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Friday, 4th December 2009

Google Launches Their Own Dictionary

As many of you know, for years Google has hyperlinked search terms (right below the blue bar, at the top-right side of the page) and linked them to a dictionary (and lots of other reference material (some good/some questionable) at Answers.com. As of today, the link goes to Google's own dictionary.

You can also get to any definition by going to the Google Dictionary interface. The dictionary (note the drop down box) is available in more than 20 languages and makes it very easy to translate from the non-english dictionary to English.

It's important to mention that there are two types of definitions. Some words have both, others just one.

There are dictionary definitions and synonyms (the source(s) are unknown) and "web definitions" (Google has been offering these culled from the web for many years). Caveat emptor of course. We hope others take a step back and look at where each definition is coming from. For some words, you'll also find "related definitions." However, you'll have to go elsewhere (Answers.com; M-W.com; etc) for a thesaurus.

Also, when we tested the service (Friday AM) Google results pages only allowed one word to be defined. In some cases, no words were defined. Here's a search for baseketball game. No hyperlinked definitions at the top of the results but the word airplane does provide a definition. Proper names (a city for example) are also not linked at the top of a results page. Btw, when running a Google web search, you can use the syntax define: {search term} and usually find a web definition above the first result.

So what we need to know:

1) Who supplies the Google Dictionary?
2) Why do some words have definitions on a results page while multiple words do not?

Finally, don't forget that there are many first-rate online dictionaries available online (for free) or via a database provider like Credo Reference.

Update: After spending a bit more time with the dictionary I've found locations (cities, to be specific) to not have an actual entry but rely solely on web definitions.


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