
You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014) - MaysonL
http://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary
======
aasasd
Thankfully Wiktionary imported wholesale the old Webster's dictionary (due
partly to it being in the public domain). It has the same multitude of
meanings and examples, including those from the article. On top, of course,
it's updated for very modern language and with quotations from literature and
journalism closer to us in time.

Which is why I have three different methods for quick lookup in Wiktionary in
the desktop browser, and whipped up an extension for FF mobile to look up the
selection with one tap.

Wiktionary's definition of ‘pathos’ omits the first variant from Webster's,
however I'd say I've never seen it used in that meaning and it sounds more
like the original Greek sense. (Though the relation to ‘ethos’ should probably
be mentioned.)

Alas, for my love to Wiktionary, I'm having trouble _learning_ less-familiar
words with it, because I'm hoping to use Anki for that purpose. Turns out, a
scroll of different meanings is no good as an answer on a flash card since I'm
yet to learn just the most prominent one. All points to me importing a simpler
dictionary like the Oxford, and manually fiddling with subtler meanings where
I need them.

I'm yet to find a thesaurus which would be as comprehensive and usable, with
notes on the differences in meanings. For now, I'm employing thesaurus.com
plus Wiktionary lookups—the thesaurus somehow just has more stuff and shades
of meanings than other online ones, including established names like Merriam-
Webster.

~~~
bryal
Wiktionary is great! I'm interested in etymology, and my mind frequently
wanders to thoughts like "I wonder what the origin of the 'pseudo-' prefix
is." or "I wonder if the english word 'sea' and the swedish word 'sjö' are
related - they seem quite similar.". More often than not, wikitionary has the
answer - and a good, detailed one at that!

~~~
aasasd
In case Wiktionary fails, you can try
[https://www.etymonline.com](https://www.etymonline.com) ― it's especially has
more info on figurative phrases instead of individual words, and has dates
when a word or a phrase entered the usage (according to records).

~~~
bryal
That looks like a nice second source. I miss the IPA pronununciations though,
among other things, so wikitionary will remain my go-to.

------
blago
Back in 2014, this article inspired me to write an iOS app.

I took a few weekends putting most of my efforts into formatting and
readability. Just when I was ready to release, I got really busy at work.

Weeks became months, and months became years. By the time I got back to it
last year, Xcode wouldn't compile it anymore.

To my dismay, I also discovered that a number of other apps had been launched.
After fretting a bit, I realized that most of the competition had done a poor
job parsing the raw data and formatting the text.

So I released it anyway. Feel free to give it a try and let me know what you
think:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1397172520](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1397172520)

~~~
novaleaf
This seems to be a real labor of love for you.

It must be slightly traumatic seeing your first review of the app:

> 1/5 stars: Missing many basic words. Seems like a phishing app

I don't think your target audience is those looking for dictionaries. LoL

~~~
blago
Haha, I try to stay above things :-)

------
Veen
One of my favourite possessions is The Compact Edition Of The Oxford English
Dictionary, which is the complete text of the multi-volume OED shrunk down
into two volumes totalling about 4000 pages (it comes in a case with a drawer
for a magnifying glass). I got it for next to nothing on eBay a few years ago.
I don’t use it every day but it’s wonderful for browsing and inspiration in
the way this article describes.

[https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-compact-
oxford-e...](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-compact-oxford-
english-dictionary-9780198612582?cc=gb&lang=en&)

This is the single-volume second edition. Mine is the two-volume first
edition.

------
kzrdude
Fwiw, I've taken to always using the Collins dictionary, it explains words in
a way that's meaningful and not entirely dry to me.

I think it has some of these 1911 Webster qualities.

Collins on flash:
[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/flash](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/flash)

~~~
throwawaylolx
Vocabulary.com is nice too.
[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/flash](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/flash)

~~~
JoBrad
I like the colored parts of speech

------
xelxebar
Oh wow. I just discovered this dictionary recently myself, via the GNU
Collaborative International Dictionary of English [0].

It turns out that this is the primary default for the cli dictionary tool
`dict` [1], which has happily become my go-to.

[0]:[http://gcide.gnu.org.ua/](http://gcide.gnu.org.ua/)
[1]:[http://sourceforge.net/projects/dict/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/dict/)

~~~
jimbosis
The Dictionary [1] program included with MATE also defaults to giving
definitions from Webster's 1913.

