OT: Does anyone know of a dictionary app where you can do advanced searching?

I own a CD-ROM of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. One of it's best features was that you could search by wildcards, and parts of speech. So in sermon prep, I could search for 'verbs beginning with en…', for example.

Unfortunately it's a 16-bit application, and getting it working on modern Windows requires a VM which is a pain. Does anyone know of a modern app or web service that can do something similar?

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Mark Smith

Perhaps not exactly what you are looking for: https://www.visca.com/regexdict/ but it may help.

Doc B

I owned that exact same tool some years back. Haven't seen it in a while.

FL sells a "Concise Oxford English Dictionary." Will it do what you need?

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040428#Comment_1040428

Perhaps not exactly what you are looking for: https://www.visca.com/regexdict/ but it may help.

It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than anything else I've found. Thanks.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040454#Comment_1040454

I owned that exact same tool some years back. Haven't seen it in a while.

FL sells a "Concise Oxford English Dictionary." Will it do what you need?

No. I have that. I also have Oxford's SOED iPhone app, but that doesn't have advanced search either.

Rosie Perera

This is not a dictionary app, but Anagram Artist can do that, and it comes with a pretty complete English wordlist (not technically a dictionary, because it doesn't have definitions). You just have to feed it a source text which is more than enough copies of the alphabet to have sufficient letters to spell any word you might want to find. (I keep a text file on hand which is 5 copies of the alphabet.) Then you can filter the words list on the right by wildcards and parts of speech using the controls in the middle. This took a few seconds:

You can download Anagram Artist for free from here, and it runs on 64-bit Windows.

Of course you can also use it for what it was made for, to do anagrams. For example, Logos Bible Software = Bob wrote a life-gloss.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040486#Comment_1040486

Of course you can also use it for what it was made for, to do anagrams. For example, Logos Bible Software = Bob wrote a life-gloss.

Couldn't help myself. Here are a few more:

Logos Bible Software = Obsolete or big flaws?

= To grow a slob's belief

= Stories of Babel glow

= Bores Bill Gates. Woof!

= If able to browse logs...

= Files grow, so be bloat.

= Goes a trifle slow, Bob!

= Is best for goal below

= Wallet grief. Boo, sobs.

Kolen Cheung

I personally would use NLTK (NLTK.org) which is a Python library. It is very powerful and this sort of thing is a piece of cake there.

By the way, isn't this sort of question not quite aligned with the forum guideline?

Kolen Cheung

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040487#Comment_1040487

Of course you can also use it for what it was made for, to do anagrams. For example, Logos Bible Software = Bob wrote a life-gloss.

Couldn't help myself. Here are a few more:

Logos Bible Software = Obsolete or big flaws?

= To grow a slob's belief

= Stories of Babel glow

= Bores Bill Gates. Woof!

= If able to browse logs...

= Files grow, so be bloat.

= Goes a trifle slow, Bob!

= Is best for goal below

= Wallet grief. Boo, sobs.

You're funny! If I have time I'd try doing this in NLTK. Why would there be a software for that? (Not a real question but amazed.)

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040496#Comment_1040496

Try WordWeb

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040518#Comment_1040518

Try WordWeb

Perfect. Thank you.

And thanks to everyone else for your suggestions too. The question wasn't directly related to Logos, I know, but I needed this when I was finishing this morning's sermon, and software like this is a great companion for Logos, especially for preachers.

Kolen Cheung

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040526#Comment_1040526

Take it as a suggestion for Logos to provide such abilIty. Either as a dataset kind of resource to enhance current Eng dict or a Lexham dict.

Also releasing in multiple language, and bilingual versions, etc.

Brad

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040518#Comment_1040518

Try WordWeb

Thank you for the introduction to WordWeb , JRS!

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040573#Comment_1040573

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you for the introduction to WordWeb , JRS!

