Google Dictionary • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Dictionary

#21

Post by minalecs » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 1:23 PM UTC

kwamenum86 wrote: post #5

benhoyt wrote: post #3

That's great! I've usually used answers.com or dictionary.com, but they're slow and cluttered compared to this. Also, answers.com often gives you a Wikipedia entry when you want a simple dictionary definition.

This still seems a bit cluttered to me and as usual it doesn't even look like the visual design was given any though below the page header.

how is this cluttered when there is basically one drop down, one text input, and one button. Go to homepage of answers.com and they got a bunch of crap on it.

Re: Google Dictionary

#22

Post by SlyShy » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 1:33 PM UTC

You could always get this exact functionality by searching for "define: word". But still, I like that they have a wrapper interface now.

For times when my word choice matters greatly I still refer to the Oxford English Dictionary, however. As someone else noted, there's a far cry between Google Dictionary and a hand-compiled one.

Re: Google Dictionary

#23

Post by alecco » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 1:33 PM UTC

mdemare wrote: post #18

Good dictionaries are hand-compiled by experienced lexicographers. Not Google's strength, to put it mildly. What Google would be extremely good at is creating corpora for all these languages. An example of an excellent Spanish corpus is the following: http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/x.asp

A gringo collecting words for an "Espanol" dictionary. Hilarious.

Re: Google Dictionary

#24

Post by tfh » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 1:53 PM UTC

rajeshrajappan wrote: post #14

Now we need an API for this, please!

I would be almost useless without API..

Re: Google Dictionary

#25

Post by eugenejen » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 1:59 PM UTC

tfh wrote: post #24

rajeshrajappan wrote: post #14

Now we need an API for this, please!

I would be almost useless without API..

I think you can do the dictionary from Google Language API?

Re: Google Dictionary

#26

Post by smithjchris » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 2:04 PM UTC

arvidj wrote: post #8

I've been using ninjawords[1] for awhile now. Looks like they have pretty similar source material, but ninjawords actually feels much faster. [1] http://ninjawords.com/

Excellent site - thank you.

Re: Google Dictionary

#27

Post by ananthrk » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 2:05 PM UTC

mdemare wrote: post #18

Good dictionaries are hand-compiled by experienced lexicographers. Not Google's strength, to put it mildly. What Google would be extremely good at is creating corpora for all these languages. An example of an excellent Spanish corpus is the following: http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/x.asp

I have heard about Google using lot of local language expertise for things like validating the ranks for local language search results. So, this might also have been vetted by such a group.

Re: Google Dictionary

#28

Post by Sukotto » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 2:09 PM UTC

matt1 wrote: post #19

"hackers plural 1. A computer hacker is someone who tries to break into computer systems, especially in order to get secret information. 2. A computer hacker is someone who uses a computer a lot, especially so much that they have no time to do anything else." http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en%7Cen&q=hack... I guess we're number two?

yes. Words are defined by their usage... even if the original meaning was different (or even opposite) to to current usage.

"Hacker" has come to primarily mean #1 ... only a small subset of technical people and academics still use it like #2. Similar to the way "Begs the question" has changed in the last few years to mean "directly leads to us asking".

Re: Google Dictionary

#29

Post by CWuestefeld » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 2:14 PM UTC

matt1 wrote: post #19

"hackers plural 1. A computer hacker is someone who tries to break into computer systems, especially in order to get secret information. 2. A computer hacker is someone who uses a computer a lot, especially so much that they have no time to do anything else." http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en%7Cen&q=hack... I guess we're number two?

Tried the first word that randomly popped into my head.

panoply /p'ænəpli/ Synonyms: noun: armour, armor

Huh? Since when are "panoply" and "armor" synonyms?

Re: Google Dictionary

#30

Post by hexis » Fri, Dec 04, 2009, 2:15 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #28

matt1 wrote: post #19

"hackers plural 1. A computer hacker is someone who tries to break into computer systems, especially in order to get secret information. 2. A computer hacker is someone who uses a computer a lot, especially so much that they have no time to do anything else." http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en%7Cen&q=hack... I guess we're number two?

yes. Words are defined by their usage... even if the original meaning was different (or even opposite) to to current usage. "Hacker" has come to primarily mean #1 ... only a small subset of technical people and academics still use it like #2. Similar to the way "Begs the question" has changed in the last few years to mean "directly leads to us asking".

"Words are defined by their usage."

Indeed, definitions are like history. It doesn't always work out the way one might like it to.