DictionarPy

An extensible offline dictionary application, in the terminal

The dictionary comes prepopulated with a little over 54,000 words and 120,000 definitions available for offline reference. It is also designed to be added to and grow with your lexicon.

Some things you can do:

1. Add and remove words, parts of speech, definitions, IPA transcriptions
2. Show random words
3. Get similar words
4. Reference the built-in IPA key
5. Search within definitions for a particular string
6. Find anagrams of words
7. Multilanguage support

Install with uv

uv tool install dictionarpy

Statistics regarding this version's included dictionary

$ dpy -ns
Words:
├── en  54262
└── fr  45
Definitions:         120179
IPA Transcriptions:  30090
Disk size:           12.71MB
Parts of speech:
├── en
│   abbreviation | adjective | adverb
│   ambitransitive verb | article
│   auxiliary verb | conjunction
│   contraction | definite article
│   determiner | idiom | interjection
│   intransitive verb | nom | noun | phrase
│   plural noun | preposition | pronoun
│   transitive verb
│   transitive/intransitive verb | verb
└── fr
    abréviation | adjectif | interjection
    nom | nom féminin | nom masculin
    nom masculin commun | verbe

Examples

• Add a word/definition to the database

  $ dpy -w "my new word" -p "my part of speech" -d "my definition!"
  

• Add or update the phonetic/phonemic transcription of a word

  $ dictionarpy -w "my new word" -i "/mj nu wɝd/"
  

• Show the definitions for a word (use -n to avoid ansi escape sequences)

  $ dictionarpy -n "my new word"                                                
  ┌──────────────────────┐
  │     my new word      │
  │     /mj nu wɝd/      │
  ├──────────────────────┤
  │ 1. my part of speech │
  │    my definition!    │
  └──────────────────────┘
  

• Remove a definition from the database

  $ dictionarpy -r 1 "my new word"
  

• Remove an entry from the database

  $ dictionarpy -R "remove_this_word"
  

• Learn a random word!

  $ dpy "$(dpy -z)"
  

For help and additional functionality:

$ dpy -h
usage: dpy [-h] [-n] [-e] [-s] [-0] [-t [N]] [-g [IPA SYMBOL]] [-c]
           [-z [PART OF SPEECH]] [-a] [-r INDEX] [-R] [-f STRING]
           [-w ADD_WORD] [-p ADD_POS] [-d ADD_DEF] [-i ADD_IPA] [-l LANG]
           [-P N] [-D N] [-I] [-v]
           [word]

Offline dictionary

positional arguments:
  word                  Word to be defined

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -n, --no-ansi         Don't use ansi escape sequences
  -e, --no-stemming     Don't use Porter Stemming on a word if it's not found
  -s, --stats           Show database statistics
  -0, --empty           Show words that do not possess definitions
  -t [N], --tail [N]    Show last N words added to the database. N=10 if left
                        empty
  -g [IPA SYMBOL], --ipa-guide [IPA SYMBOL]
                        Show ipa guide (empty for all)
  -c, --ipa-charts      Show ipa charts
  -z [PART OF SPEECH], --random [PART OF SPEECH]
                        Return a random word
  -a, --anagrams        Show anagrams for word
  -r INDEX, --remove-def INDEX
                        Remove a definition specified by its index
  -R, --remove-word     Remove a word
  -f STRING, --find-in-defs STRING
                        Show entries which contain STRING in definitions
  -w ADD_WORD, --add-word ADD_WORD
                        Word to add/word to add to
  -p ADD_POS, --add-pos ADD_POS
                        Part of speech to add
  -d ADD_DEF, --add-def ADD_DEF
                        Definition to add
  -i ADD_IPA, --add-ipa ADD_IPA
                        Pronunciation to add
  -l LANG, --lang LANG  Language code
  -P N, --show-pos N    Only show word's part of speech at Nth index
  -D N, --show-def N    Only show word's definition at Nth index
  -I, --show-ipa        Only show word's pronunciation
  -v, --version         Show version