Dictionary for Linux console (shell)

Since I am not native English speaker and my language is totally different from English, to be exact has nothing in common from grammar, writing style or anything else with English, I need to use dictionary quite often. That’s mainly to find meaning of some complex words or see how a word should should be used in certain contexts.

There are numerous graphical application available but using console it seems impossible to really have a good dictionary.

Fortunately, I found two really good dictionary.

The name of the first dictionary is Dict. Basically, it is kind of online dictionary, means it retrieves information from the internet. Using Dict is really simple. For example,

$ dict flower

The second dictionary is Sdcv which is command line version of Stardic‘ dictionary and it uses the Stardict databases.

Therefore, if you already have Stardict with your customize database(s), you can use Sdcv immediately and easily.

Following example shows how to use Sdcv dictionary,

$ sdcv

Then write your word in front of Enter word or phrase: prompt, press enter. If you have more than one database, it will show available databases to select to fetch meaning of a word or a phrase. Write your favorite number of database and if you want to cancel it just simple type -1. Lastly, to exit from the program press CTRL+C.