debile.net

I am as much of a sucker as the next guy for "cool Linux tools" or "obscure Linux software" recommendations. But one kind of software that I rarely see mentioned is dictionaries, and I think that the usefulness of such tools is underappreciated.

The need for a dictionary tool came whilst I was reading a poem by Gérard de Nerval in which some words, in addition to being uncommon, sometimes carried older meanings rather than the ones we know today. For this reason, I had to use an old dictionary — namely the Littré — alongside a modern one to try to decypher the mysterious verses of The Chimeras.

I chose goldendict-ng, a fork of goldendict. It compiled in 20 seconds and was ready to use on first launch. I configured it without needing to read the documentation. Adding online dictionaries is as easy as this :

1. Get the URL of a dictionary search, say https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/callisthenics.

2. Replace the word you looked for in the URL with the placeholder "%GDWORD%" like so: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/%GDWORD%.

3. Add that URL to your list of online dictionaries.

I can launch the tool from a keyboard shortcut and quickly look up the definition of a word across multiple sources: Wikipedia, Wiktionary, modern, historical and slang dictionaries...

I haven't yet experimented with offline dictionaries, but I will get to it soon, since some websites block connections from goldendict. There are also other features that I haven't explored yet, such as integration with other applications, clipboard monitoring and translation.