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On a side note, one of the things I love about iOS/macOS is the built-in dictionary with etymology, which I often use to indulge my curiosity.
by yawaramin 5y ago
On a side note, one of the things I love about iOS/macOS is the built-in dictionary with etymology, which I often use to indulge my curiosity.
- schoen 5y agoLinux users can try "dict", which is great, although weirdly it queries a network server for this information.
- dredmorbius 5y agoWell, the client and server are distinct. For a desktop system you can simply install both dict (client) and dictd (server), along with the various dictionaries. The C/S element comes in handy on systems where the client is available, but dictionaries aren't. So from MacOS I can query my local Linux box. (Debian has numerous dictionaries, including the US Census Gazeteer files, and others --- any information that can be represented in the dict format and be keyword-queried, basically. Quite handy.)
- yawaramin 5y agoHuh, interesting. I imagine a lot of knowledge bases–personal, corporate, etc.–might be represented in that format.
- dredmorbius 5y agoQuite. A principle limitation is that there's no security component, so anyone with segmented knowledge will not be having a good time. But pretty much anything else. Using dict you can specify the target dictionary using the '-d <dictionary>' option. This can of course also be aliased or written into shell functions.