dictionary

July 12, 2011

Multimedia Almanac

Lexophilia is defined as "the love of words." It's a neologism, a newly invented word. It comes from two Greek words - lexis (meaning words) and philia (meaning fondness).

Writers, readers, lexophiles and anyone doing research can find a wealth of free information on the internet. Here are ten sites that will help you find just about anything you might need to look up.

1. Rhymezone.com is my dictionary of choice. It's a quick and easy way to find words but it's so much more. You can find synonyms, anonyms and homophones. Use it to write poetry. It will return words that rhyme with yours. Want to see your word used in a famous quote - no problem. It will return pictures, documents and multimedia related to your word. And you can customize it to select your most used functions by default.

2. Bartleby.com is one of the most comprehensive references on the web. Here you will find everything from encyclopedias to inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States. Looking for quotations, Bartleby has more than 87,000 contemporary and classic quotes. The Elements of Style, The Columbia Gazetteer of North America, The Holy Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are only a small part of what's offered.

3. Urbandictionary.com is a slang dictionary with words related to urban cultures and street slang. Over 3,000,000 definitions have been submitted since 1999

4. Acronymfinder.com is the world's largest and most comprehensive dictionary of acronyms and abbreviations. They've been online for ten years and their unedited sister site acronymattic.com has another three million acronyms and abbreviations.

5. itools.com gives quick access to some of the best internet tools. Search tools will help you find anything on the web. Look up or translate words with Language tools. Use the Research Tools to find information about any subject. There are Financial Tools that will convert currency and Map Tools for driving directions.

6. Gutenberg.org is the web site of Project Gutenberg, a library of electronically stored books that are available free. It was started in 1971 by Michael Hart and has been worked on by hundreds of volunteers. There are over 25,000 free books in the online catalog. There is also an offline catalog that can be downloaded.

7. Refdesk.com is a portal to much of what the World Wide Web offers. It lists a vast assortment of informative and educational sites. Desktop resources include area codes, zip codes, calculators, Old Farmer's Almanac, newspapers, lottery results, sports, tax prep guides and more.

8. effingpot.com/index.shtml is an American's Guide to speaking British. Seven sections - Slang, People, Motoring, Clothing, Around the House, Food and Drink and Odds and Sods - contain over one thousand words and expressions that differ between the US and the UK.

9. Cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/ offers free cliff notes on literature, writing, math, science, test prep and information on college grants and scholarships.

10. And for nonverbal gestures signs and body language I highly recommend ChangingMinds.org.