On-line searchable Dictionaries

Gordon

Does anyone know of a good dictionary on-line with a good wild card capability?

I use dictionary.com for ease of use but can't for the life of me find a good dictionary with wild card capability. I thought I could use Microsoft Word for this but it doesn't seem possible.

What I mean is - I would like to find out how to spell 'conspicuous' for example. I can't type in conspicuous in dictionary.com because it will most likely fail (unless the slim chance of a suggestion). what I would like to do is replace unknown letters with wild cards.

I'd like to be able to tell a dictionary
SEARCH - CONSP*
and it will search for a word starting in Consp and give me all words with this starter. Or indeed any other variance
SEARCH - *A*I*T*S*S
would finally give me Halitosis.

This would actually also be a boon for crosswords come to think of it.

Any ideas?

ColinM

Were you trying to spell conspicuous incorrectly there? If so, you failed!
Anyway, you can make a good stab at the spelling and it will probably come up with a suggestion. If not, try lamping it into Google and you may get a "did you mean..." result which could be what you are looknig for.
A crossword solver is a different matter. I guess there would be an online one of them. Too lazy to do the searching now. I'll let you do that!

raphaelS

Hi,

You can try http://dictionary.cambridge.org
It will work fine with your 1st example CONSP* but not with the 2nd one...

The good thing is that there somewhere on the web site a bookmark feature that open a Javascript Prompt... Check Link to Us.

Raphael

ColinM

Originally posted by Gordon
SEARCH - *A*I*T*S*S
would finally give me Halitosis.

No, not brushing & flossing regularly would finally give you halitosis (ba-dum-tish).

Gordon

Aha actually I found one now...

http://www.onelook.com/

ColinM - I'll set em up - you knock em into goal

ColinM

Ah, chortle Gordon, chortle indeed.