How do I tell dict to give output from a subset of dictionaries?

Question

When installing dict, by default I got this -

[$] dict appease

1 definition found

From English-Hindi FreeDict Dictionary ver. 1.5.2 [fd-eng-hin]:

  appease <VT>
  1. संतुष्ट~करना
        "Shop keepers try their best to appease their customer."
        "The owner appeased his workers by granting them bonus."

Probing the man-page came to know that the program used only two servers -

[$] dict -D

Databases available:
 vera       V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (February 2016)
 fd-eng-hin English-Hindi FreeDict Dictionary ver. 1.5.2

Then made a local dot file and made the following entries in it -

┌─[shirish@debian] - [~] - [10089]
└─[$] cat ~/.dictrc

     1  server dict.org
     2  server dict0.us.dict.org

This resulted in getting some results -

[$] dict appease

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Appease \Ap*pease"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Appealed}; p. pr. &
     vb. n. {Appeasing}.] [OE. apesen, apaisen, OF. apaisier,
     apaissier, F. apaiser, fr. a (L. ad) + OF. pais peace, F.
     paix, fr. L. pax, pacis. See {Peace}.]
     To make quiet; to calm; to reduce to a state of peace; to
     still; to pacify; to dispel (anger or hatred); as, to appease
     the tumult of the ocean, or of the passions; to appease
     hunger or thirst.
     [1913 Webster]

     Syn: To pacify; quiet; conciliate; propitiate; assuage;
          compose; calm; allay; hush; soothe; tranquilize.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  appease
      v 1: cause to be more favorably inclined; gain the good will of;
           "She managed to mollify the angry customer" [syn: {pacify},
           {lenify}, {conciliate}, {assuage}, {appease}, {mollify},
           {placate}, {gentle}, {gruntle}]
      2: overcome or allay; "quell my hunger" [syn: {quell}, {stay},
         {appease}]
      3: make peace with [syn: {propitiate}, {appease}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thesaurus]:

  86 Moby Thesaurus words for "appease":
     abate, allay, alleviate, anesthetize, assuage, benumb, calm,
     calm down, cater to, coddle, compose, conciliate, content, cool,
     cradle, cushion, deaden, deaden the pain, defuse, diminish,
     dulcify, dull, ease, ease matters, even out, extenuate, feast,
     feed, foment, gentle, give relief, gloss over, gratify, hush,
     immolate before, lay, lay the dust, lessen, lull,
     make propitiation, make sacrifice to, mitigate, mollify, numb,
     offer sacrifice, pacify, pad, palliate, pamper, placate, poultice,
     pour balm into, pour balm on, pour oil on, propitiate, quell,
     quench, quiet, reduce, regale, relieve, rest, rock, rock to sleep,
     sacrifice, salve, sate, satiate, satisfy, slacken, slake, smooth,
     smooth down, smooth over, smoothen, soften, soothe, spoil,
     stabilize, steady, still, stupe, subdue, sweeten, tranquilize,
     whitewash

