Category: Wordsmyth Blog
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How to s*rch the diction?ry using wild card symbols
Did you know that Wordsmyth’s dictionary search box permits the use of wild card symbols? ”?” and “*”: These unassuming symbols are surprisingly powerful, as they can represent any letter or string of letters in a word. Understanding how to use them will increase your ability to find words you can’t spell or don’t fully recall. Wild card symbols also allow you to find groups of words that contain a particular letter pattern.
The question mark
? stands for any single character (letter or number). For example, if you search for “cat??” you will find all five-letter headwords that begin with “cat”: “catch,” “cater,” “catty [1]” and “catty [2]“. (“Catty [2]” is a unit of weight used in Southeast Asia.) Search for “???cat,” and you will find all six-letter words that end in “cat,” including “bobcat,” “fat cat” and “muscat” (a type of grape used to make wine). The query “c?a?t?” will return “coast” and “craft.” If you’re thinking this search mode sounds handy for solving crossword puzzles, you would be right. In fact, Wordsmyth has a Crossword Solver that tailors wild card searching for this specific purpose.
The asterisk
* stands for zero or more letters. For example, if you search for “cat*,” you will find all headwords that start with “cat,” including “catty,” “cater,” “catalog,” and “catabolism.” If you search for “*cat*,” you will find headwords that contain “cat” in the middle, such as “application” and “beef cattle.” Because an asterisk can also represent zero letters, all these searches would also turn up “cat” itself.
wild card search
Pictured left is a query for words that start with and contain the letter “q.” Amusing, yes, but wild cards searches do also have applications in an educational context. Using wild card symbols, you can find all the words that contain a particular Latin or Greek root. Try *cept* or *graph,* for example.
With a little cleverness, you can also find words that you are not sure how to spell, or that you only remember part of. For example, you might remember part of a word’s spelling, so you might enter “m*t*c*ond*ria” in the search box. You would find “mitochondria” because the first three asterisks match the letters”i,” “o,” “h,” respectively, while the fourth asterisk matches zero characters. There is no letter between the “d” and the “r” in “mitochondria.”
When your goal is to find words rather than word meanings, the wild card search is a useful tool. To really become adept at finding the words you need in Wordsmyth dictionary, you will also want to familiarize yourself with Wordsmyth’s Reverse Search, Browse, and Multi-Word Results, which will be covered in future posts. We’ll leave you with a challenge using wild card symbols: find the word in the Wordsmyth dictionary that has the most number of letters in alphabetical order. And, finally, let us know to what fiendishly clever ends you have put the dictionary wild card search.
Defining Words in WILD: Functional Definitions
Definitions for the Wordsmyth Illustrated Learner’s Dictionary (WILD) are written in what is called a “functional” style. Functional defining uses full sentences as opposed to the sentence fragments traditionally used in dictionaries and is a style that is well-suited to the needs of young readers and language learners.
Because many of the words in WILD are nouns, a large proportion of the definitions are simply of the form “An A is a B” — “A lion is a large, strong animal,” for example. However, many of the definitions in WILD are written in a format that is unique to functional defining; that is, they define by using the headword in a sentence beginning with “If” or “When” and describing in that sentence the communicative impact of the word.
Defining “cozy” and “gallop”
To define the word “cozy,” for example, we begin with the clause “When you feel cozy” and finish with the defining information: “you feel warm and comfortable and safe.” Similarly, to define the verb “gallop,” we begin with “When horses gallop” and end with the defining information: “they go at their fastest speed using their legs.”
Headword: cozy
Definition: When you feel cozy, you feel warm and comfortable and safe. When something is cozy, it makes you feel this way. Something that is cozy is often small, like a small room or bed, but it gives you a nice feeling.
Click to enlarge image.
Headword: gallop
Definition: When horses gallop, they go at their fastest speed using their legs.
Less is not always more in dictionary writing for kids
In defining words for young children in WILD, we have taken an attitude that does not generally characterize dictionary writing. While lexicographers typically aim for conciseness in defining, we don’t operate under the assumption in WILD that less is always more. In fact, we’ve taken the attitude that more is more, as long as what is contained in the definition field is simple and useful. We believe that even full-sentence, functional definitions can still be remarkably opaque and incomplete in describing meaning, and we want our users to understand the meaning of the headword described and even enjoy the experience of grasping it through reading. To this end, we very often go beyond the core defining sentence and add more information that we hope will make the meaning clear and make the experience of reading the definition both enlightening and entertaining.
