AllWords.com - Search Help

The ALLwords.com site offers search results from two English dictionaries: the AND Concise Dictionary from AND Data Ltd. and The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary from The Random House Information Group. The results of a search appear separately, with the first 5 results from the AND dictionary followed by the first 5 results from the The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.

The AND Concise dictionary includes audio pronunciations of words and rich functionality for multilingual searching. Definitions and pronunciations are only in English, but you can search for and display the resulting words in German, French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian.

The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary is a comprehensive English dictionary, containing over 130,000 entries.

Completing a Basic Search

1. Choose one of the find options. You can find an exact word or words that start with, end with, or contain a specified string. Hint: Use the default Words Starting With option to avoid potential problems finding the exact match for foreign words that contain articles as part of the dictionary entry.

2. From the Search Language drop-down menu, select the language you want to search in. The default is English. Note: Only the AND Concise Dictionary contains foreign words.

3. Under the Translate Into heading, check off any languages in addition to English in which you want to view the results of your search. Note: The definitions and pronunciations always appear in English.

4. In the text field in front of the Find It! button, type the word or string of letters you are looking for. Note: Wildcard characters are not available.

5. Click on the Find It! button or press the Return key. The number of matching entries for the first dictionary appears and the first five entries are displayed below, followed by the number of matching entries in the second dictionary and the first five entries for it. Use the Next Page button to view subsequent entries or refine your search string.

Example Search Scenarios

This sections shows four example searches of the ALLwords.com dictionary.

1. You want to look up the definition of the English word "gnash" and learn how to pronounce it.

Make the following selections and then click Find It!

  • Find option Words that match
  • Search Language: English
  • Translate Into: Uncheck any checked languages
  • Enter gnash in the text box

    Note the results. Click on the underlined word or the speaker icon to hear the word pronounced. If you are using Windows95 and Internet Explorer the pronunciation file should play on the Windows Media Player. If you are using Netscape, you should install a multimedia plug-in, such as Apple Computer's QuickTime

    2. The latest novel you're reading contains a foreign word you are not familiar with, for example, the Spanish word "cerveza".

    Make the following selections and then click Find It!

  • Find option Words that match
  • Search Language: Spanish
  • Translate Into: Check English and French
  • Enter cerveza in the text box

    View the results and continue reading your novel.

    3. You are interested in finding Italian words that end with the letter string "iao".

    Make the following selections and then click Find It!

  • Find option Words ending with
  • Search Language: Italian
  • Translate Into: Check Italian
  • Enter iao in the text box

    4. Say you want to know the German, French, Dutch, and Italian, equivalent of the Spanish word, "casa".

    Make the following selections and then click Find It!

  • Find option Words that match
  • Search Language: Spanish
  • Translate Into: Check all languages
  • Enter casa in the text box
  •  Find:
      Words Starting With:
      Words Ending With:
      Words Containing:
      Words That Match:

     
     Translate Into:
      
    Dutch   French   German
      
    Italian   Spanish
        Show results per page.

       
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