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Dictionaries, Thesaurus and Encyclopedias


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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites. Like most references on the Web its articles may be questioned but as a starting point for information it is hard to better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

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WordWeb is an offline Dictionary Thesaurus.

One-click look up (using the mouse)

1. Hold down the Ctrl key, right click with the mouse on the word you want to look up

You can change the keyboard-mouse combination using the item on WordWeb's Options menu.

WordWeb will automatically look at the word you clicked on and surrounding words, and look up the longest phrase, collocation, or word in the database. If the automatic selection is not correct you can chose another combination of words by using the drop down arrow in the WordWeb window.

Look up a selected word (using the keyboard)

1. Select the word or collocation you want to look up.

In most programs you can double click with the mouse to do this.

2.Press the WordWeb keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+W, or click on the WordWeb icon in the system tray

You can change the hotkey combination using the item on WordWeb's Options menu.

In some programs you can replace the selected word by pressing the Replace button in the WordWeb window after you have chosen an alternative. You can also do this in MS Word and rich edit controls using the one-click look up method.

In addition, once WordWeb has opened it provides Tabs for direct connection to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, plus a tab for WordWeb on line which provides links to

Cambridge

Encarta

OneLook*.

Clicking on the speaker icon will announce the word for you.

WordWeb comes in two forms, the very excellent Free version and WordWeb Pro 5.

See the program and downloads at

WordWeb

*OneLook is Author Cole Parker's favourite. In Cole's own words:

It's more than a dictionary. It searches numerous dictionaries for the word you're exploring, including specialized ones like medical or aeronautical and the like. It also has a reverse dictionary feature so if you know the meaning of your word but can't quite remember the word itself, you can locate the word. It also lets you write in letters in a word you know and use asterisks for those you don't and then tells you all the words that fit those combinations of letters.

This is a great feature for people who care about and are curious about words.

Try it out. It's the only dictionary I use. -Cole Parker.

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My absolutely fave reference source on the net is this one:

http://dictionary.reference.com/

Parts of it are free, but I think you only get the full deal for about ten bucks a year. I use it far more than my old hardbound references (including a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary with about 2-point type and a magnifying glass). [Ooops... didn't notice that Graeme added this elsewhere.]

And I also enjoy Wikipedia, but it has its occasional flaws and lapses.

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  • 3 years later...

I thought I'd dredge this up to say I, too, use OneLook, because Cole suggested it when he got tired of being my dictionary, and it serves my purposes nicely.

I likeWikipedia for information.

We need more of these threads, no duplications!

Tracy

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  • 1 year later...

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