This is because it is using dict.org [2], which serves _The Collaborative
International Dictionary of English_ v.0.48 (GCIDE) as it's default dictionary
[3].

[1] [https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-
utils/tree/master/mate-...](https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-
utils/tree/master/mate-dictionary)

[2] [http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict](http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict)

[3]
[http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict3&Database=gcide](http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict3&Database=gcide)

edit: Newline formatting.

------
themodelplumber
Dictionaries are also useful for problem-solving. I tab-complete "dicto" in my
editor and ten random dictionary words appear. I look for intuitive-
metaphorical connections to the current problem. This has been very useful on
coaching calls. "What if we look at this as a [carousel] amusement project.
Where is the fun in it for you?"

One client reminds me every month that one of those random words solved his
problem, so it's paid for itself! :-)

~~~
aasasd
Very similar to the Oblique Strategies method, though with different means:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies)

------
CGamesPlay
The dictionary linked in this post has some formatting issues, so a kind soul
improved upon it (Mac Dictionary.app dictionary):

[https://github.com/mortenjust/webster-
mac](https://github.com/mortenjust/webster-mac)

~~~
roryokane
Thanks for the link. After trying both this version and
[https://github.com/aparks517/convert-
websters](https://github.com/aparks517/convert-websters) linked elsewhere in
this thread, I think I prefer this version of Webster’s Dictionary. But I
don’t think either version is good enough to replace macOS’s default New
Oxford American Dictionary. See my comment under the discussion of convert-
websters for details:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763435#19784835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763435#19784835)

------
captn3m0
Previous discussion from 5 years ago with 138 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772557)

------
mmjaa
I like to make my own dictionaries for texts I'm studying. I sort all the
words, uniq them, and create a word list containing every word in the text I'm
studying.

Then, I pipe each word entry through sdcv, with my favourite dictionaries
enabled, and create a glossary specifically for the text in study.

Then as I study the text, and encounter strange and unfamiliar words, I use my
glossary to gain understanding. If something doesn't quite seem right, I
consult other dictionary entries for the word in question - this is often
because its a technical phrase or term.

This has helped me immensely to understand texts before I even start reading
them.

~~~
antris
Wow. This is super interesting. TFA and hearing methods like these and how
people who write and read a lot work with language is mind-opening to me. I
have recently fallen into the habit of browsing YouTube all day long and
listening to some podcasts or documentaries while playing video games. I'm now
reminded how much more writing and reading evokes thoughts than just blasting
something from TV or a streaming service.

Reading is not just background noise. It demands your attention, or you will
fall out of the text quickly.

------
aparks517
This is a truly delightful dictionary!

I put together a tool to improve the formatting somewhat the last time this
went around: [https://github.com/aparks517/convert-
websters](https://github.com/aparks517/convert-websters)

And also an iOS app:
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id943993346](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id943993346)

I’ve also been collecting patches to correct typographical errors which I’ve
been meaning to post somewhere. I’ve met lots of neat folks through this
project!

~~~
playpause
The app isn’t currently available in the UK, any way you can change that?

~~~
blago
Try this app:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1397172520](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1397172520)

~~~
nihalot
Works in India too, thanks!

------
xtracto
Back when I was writing my PhD thesis (in English, as a non-native English
speaker) I remember looking for a more efficient way to find synonyms for
certain word.

Usually when you are looking for synonyms, you know you already know the word
but you just cannot find it. So the Idea I had was to make some kind of
"graph" representation of Word relationships given their meaning.

I remember finding a huge list of words with scores related to their meaning
like:

Fly 1, Soar 0.9, Float 0.8.

Think, Ponder 0.9, Muse 0.8.

Which really helped, however given the different "directions" of the meaning
that a word can have, this is better represented as a graph.

I finished my PhD writing with the use of said list (saddly I could never find
it again), and the graph meaning idea just "went away" (lacking a better word)
as I finished my degree. But the need for an efficient and quickly way to find
that replacement word is still active.

~~~
aasasd
Thesaurus.com is similar—it has closer synonyms scored higher. But also
separates different meanings of a word.

I think that it either has automated the process of finding synonyms, or
started with a corpus like the one you're talking about.

I wish there was a quality open thesaurus, because Thesaurus.com's interface
is annoying sometimes, and I could use some integration with a dictionary.
Wiktionary's efforts aren't quite there yet.

------
wazoox
If you're interested in the same sort of beautiful, interesting dictionary for
French, there's the classic Littré. It's not that the definitions themselves
are colourful, but the quotes used as examples always are.

[https://www.littre.org/](https://www.littre.org/)

~~~
tokyoseb
Other good choices for French are the Trésor de la Langue Française
informatisé (1994) developed by CNRS, and the various editions of the
Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française.

