Electronic word search device

Updated March 2023

Buying guide for Best electronic dictionaries

In the age of the smartphone, electronic dictionaries may seem like an obsolete relic from a bygone technological era, but nothing could be further from the truth. These handy machines provide easy access to a dictionary, thesaurus, and more. They’re simple to use for young and old and can be used offline at any time. Try that when you’re traveling or stuck in a network dead zone.

Whether you’re in the market for a tool to help with homework or crossword puzzles or you just want a quick way to find a definition, the correct spelling, or the pronunciation of a word, an electronic dictionary has you covered. Much like smartphones, however, electronic dictionaries are packed with features and specifications that vary greatly from model to model.

Key considerations

Design

These devices are designed to be held easily in the hand, and as such are fairly compact, making them easy to fit into a pocket and take with you. The size does vary a bit, though. If you have larger hands, you might want to choose a slightly larger option, because more compact ones may be difficult to use.

Plastic housings are standard here, but the case should be rugged enough to withstand the occasional mishap that plagues items like these. (How often do you drop your phone?) The housing may also have a cover to protect the keyboard. If it does, be sure that any hinges or clasps are durable and hold the lid securely closed.

Power

Most of these are powered by batteries, though some also have ports for an AC adapter. AAA batteries are common, while some use slightly more exotic ones, such as CR-2032 batteries.  With any electronic dictionary you consider, you should not only know how it’s powered but also whether you need to supply your own batteries upon purchase. It’s also helpful to know how long you can use the device before having to swap out the batteries for fresh ones. Some of these devices are known to drain batteries fairly quickly.

Contents

Most of these devices also include other content and functions, making them more of a complete reference source than just a dictionary. Any device you purchase should be set up so you can easily and smoothly switch between its various functions. Note that some of these are geared toward adults, while others offer fewer words and features and a simpler interface better suited to younger users. Know which one you’re buying.

Encyclopedia: While generally fairly limited, an encyclopedia can provide you with the ability to research a variety of topics even when you don’t have an Internet connection. Check the number of entries in the encyclopedia before deciding if this is something you need.

Thesaurus: This is a standard feature on most electronic dictionaries. With a thesaurus, you gain easy access to both synonyms and antonyms for many of the words in the dictionary.

Translation: This isn’t as common, but some electronic dictionaries can also translate commonly used words or phrases. If you want a device with this capability, be sure it supports the languages you want to use with it. A text-to-speech ability is also helpful to have here.

Other: Some manufacturers load other content and functions onto their electronic dictionaries. Depending on the device, some common functions you may find include a calculator, currency or measurement converter, quotation dictionary, anagram solver, world clock, spelling games, and name/address organizer. A crossword solver is also a function that’s available on most of these.

If your electronic dictionary’s LCD screen isn’t backlit, it may be difficult to use in low-light situations.

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Features

Entries

One of the primary ways that these devices differ from each other is in the number of words they contain in the dictionary database. We’ve seen electronic dictionaries with 60,000 words up to almost 300,000, so there is quite a range from model to model. A device with fewer words may be more geared toward homework and younger users. You also want to compare the entries for other content, such as an encyclopedia or thesaurus.

Spellchecker

Standard in electronic dictionaries, a spellchecker can help you to find words that you’re unsure of by offering suggestions as you type.

Text-to-speech

Text-to-speech, or voice, is pretty rare in devices of this type, but it does exist. You’ll be more likely to find voice capabilities in a device that includes a translation function. If this is a feature you desire, verify that the voice is clear and easy to understand.

Components

Screen: The right LCD screen is one that’s easy to read in all light conditions and large enough that even those with poor eyesight can use the device. Check the number of lines in the display and whether you’re able to adjust the font size on the screen.

Keyboard: Most electronic dictionaries use some minimal form of a QWERTY keyboard for input. The keys should be large enough so you can easily type. If you have larger hands, this is one area where you’ll want to pay particular attention to.

Electronic dictionary prices

Inexpensive: Electronic dictionaries start at around $20. At this price, you’ll largely find kids’ models or those with limited words or features.

Mid-range: The average here is around $100. At this price, you can find devices with a large word database and a variety of features.

Expensive: Electronic dictionaries can cost $300 or more for top-end models. These devices offer extensive word databases and a large number of functions, in addition to some with text-to-speech capabilities.

Other: An ongoing cost is batteries, which can be an issue for some of these devices. An electronic dictionary with a variety of additional features and modes, such as a built-in encyclopedia or a large LCD screen is useful to have, but the trade-off is that you may find yourself going through batteries more frequently. Also check with the manufacturer to find out what, if any, warranty is offered with the device you’re considering.

An Autocomplete feature offers suggestions for words as you’re typing them.

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Tips

• Know what you’re buying. Some of these devices are less a dictionary and more a spellchecker that doesn’t include definitions.
• Pick a Scrabble-friendly model. Love to play Scrabble? Search for a dictionary with an anagram solver, which offers real word suggestions for a jumble of letters that you enter.
• Make sure the device has the features you need. If your dictionary comes with a voice feature, be sure that it also includes some way to plug earbuds or headphones into it. If you’d like the ability to upgrade your device, search for one that includes a card slot. This will give you access to additional games, added features, and reference books. And while some of these devices work with AC adapters, they don’t necessarily ship with one. If this is an important accessory for you, be sure that your dictionary includes an adapter or that you can easily order one.
• Choose an electronic dictionary to help with schoolwork. Most of these devices offer some form of “confusables” feature, which alerts you if one word sounds like and/or is confused with another. And some electronic dictionaries allow you to create your own customizable word lists, which can help with word study.