Doing dict -D now gave a different listing than before -

─[$] dict -D

Databases available:
 gcide          The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
 wn             WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
 moby-thesaurus Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
 elements       The Elements (07Nov00)
 vera           V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (September 2014)
 jargon         The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003)
 foldoc         The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (18 March 2015)
 easton         Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
 hitchcock      Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's)
 bouvier        Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
 devil          The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
 world02        CIA World Factbook 2002
 gaz2k-counties U.S. Gazetteer Counties (2000)
 gaz2k-places   U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000)
 gaz2k-zips     U.S. Gazetteer Zip Code Tabulation Areas (2000)
 fd-tur-eng     Turkish-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.1
 fd-por-deu     Portuguese-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-nld-eng     Dutch-English Freedict Dictionary ver. 0.1.3
 fd-eng-ara     English-Arabic FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.6.2
 fd-spa-eng     Spanish-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-hun     English-Hungarian FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1
 fd-ita-eng     Italian-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-wel-eng     Welsh-English Freedict dictionary
 fd-eng-nld     English-Dutch FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-fra-eng     French-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3.4
 fd-tur-deu     Turkish-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-swe-eng     Swedish-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-nld-fra     Nederlands-French FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-swa     English-Swahili xFried/FreeDict Dictionary
 fd-deu-nld     German-Dutch FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-fra-deu     French-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-cro     English-Croatian Freedict Dictionary
 fd-eng-ita     English-Italian FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-lat     English-Latin FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-lat-eng     Latin-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-fra-nld     French-Dutch FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.2
 fd-ita-deu     Italian-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-hin     English-Hindi FreeDict Dictionary ver. 1.5.1
 fd-deu-eng     German-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3.4
 fd-por-eng     Portuguese-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-lat-deu     Latin - German FreeDict dictionary ver. 0.4
 fd-jpn-deu     Japanese-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-deu     English-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3.6
 fd-eng-scr     English-Serbo-Croat Freedict dictionary
 fd-eng-rom     English-Romanian FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.6.1
 fd-iri-eng     Irish-English Freedict dictionary
 fd-cze-eng     Czech-English Freedict dictionary
 fd-scr-eng     Serbo-Croat-English Freedict dictionary
 fd-eng-cze     English-Czech fdicts/FreeDict Dictionary
 fd-eng-rus     English-Russian FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3
 fd-afr-deu     Afrikaans-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3
 fd-eng-por     English-Portuguese FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.2
 fd-hun-eng     Hungarian-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3.1
 fd-eng-swe     English-Swedish FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-deu-ita     German-Italian FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-cro-eng     Croatian-English Freedict Dictionary
 fd-dan-eng     Danish-English FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.1
 fd-eng-tur     English-Turkish FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.1
 fd-eng-spa     English-Spanish FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.1
 fd-nld-deu     Dutch-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-deu-por     German-Portuguese FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.2.1
 fd-swa-eng     Swahili-English xFried/FreeDict Dictionary
 fd-hin-eng     English-Hindi Freedict Dictionary [reverse index]
 fd-deu-fra     German-French FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.3.1
 fd-eng-fra     English-French FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.4
 fd-slo-eng     Slovak-English Freedict dictionary
 fd-gla-deu     Scottish Gaelic-German FreeDict Dictionary ver. 0.1.1
 fd-eng-wel     English-Welsh Freedict dictionary
 fd-eng-iri     English-Irish Freedict dictionary
 english        English Monolingual Dictionaries
 trans          Translating Dictionaries
 all            All Dictionaries (English-Only and Translating)

Now I want that I get output from a select few of the dictionaries only -

gcide          The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
     wn             WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
     moby-thesaurus Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
     elements       The Elements (07Nov00)
     vera           V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (September 2014)
     jargon         The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003)
     foldoc         The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (18 March 2015)
     easton         Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
     hitchcock      Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (late 1800's)
     bouvier        Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
     devil          The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906)
     world02        CIA World Factbook 2002

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 16 '19 at 11:17

You can only show result from a specific dictionary database that is listed in the list when you invoke dict -D.

The way to do it is by invoking the dict command with the -d option followed by the name of the database, and word you want to search the meaning of.

From the man of dict (man dict):

-d dbname or --database dbname
          Specifies a specific database to  search.   The  default  is  to
          search  all databases (a "*" from the DICT protocol).  Note that
          a "!" in the DICT protocol means to search all of the  databases
          until a match is found, and then stop searching.

So, if you want to find the meaning of "life" from the database of wn (Wordnet), you need to run this command on your terminal.

[$] dict -d wn life.

P.S.

You have the file .dictrc with two server names, your dict program will include all the available dictionary databases from the two servers. You only have two locally installed dictionary databases, that is the first output message before you make the .dictrc file on your home directory.

If you remove the .dictrc file, you will need to install the database you want manually.

I hope this helps.

How do I tell dict to give output from a subset of dictionaries?

1 Answers1