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Google Hacks
book

Google Hacks

by Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest
February 2003
Intermediate to advanced
352 pages
9h
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Google Hacks

Consulting the Dictionary

Google, in addition to its own spellchecking index, provides hooks into Dictionary.com.

Google’s own spellchecking [Hack #15] is built upon its own word and phrase database gleaned while indexing web pages. Thus it provides suggestions for lesser known proper names, phrases, common sentence constructs, etc. Google also offers a definition service powered by Dictionary.com (http://www.dictionary.com/). Definitions, while coming from a credible source and augmented by various specialty indexes, can be more limited.

Run a search. You’ll notice on the results page the phrase “Searched the web for [query words].” If the query words would appear in a dictionary, they will be hyperlinked to a dictionary definition. Identified phrases will be linked as a phrase; for example, the query "jolly roger" will allow you to look up the phrase “jolly roger.” On the other hand, the phrase "computer legal" will allow you to look up the separate words “computer” and “legal.”

The definition search will sometimes fail on obscure words, very new words, slang, and technical vocabularies (otherwise known as specialized slang). If you search for a word’s meaning and Google can’t help you, try enlisting the services of a metasearch dictionary, like OneLook (http://www.onelook.com/) which indexes over 4 million words in over 700 dictionaries. If that doesn’t work, try Google again with one of the following tricks, queryword being the word you want to find:

  • If you’re searching for ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596004478