Onelook Dictionary Search


by Perry Mowbray [2010.01.27]

FARR WebMetaSearch Onelook Dictionary search uses OneLook.com to display definitions, and/or name information, of the entered word.

Openning OneLook
Double-Click to open the OneLook page in the default browser, or SHIFT-ENTER to open the OneLook page in the FARR window. The OneLook page has a wealth of other information about the word, alternatively you can access the same information with RMB Context Menu:
RMB Context Menu
Right-Mouse-Button click on an entry for the follow shortcuts:
Words Defining 'Search Word'
Perform a Reverse Lookup of the Search Word
Copy
Copy the definition to the Clipboard
Dictionary Lists
Return a list of Dictionary entries for the Search Word

SubSearches

OneLook WMS has the following subSearches, which are accessed by adding +<subSearchName> or +<abbreviation> before the search term.
Reverse
Abbreviation: r
Find words or phrases related to the entered word(s). Patterns can be entered before a colon to filter results:
farr
Find words and phrases that are related to farr
f*:search
Find any words related to search that start with f
*:find and run robot
Find words and phrases related to the concept find and run robot
*search *:find and run robot
Find phrases related to the concept find and run robot that have the word search in the result
Expand
Abbreviation: e
Find phrases that spell out the entered word, for example:
farr
Find phrases that spell out farr
Phrase
Abbreviation: ph
Find phrases that contain the entered word or pattern:
sweet
Find phrases that include sweet
short*sweet
Find phrases that include short then sweet
PhraseCommon
Abbreviation: phc
Find common phrases that contain the entered word. Common is defined by OneLook as appearing in 3 or more dictionaries.
PatternMatch
Abbreviation: pm
Find words and phrases that match the entered pattern:
bl????rd
Find words that start with f and end with r, and have 2 letters in between
farr*
Find words and phrases that start with farr
*farr
Find words and phrases that end with farr
PatternMatchCommon
Abbreviation: pmc
Find common words and phrases that match the entered pattern. Common is defined by OneLook as appearing in 3 or more dictionaries.
Crossword
Abbreviation: cw
Find words and phrases that match the entered pattern using Crossword matching.

By default, the "?" wildcard matches any single character, including spaces and punctuation. Using crossword puzzle SubSearch limits the match to "letters only"; also every pattern search is assumed to allow optional spaces between letters. This allows you to find phrases that are run together (as they would appear in a crossword puzzle) without having to worry about where the spaces would go. For example, searching for "h?ttot?ot" will find "hot to trot" in this mode, and "a?ric??li??" will find "African lily".

Name
Abbreviation: n
Find names that match entered word.
Dictionaries
Abbreviation: d
Find dictionary entries with the entered word.

Specialist dictionary shortcuts are also found in the RMB Context Menu

Words of the Day
Abbreviation: w
Every hour a computer program selects five words that get an unusually large number of searches on OneLook.com. These words tend to reflect topics that have appeared in the world news or in discussion groups across the Web. Each morning the top word is featured as the Word of the Day on the OneLook home page. An archive of the daily words is available here.

The top five daily words, as well as the top five words for the current hour, are returned with this subSearch.

Pattern Matching


Patthern matching can be used with Reverse, MatchAll & MatchCommon subSearches.
* The asterisk
matches any number of characters. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for any sequence of letters or symbols. For example, if you enter blueb* you'll get all the terms that start with "blueb"; if you enter *bird you'll get all the terms that end with "bird"; if you enter *lueb* you'll get all the terms that contain the sequence "lueb", and so forth. An asterisk can match zero characters, too.
? The question mark
matches exactly one character. That means that you can use it as a placeholder for a single letter or symbol. The query l?b?n?n, for example, will find the word "Lebanon".
# The number-sign
matches any English consonant. For example, the query tra#t finds the word "tract" but not "trait".
@ The at-sign
matches any English vowel. For example, the query abo@t finds the word "about" but not "abort".