They can be accessed here (along with a few more dictionaries)
[http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/](http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/)

There is also a decent iPhone/Android app to search the TLFi (not free,
requires internet access)
[https://dictionnaire.app/](https://dictionnaire.app/)

------
astazangasta
I cant believe no one has mentioned the great secret of writers: Brewer's
dictionary of Phrase and Fable. This is the dictionary you read for fun, the
one which sends you on rabbit holes of cross referencing, the one that gives
you new ideas, stories, characters. You are missing out as a writer without
it.

~~~
majormajor
Came here to add a comment about this as well. Got pointed in its direction by
a Terry Pratchett essay, fantastically interesting. He said something along
the lines of "it's not the dictionary you pull out to find a specific fact,
but the one you pull out to learn something you didn't realize you were
interested in," IIRC.

------
cge
While an interesting perspective, I do have to question whether this is simply
a matter of the author preferring Webster's prescriptive nuances over more
descriptive approaches, even when those nuances do not appear supported by
use.

Taking the example they use, fustian, the OED does not include the idea that
it refers specifically to a mismatch between topic and style, and gives
numerous examples, from Marlowe onward, of its use without that aspect.

~~~
derefr
Is there any reason to attempt to capture, as you're seemingly describing, the
_intersection_ of the usages of a word; the "beige" of definitions? Would it
not make more sense to instead describe all the various _shades_ of usage that
the word has had emplaced within it by various writers' hands—at least those
put forth with enough force for those shades to be recognized and understood
by readers today—even if those usages are peculiar and non-standard?

Analogously: if there were to be a book of acrylic paint swatches that
described, for each pigment swatch, _what things that color resembles_ , I
wouldn't care much for descriptions that held themselves to the standard of
applicability in all possible lighting conditions. There are very few pigments
that look the same no matter the lighting (maybe some really vivid reds, and
Vantablack.) Rather, I would want separate descriptions of what the color
would seem to best resemble under _various_ potential lighting conditions,
even if those conditions are rare or even unnatural. As the artist doing the
painting, I'm not necessarily constrained by a particular lighting condition;
I can change the lighting to suit the pigment just as well as I can choose the
pigment to suit the lighting (those being two different artistic projects;
sometimes you really are painting the Cistene chapel and can't choose how it's
lit, but that doesn't mean you can't find inspiration for a _different_
project in the middle of doing so.)

As the writer, if I find an inspiring, yet effectively-unknown definition of a
word—well, that's a good opportunity to put that definition to work in my
writing in a way that leads people to expand _their_ conception of the word to
include my new pet definition.

~~~
marak830
Don't most dictionaries do this to an extent? A description, a pronunciation
guide then an example or two?

In the world of digital books though, you would be able to freatpy expand upon
those examples(and even including blurbs about the usage of said word).

------
ploubus
Wow this is wonderful, thank you. I am wondering if something similar exists
for German.

~~~
yorwba
Potentially the Deutsches Wörterbuch started by the Brothers Grimm:
[http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB](http://woerterbuchnetz.de/DWB)

~~~
mrzool
That’s a great find. I’m just wondering, why are all nouns lowercased in this
dictionary’s definitions?

> _l_ eibesübung als _s_ piel und zum _v_ ergnügen; ein englisches _w_ ort

~~~
yorwba
The project slightly predates a standardized German orthography and the
original manuscript used its own capitalization conventions:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Grimm_W%...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Grimm_W%C3%B6rterbuch_Manuskript.jpg)

------
adt2bt
I remember taking numerous vocabulary tests and quizzes in grade school where
the definitions given were of the ‘modern’ type in this article. I wonder if
the change in the dictionary was driven by a test based approach to learning
the language?

