'ænəpli/ Synonyms: noun: armour, armor_

Huh? Since when are "panoply" and "armor" synonyms?

~~~
bmj
From dictionary.com:

 _1\. a wide-ranging and impressive array or display: the dazzling panoply of
the maharaja's procession; the panoply of European history.

2\. a complete suit of armor.

3\. a protective covering.

4\. full ceremonial attire or paraphernalia; special dress and equipment._

------
rajeshrajappan
Now we need an API for this, please!

~~~
tfh
I would be almost useless without API..

~~~
mseebach
Don't be so hard on yourself, I'm sure a lot of nice people like your regular
UI just fine.

------
ams6110
Mac OS X has an excellent dictionary app, highlight any word, and from the app
menu select Services -> Look Up in Dictionary. Even works when you're offline
:-)

Seems to me this used to be bound to a keyboard shortcut back in the NEXTSTEP
OS, though it's possible to add one in the current Mac OS.

~~~
nixme
Or even better: hold down _Ctrl-Cmd-D_ and hover over any word.

Works in Cocoa apps that use native text controls -- Safari, Mail, etc. all
work.

------
dave_au
I tried "the" first, and then "friend".

It looks like it's generated from statistics plus a language model plus the
contents of the web (possibly and/or google books).

If that's the goal it looks like they're doing some great work. If being a
dictionary is the goal it looks like there are currently better solutions.

However a) give it a few years and b) if they're able to extract that amount
of information from their corpus, just imagine how that could be applied to a
search engine - I get the feeling that they're showing their hand a little in
their progress on the natural language processing front.

If that's so then I can't wait to see them apply it to search.

~~~
mdemare
What you're seeing for English is the Collins Cobuild dictionary.

------
drtse4
Clean interface and ability to save favorite words, nice but after a few tests
i'm not too confident in the quality of the translation (e.g. some related
phrases with eng<->ita are just wrong). A good start,btw.

------
mojuba
I wish there was Latin too.

------
SlyShy
You could always get this exact functionality by searching for "define: word".
But still, I like that they have a wrapper interface now.

For times when my word choice matters greatly I still refer to the _Oxford
English Dictionary_ , however. As someone else noted, there's a far cry
between Google Dictionary and a hand-compiled one.

------
raffi
I recommend taking a look at <http://www.wordnik.com>. It's a startup launched
by an experienced dictionary editor (sorry, Erin, I don't know what else to
refer to the profession as:)) and they have an API as well.

------
arvidj
I've been using ninjawords[1] for awhile now. Looks like they have pretty
similar source material, but ninjawords actually feels much faster.

[1] <http://ninjawords.com/>

------
benhoyt
That's great! I've usually used answers.com or dictionary.com, but they're
slow and cluttered compared to this. Also, answers.com often gives you a
Wikipedia entry when you want a simple dictionary definition.

~~~
kwamenum86
This still seems a bit cluttered to me and as usual it doesn't even look like
the visual design was given any though below the page header.

~~~
minalecs
how is this cluttered when there is basically one drop down, one text input,
and one button. Go to homepage of answers.com and they got a bunch of crap on
it.

------
tokenadult
[http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&...](http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&q=buffalo)

This one still needs some work.

~~~
polynomial
All things considered, it could have been a lot worse:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo)

------
mdemare
The interface is uniform, but the quality is highly variable. There are some
excellent electronics dictionaries on the market, but generally not for free
on the web.

------
tengkahwee
It would be great if "define: WORD" returns the definitions. It appears to be
more better than Wordnetweb's results.

~~~
rajeshrajappan
You can actually do that from the Google search box

~~~
gojomo
But, a query of [define:WORD] only shows 'web definitions' for WORD. It
doesn't show these new dictionary definitions, and it doesn't even include the
handy top-right-header link to dictionary definitions that a normal query
does!

------
hasanove
i can't help but wonder, if anyone else except from me was using it for at
least last few weeks? otherwise, it means i had breaking news at hands without
realizing it :(

~~~
litewulf
Someone pointed it out to me at least a month ago as well. I'm not sure why it
is getting press now...

Maybe this is just the power of marketing? I imagine usage was fairly low
before people started talking about it.

~~~
hasanove
i believe this is because they started including this in some search results
and it got attention...

anyway, at least i don't feel bad anymore, thanks :-))

------
st3fan
This is pretty cool.. Hope they make a mobile version soon.

------
compay
I hope an Android client is in the works.

------
brianobush
no japanese? curious to know why.

~~~
j1o1h1n
日本語わ、むぞかしですね。。。

~~~
litewulf
日本語は actually.

Pronounced wa, but spelled ha.

------
nearestneighbor
needs audio

~~~
est
the English->Chinese has audio

[http://www.google.cn/dictionary?langpair=en|zh-
CN&q=news...](http://www.google.cn/dictionary?langpair=en|zh-CN&q=news&hl=zh-
CN&aq=f)

~~~
compay
English <-> Spanish has it too.

------
alexkay
I'm liking the interface, they even include IPA transcriptions!

I bet this will get most online and many offline dictionaries out of business.

~~~
tokenadult
_they even include IPA transcriptions_

This is very good, as it will promote learning the International Phonetic
Alphabet.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet>

