[Techtalk] thesaurus

[Avery Ke]

Angelina Carlton wrote:
>I have found the application "dict" to be invaluable, if I am
>writing anything, I will always have a terminal open ready to look up a
>word. 
>
>Is there a similar app find synonyms? 

I love dict too. :)

There is the package dict-moby-thesaurus. I've pasted in the description from debian below:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Package: dict-moby-thesaurus
<snip>
Description: Largest and most comprehensive thesaurus
 Moby Thesaurus is the largest and most comprehensive thesaurus data
 source in English available for commercial use.  This second edition
 has been thoroughly revised adding more than 5,000 root words (to
 total more than 30,000) with an additional _million_ synonyms and
 related terms (to total more than 2.5 _million_ synonyms and related
 terms).

 This is formatted for use by the dictionary server in the dictd
 package.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To see the list of dict databases, type:
$ dict -D 

To use the thesaurus with dict either type;
$ dict -d moby-thesaurus <word>

or put an alias into your .bashrc file:
alias thes='dict -d moby-thesaurus'

or put a script in your ~/bin folder :)

#!/bin/sh
# Example Thesaurus Script
#
# Filename: thes 
# Usage: $ thes <word>
#
dict -d moby-thesaurus "$1"


Avery Ke

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