It’s a nice, quantifiable thing to ask a student to define fustian prose as
pompous. It’s a lot harder to get the student to explain that fustian is when
one tries to punch above the weight class of the idea they’re conveying via
flowery prose.

~~~
bitwize
I remember vocab lessons in school. Near as I can tell from what my sister,
who is raising a school-age son, tells me, they don't teach that anymore. The
TDD (Test-Driven Didactics) implemented by No Child Left Behind leaves no room
for vocabulary lessons in the curriculum; instead, pupils are expected to
infer the meaning of unknown words from context. Even the Scientologists have
it better: LRH's study tech at least asks you to look up the word on your own.

Anyway, the vocabulary lessons I had came from textbooks, some of which wrote
entire short essays on each word, The one for "brogue" (meaning an Irish
accent), for instance, goes into its etymology and notes a comparison with a
kimd of shoe of the same name. The shoe, it turns out, has a _different_
etymology and the two twrms are not related. The essay concludes: "The idea
that the Irish accent fits the tongue as comfortably as a friendly old shoe
fits the foot is probably pure Irish fantasy."

------
houshuang
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy the novel The Great Passage
by Shion Miura, a wonderful quiet novel about the creation of a Japanese
dictionary.

~~~
jacobolus
Also an anime,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Passage_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Passage_\(TV_series\))

~~~
AlbertoGP
I’ve watched this series and can recommend it for anyone interested in the
subject.

------
ytwj
A good dictionary and thesaurus are really useful. But you also want to
surround yourself with reference books that reward idle noodling. Here are two
of my favorites.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. You can pick up old editions dirt
cheap on the usual sites. Here's the wikipedia entry.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_Dictionary_of_Phras...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_Dictionary_of_Phrase_and_Fable)

A Dictionary of metaphor. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Metaphors-Dictionary-
Comparative-in...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Metaphors-Dictionary-Comparative-
including-Shakespearean/dp/1578591376/)

------
tptacek
If you like Webster's, Garner's Modern American Usage will blow your head off.

~~~
mrob
The latest edition covers non-American English too, so it's now "Garner's
Modern English Usage". I first learned of this book from David Foster
Wallace's review of the first edition in Harper's Magazine:

[https://www.webcitation.org/6FU8Zx2N0?url=http://instruct.we...](https://www.webcitation.org/6FU8Zx2N0?url=http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html)

I agree it is excellent, and Wallace's review is also worth reading.

~~~
everybodyknows
Wallace mentions American Heritage, as strictest of the prescriptivists.
Highly usable online version:

[https://ahdictionary.com/](https://ahdictionary.com/)

------
dreeves
I believe the definitions you get by googling "define $WORD" are especially
horrible. In fact I have a whole diatribe about this...

[http://doc.dreev.es/dicked](http://doc.dreev.es/dicked)

As a teaser, here are some of the google definitions I've come across that I
believe are all wrong:

    
    
      mitzvah
      mercenary
      bemused
      waif
      ancillary
      hinky
      quiescent
      commentariat
      poignant
      orthogonal
      dibs
      come out in the wash
      kibitz
      cull
      elide
      gird
      comport
      confabulate

------
mahasvin
The power of LookUp is immense for writing well. But Grammarly often beats it.
Those who write a lot, know that the dictionary is a second most valuable tool
in writing after the chair.

------
sandspar
"Merriam-Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms" is devoted to explaining shades
of meaning among synonyms. For example, it explains why you might choose to
use defer, postpone, intermit, suspend, or stay. Interesting if you're a
writer, or if you're generally interested in suggestion, implication, and
denotation. It's very browsable.

------
pointillistic
Is there an Android App with etymology? I have seen few websites, is there a
"recommend" website for this dictionary?

~~~
aasasd
Wiktionary has good etymologies for many words, including separate definition-
etymology sections for these words in other languages (them still being
explained in English), thus sometimes letting you explore much of the relation
tree. As a bonus, its English definitions are imported from the old Webster's
plus it's updated for very modern language. So you could look for apps
packaging Wiktionary, or it might be available as a package for a universal
dictionary app.

Another good source for etymologies is the Etymonline site―in particular it's
better for figuring out when some figurative meanings and sayings entered the
popular usage. Might also be available as an app.

------
lisper
> Recall that the New Oxford, for the word “fustian,” gives “pompous or
> pretentious speech or writing.” I said earlier that that wasn’t even really
> correct. Here, then, is Webster’s definition: “An inflated style of writing;
> a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity
> of the thoughts or subject; bombast.” Do you see the difference? What makes
> fustian fustian is not just that the language is pompous — it’s that this
> pomposity is above the dignity of the thoughts or subject. It’s using fancy
> language where fancy language isn’t called for.