Glad that you like it. I found WordWeb several years ago when I was in a similar situation as what Mark described - my old dictionary app was getting rather long in the tooth and had become unreliable. It took a lot of searching back then before I found WW and I haven't regretted switching to it at all. It's an incredibly useful/powerful program (and the price is right, too). I especially like how it looks up a word in virtually any Windows program with just a simple ctrl/right-click. Someone in Brighton has really put their heart into it and keeps it well-maintained.

If you want to know a bit of the background of WW, see here - which, btw, suggests that it is available in other languages.

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040557#Comment_1040557

Take it as a suggestion for Logos to provide such abilIty. Either as a dataset kind of resource to enhance current Eng dict or a Lexham dict.

Also releasing in multiple language, and bilingual versions, etc.

I would like FL/Logos to offer an Elizabethan Dictionary/Dataset for all Tyndale/Geneva, KJV, Milton, and Shakespeare fans.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040585#Comment_1040585

I would like FL/Logos to offer an Elizabethan Dictionary/Dataset for all Tyndale/Geneva, KJV, Milton, and Shakespeare fans.

[Y]

DMB

I own a CD-ROM of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. One of it's best features was that you could search by wildcards, and parts of speech. So in sermon prep, I could search for 'verbs beginning with en…', for example.

Unfortunately it's a 16-bit application, and getting it working on modern Windows requires a VM which is a pain. Does anyone know of a modern app or web service that can do something similar?

You're on PC Windows.

But for anyone else, ios has the Shorter Oxford app, with the functionality Mark notes ... part of speech and wildcard. Very handy.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040613#Comment_1040613

Denise,

I have the SOED on iOS, but can’t see how to search/filter by part of speech. Can you elaborate?

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040625#Comment_1040625

Denise,

I have the SOED on iOS, but can’t see how to search/filter by part of speech. Can you elaborate?

Well, I hope I understood you correctly. In the example below, I searched for any words usably as adverbs beginning in 'ba'

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040671#Comment_1040671

Well, I hope I understood you correctly. In the example below, I searched for any words usably as adverbs beginning in 'ba'

Unfortunately the SOED on iOS only adds the part of speech to the suggestion where a word can be used in more than one way. So most adverbs are missing from your list.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040692#Comment_1040692

Well, I hope I understood you correctly. In the example below, I searched for any words usably as adverbs beginning in 'ba'

Unfortunately the SOED on iOS only adds the part of speech to the suggestion where a word can be used in more than one way. So most adverbs are missing from your list.

You're right!

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040494#Comment_1040494

By the way, isn't this sort of question not quite aligned with the forum guideline?

Thanks to JRS and this thread, I was able to add a hyperlink to my "Textual Sermon Prep" WORKFLOW, using the WORKFLOW EDITOR in Logos 8.3 [:D]

(‾◡◝)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1040744#Comment_1040744

FWIW:

I just received the following email regarding a new, version 9 of WordWeb:

Dear JRS,

I'm pleased to announce a major new version of the WordWeb Pro dictionary and thesaurus, version 9 (for Windows). Changes this version include:

Extensive revisions, with many thousands of new words, senses, updates and clarifications
Much more comprehensive tagging of informal and other usages
Links to phrasal verb and compounds for each word
Now over 300,000 words in the word list, about 10,000 more compared to version 8
Thousands of new audio pronunciations
Support for Dark Mode theme
Support for latest MS Edge browser
Improve mouse wheel and trackpad scrolling control

Among the many new words in this version you'll find everything from snowflakery to spaffing, headcam to nanoplastic. The optional additional word lists have also been updated, including the huge Wikipedia list and extensive additions to the sets of additional word lists. The new optional Dark Mode is also supported by all the optional add-on Oxford, Chambers and Collins dictionaries.

For information about the latest Windows version see the WordWeb Home Page. Updates for mobile and Mac platforms should happen automatically from the app stores as the apps are updated in due course.

Upgrade to version 9 now

Yours,

Antony Lewis
WordWeb Software