Best Free Dictionary and Thesaurus Utility

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Last updated by site.editor on 25. November 2020 - 11:58

Introduction

Dictionary and thesaurus utilities help to find the meanings of words and suggest a list of words according to similarity of meaning on your computer screen. They are handy and helpful for daily use without the need to flip through a thick and heavy dictionary or thesaurus.

 

Rated Products

WordWeb  

An enhanced dictionary and thesaurus showing word classes, definitions and synonyms, with access to Wikipedia, Wiktionary and WordWeb Online.

Our Rating: 
5
License: Free (Limited features)
Simple usage, popup with powerful word's meaning and synonyms, find words by pattern match or dictionary adjacency, additional online features.
Missing anagram solving and wildcard word matches.
Read full review...

TheSage  

A comprehensive dictionary with over 140,000 references together with a powerful thesaurus.

Our Rating: 
4
License: Free (Private/Educational use)
Comprehensive dictionary with over 140,000 references together with a powerful thesaurus, anagram solving and wildcard word matches.
Not user friendly, need to cut and paste the word into the application.
Read full review...

Mobysaurus Thesaurus  

A feature-rich English thesaurus containing more than 2.5 million synonyms and related terms accessible offline.

Our Rating: 
4
License: Free
Much more comprehensive than the thesaurus in either WordWeb and The Sage, powerful search with wildcards.
Lacks a separate dictionary.
Read full review...

Other freeware products to be reviewed:

 

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Comments

link for enzo word is dead.

"Other freeware products to be reviewed:

Lingoes (http://www.lingoes.net/)
Enzo Word (http://www.humanized.com/enso/words)"

Thank you for pointing this out. The dead product link has now been removed. MC - Site Manager.

Your Quick Selection Guide states about WordWeb that "A portable version of this product is available but NOT from the developer."
This is not correct.
If you run the download, which looks like a fairly standard installer, there is an "Advanced options..." button that, if pressed, allows the selection of the "Install as portable app (eg. on a USB drive)" option.

Thanks for your feedback Shelduck. The Quick Selection Guide for the software is now updated.

I would like to warn others about a little caveat with Wordweb, as a former user. The program itself is excellent, and from what I could tell, is completely worthy of its Gizmo's Freeware award. But there is a condition if one wishes to use the free version after 30 days. Let me share with you an excerpt from the Wordweb developers' site:

"WordWeb free version may be used indefinitely only by people who take at most two commercial flights (not more than one return flight) in any 12 month period. People who fly more than this need to purchase the Pro version if they wish to continue to use it after a 30-day trial period."

I had not previously read this, and answered truthfully that I had in fact taken more than two one-way flights in the past year. Now I can supposedly never use the free version again, because of my alleged contribution to global warming. A real shame. And for a strong political stance on an issue that I largely call into question, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that it is conditional freeware, so I just wanted others to keep this in mind. Well, at least I didn't tell any "fibs" come the trial's end. No moral dilemmas here! I would still highly recommend the product, although I plan to check out the other programs featured here for my own personal use. Wordweb's free version is sadly no longer an option for me. Maybe in future updates, the author of this review can include a disclaimer.

ya, i suspect that's their creative way of differentiating as to whether someone can afford to purchase it or not. they are being charitable to lower income individuals: if you can afford to fly 2x/12 mo period, you can likely afford the small price tag on the software - or at least, that's what i suspect they're getting at. though, many wealthy individuals don't necessarily travel much.

i don't fly 2x per year, and my product has remained free for the last decade of my use.

Try Lingoes. It has the same type of word lookup in most programs, can use multiple dictionaries, and can be set up for multiple languages if you like.

Re Mobysaurus

Anyone planning to run the above on a Win 7 64bit or higher machine needs to download an updated DLL file in order for it to work. I couldn't find much on it other than an obscure post by the developer himself.

After installation the current "dc_lic.dll" needs to be replaced with the updated one.
Download the above named file & then paste same into the Mobysaurus directory which will replace the origional 32bit dll. After that it should work fine.

Link to the developer's note is here : http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=18066.0;wap2

Link to the updated version of said file is on the page.
[Moderator's note: Link to direct download of file edited out. Not allowed]

Copy & paste the new "dc_lic.dll" into :

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mobysaurus Thesaurus

Cheers