That last bit is an excellent definition of fustian, and reveals Webster's
definition to be (IMHO) a bit, well, fustian.

~~~
hammock
>using fancy language where fancy language isn’t called for

That's not what "pompous" means but it is exactly what "pretentious" means.
For some reason OP ignored that part of the definition.

~~~
jacobolus
“fustian” and “pretentious speech” and “pompous speech” can be similar/related
but they don’t map 1:1 to each-other.

Fustian is a type of cloth which was used as padding. If I say I just listened
to 10 minutes of fustian from a politician that means they were filling time
far beyond the direct content. I would characterize many business books as
fustian. (Or at least, this has always been my understanding of the word.)

If I say the speech was pretentious that means it was artificially pretending
to be something it wasn’t, e.g. as if it were written by someone who looked up
every word they wanted to use in the thesaurus and then chose the most obscure
quasi-synonym without knowing its meaning and without bothering to check that
the new word actually meant what they wanted to say. (There might be other
types of pretension. For instance, someone might say that a highly-educated
upper-class politician’s speech is pretentious when he talks like a manual
laborer, or that a political scientist’s writing is pretentious when it reads
like a physics paper.)

If I say the speech was pompous, that means it was affectedly grand; imagine
someone giving a speech at a city council meeting about whether to add some
bike lanes to a local street but sounding like a king’s eulogy.

“Fluff”, “stuffing”, “padding”, “bombast”, “hot air”, etc. are ways of
expressing more or less the same metaphor as “fustian”.

------
blaze33
I'll also mention the urban dictionary when looking up recently made up words.

Also, learning different languages usually reveals that you cannot think in
the same way when using different languages. So you may end up creating new
words to describe ideas the other language doesn't convey.

Anyway, languages keep evolving all the time ;)

------
Rerarom
You can also find it here:

[http://www.websters1913.com](http://www.websters1913.com)

------
gbacon
_You can see why it became cliché to start a speech with “Webster’s defines X
as…”: with his dictionary the definition that followed was actually likely to
lend gravitas to your remarks, to sound so good, in fact, that it’d beat
anything you could come up with on your own._

Not just cliché but entirely juvenile and formulaic. Public speaking teachers
mislead their students by teaching them this bore of an opening.

------
ppod
Did anyone else find the writing in this post almost unbearable? It's
deliberately showy in a way while also seeming self-conscious about being
perceived as pretentious. The predictable dig at modernist architecture is
exactly what I expect from this kind of prescriptive aesthetic paternalism.

~~~
AmVess
It is poorly written. Some writers confuse mental diarrhea with good writing.
His style is overly wordy and needlessly punctuated.

He takes too long to push the informative points, all the while cloaking them
in too much empty dross.

At first, I thought this was an example of something written by an AI program.
It is lumpy and disjointed to the mind in the same way that the Uncanny Valley
is disorienting to the eye.

I'm going to settle on it simply being a poorly written meandering of thought
disguised as something that it isn't.

~~~
littlekosh
The information that writing can convey is not limited to an equation where
the words used exist on one side and the meaning of the sentence on the other.

I hate to explain something someone else wrote, but the messy, tangential
writing is mirroring the uncertainty that the author calls out in the
dictionary definitions that they love. Their intent is to convey the joy that
these words have for them when seen through the lens of Webster’s 1913. Joy is
not constrained to declarative statements marching in lock step to the beat of
logical coherence. To remove the “over wordiness” and “needless punctuation”
is to lose the human aspect of the post.

Sometimes conveying information is a secondary or tertiary purpose to a piece
of prose.

Also, not everyone is Raymond Carver. Some people are Henry James.

------
ArchieT
What can be said about some of the Wiktionary entries though?

~~~
yorwba
Since Webster's dictionary is out of copyright, it was used as a source for
many entries on Wiktionary.
[https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Webster%27s_Dict...](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Webster%27s_Dictionary,_1913)

There's a category for entries that were imported mostly unmodified, with
26,433 pages.
[https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Webster_1913](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Webster_1913)

------
doomrobo
(2014)

------
tialaramex
So the idea here seems to be that the author prefers to write English that is
about a century old, preferably more. This will be inteligible to a modern
reader so I suppose that's fine but it's striking that they resist
(unconsciously?) admitting to it.

~~~
adt2bt
That doesn’t seem to be his point to me at all. Just because the definitions
he is referencing are a century old, doesn’t mean he will suddenly start
writing in an anachronistic manner.

His point to me is the modern dictionary has lost a lot of nuance behind what
words mean.

