How to find a word for something that you think has a word

MorningStar

I was wondering how you would find a word for a way of thing or action?

For example:

An optomistic view something positive will happen yet it has negative effects on others.
Lex Lurther's plan was sucessful but the world was destroyed.

Strangely I have no way of looking for a word without asking somebody. A thesurs is no use.

Terry

lucifer, satan, beelzebub. they all mean the same thing.

MorningStar

julep wrote:

lucifer, satan, beelzebub. they all mean the same thing.

No they don't.
Lucifer is greek god now called Venus
Beelzebub is lord of the flies and a generic term for all pagan gods
Satan is the prince of darkness

Lucifier Morningstar may just be an angel that turned on god

Earthhorse

I think you're looking for a reverse dictionary, where you describe a concept and it will search for the word that defines that concept.

Would that be right?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=reverse+dictionary&meta=

D

MorningStar wrote:

No they don't.
Lucifer is greek god now called Venus
Beelzebub is lord of the flies and a generic term for all pagan gods
Satan is the prince of darkness

Lucifier Morningstar may just be an angel that turned on god

No the Lucifer in the bible isn't the devil it was a euphimisim for the king of Babylon. People only associate Lucifer with a miss-translation, between the Roman and Greek Bible.

MorningStar

D wrote:

No the Lucifer in the bible isn't the devil it was a euphimisim for the king of Babylon. People only associate Lucifer with a miss-translation, between the Roman and Greek Bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzebub

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

Others disagree and they certainly aren't the same people or things.

Reverse dictionary is exactly what I want but they aren't great for finding things are they

MonkeyTennis

everyone knows Diarmuid Gavin is the devil