Okay LA, I want to know what online dictionary you use.
(This is not just a work-harried effort to stay vital…I really want to know)
I used www.m-w.com, but recently I tried to look up a word and it said that word was in the subscription accessible-Unabridged Dictionary. “How dare they charge me for my words?” I yelled from the rooftop as lightning struck my tricorn hat from my head. I’ve noticed everybody seems to use www.dictionary.com, but that seems so lame. Please LA, help me find a better, non-swindler online dictionary.
UPDATE: This post was deemed “related to LA” (at gunpoint…he had the gun, not me!) because it was the biggest captive audience Matt could find for the question and because there are a lot of people in LA who can read or write and might want to know the answer. Touche’
http://www.bartleby.com
Buy a real dictionary and keep it on your desk. And get a thesaurus while you’re at it.
I had that experience with m-w.com recently, too, but now it seems to be accessible, so I guess I’m sticking with them for now.
google’s [definition] link recently switched from dictionary.com to answers.com which seems to be a pretty awesome site.
http://www.onelook.com goes to all of the dictionaries and tons of categories… and it’s free.
(Might wanna check out this mozilla extension.)
I’m not sure if Wikitionary is good, b/c I usually use OneLook too.
Try dictionary.com
i use to use dictionary.com a lot… mostly because i don’t have to spell it right to get suggestions…
if i know i’m spelling something correctly, i use google, type in something like “define:provocative” (w/o the quotes) and it gives me results from several different sources…
Well, for spelling, if you use OS X, you can control click anywhere and drag down to spelling and turn on “Check as you spell.” It takes that cool MS Word function and applies it to everything you type on your computer.
Dictionary dot com is ugly, but the mozilla plugin works (to emulate in safari, use AcidSearch), and Thesaurus dot com is way way better than the m-w.com thesaurus…
If you think m-w.com premium is out of line, stay away from OED dot com (Oxford English Dictionary) – it’s like $30 a month i think – i used it all the time at school though.
dictionary.com is my dictionary of choice and has been for many a year now. looks like crap, but it works
Download 1-ClickAnswers from http://www.answers.com – it is awesome! Answers.com is an online website like dictionary.com except it is more powerful. However, the genius is in the downloadable app that lets you do research on any word or set of words that appear in any application. For example (once you have installed the tiny app) let’s say that you are reading an email and in the email you see the words “It has become a chicken-or-the-egg quandary” and you don’t know what they mean by “chicken-or-the-egg”. Simply select the phrase “chicken-or-the-egg” and hit the hot-key combo for the “answers” application. It brings up the tiny app (called 1-Click Answers) and shows a brief paragraph explaining what is meant by “chicken-or-the-egg”. Pretty damned handy (and it’s free!).
I use to use dictionary.com because as long as I know the gest of a word I could find the correct spelling.
Lame point of order: “Merriam Webster” ain’t no “she.” In fact it’s actually several dudes, namely Noah Webster who created the original dictionary, followed by George and Charles Merriam who pretty much carried the baton after Noah kicked off in 1843. So it’s Merriam-Webster.
Excuse me while I try to go get a life now.
The OED is the old standby for the english majors of my univ.
http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl