Question

Does anyone know of a good dictionary API or ruby library to lookup the definitions of words?

I’m thinking it should work something like:

1. I call get_definition(word)
2. It returns the definition for that word (ideally in some way to easily format the definition for display.

Thanks

Answer 1

Ruby-WordNet sounds like it does what you’re looking for:

Ruby-WordNet is a Ruby interface to the WordNet® Lexical Database. WordNet is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.