FAQ

Q. Can these devices be used online?

A. These largely do not have any online element built into them and are completely self-contained reference devices.

Q. Are word games an important feature that I should consider with these?

A. Don’t discount the word games! Most of these devices incorporate several different types of word games, such as Hangman and Word Builder. They can not only be entertaining and help you to kill time but also help build your vocabulary and improve your spelling.

Q. In addition to definitions, what other information about a word do these dictionaries tell you?

A. While this varies depending on the device, other information that these dictionaries can provide includes parts of speech, the word’s use in a sentence, phonetics (how the word sounds), and even the word’s etymology/origin.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a word search?

A word search is a puzzle where there are rows of letters placed in the shape of a square, and there are words written forwards, backwards, horizontal, vertical or diagonal. There will be a list of words for the player to look for and the goal of the player is to find those words hidden in the word search puzzle, and highlight them.

How do I choose the words to use in my word search?

Once you’ve picked a theme, choose words that have a variety of different lengths, difficulty levels and letters. You don’t need to worry about trying to fit the words together with each other because WordMint will do that for you!

How are word searches used in the classroom?

Word search games are an excellent tool for teachers, and an excellent resource for students. They help to encourage wider vocabulary, as well as testing cognitive abilities and pattern-finding skills.

Because the word search templates are completely custom, you can create suitable word searches for children in kindergarten, all the way up to college students.

Who is a word search suitable for?

One of the common word search faq’s is whether there is an age limit or what age kids can start doing word searches. The fantastic thing about word search exercises is, they are completely flexible for whatever age or reading level you need.

Word searches can use any word you like, big or small, so there are literally countless combinations that you can create for templates. It is easy to customise the template to the age or learning level of your students.

How do I create a word search template?

For the easiest word search templates, WordMint is the way to go!

Pre-made templates

For a quick an easy pre-made template, simply search through WordMint’s existing 500,000+ templates. With so many to choose from, you’re bound to find the right one for you!

Create your own from scratch

• Log in to your account (it’s free to join!)
• Head to ‘My Puzzles’
• Click ‘Create New Puzzle’ and select ‘Word Search’
• Select your layout, enter your title and your chosen words
• That’s it! The template builder will create your word search template for you and you can save it to your account, export as a Word document or PDF and print!

How can I print my word search template?

All of our templates can be exported into Microsoft Word to easily print, or you can save your work as a PDF to print for the entire class. Your puzzles get saved into your account for easy access and printing in the future, so you don’t need to worry about saving them at work or at home!

Can I create a word search in other languages?

Word searches are a fantastic resource for students learning a foreign language as it tests their reading comprehension skills in a fun, engaging way.

We have full support for word search templates in Spanish, French and Japanese with diacritics including over 100,000 images.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be accessed through a number of different media.^[1] Electronic dictionaries can be found in several forms, including software installed on tablet or desktop computers, mobile apps, web applications, and as a built-in function of E-readers. They may be free or require payment.

Information[edit]

Most of the early electronic dictionaries were, in effect, print dictionaries made available in digital form: the content was identical, but the electronic editions provided users with more powerful search functions. But soon the opportunities offered by digital media began to be exploited. Two obvious advantages are that limitations of space (and the need to optimize its use) become less pressing, so additional content can be provided; and the possibility arises of including multimedia content, such as audio pronunciations and video clips.^[2][3]

Electronic dictionary databases, especially those included with software dictionaries are often extensive and can contain up to 500,000 headwords and definitions, verb conjugation tables, and a grammar reference section. Bilingual electronic dictionaries and monolingual dictionaries of inflected languages often include an interactive verb conjugator, and are capable of word stemming and lemmatization.

Publishers and developers of electronic dictionaries may offer native content from their own lexicographers, licensed data from print publications, or both, as in the case of Babylon offering premium content from Merriam Webster, and Ultralingua offering additional premium content from Collins, Masson, and Simon & Schuster, and Paragon Software offering original content from Duden, Britannica, Harrap, Merriam-Webster and Oxford.

Writing systems[edit]

As well as Latin script, electronic dictionaries are also available in logographic and right-to-left scripts, including Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, and Thai.

Dictionary software[edit]

Dictionary software generally far exceeds the scope of the hand held dictionaries. Many publishers of traditional printed dictionaries such as Langenscheidt, Collins-Reverso, Oxford University Press, Duden, American Heritage, and Hachette, offer their resources for use on desktop and laptop computers. These programs can either be downloaded or purchased on CD-ROM and installed. Other dictionary software is available from specialised electronic dictionary publishers such as iFinger, ABBYY Lingvo, Collins-Ultralingua, Mobile Systems and Paragon Software. Some electronic dictionaries provide an online discussion forum moderated by the software developers and lexicographers^[4]

In East Asia[edit]

The well-known brands, such as Instant-Dict (快譯通), Besta (無敵), and Golden Global View (文曲星), includes basic functions like dictionaries, TTS, calculator, calendar etc. They also have functions other than just dictionary, for example, MP3 player, Video player, web browser (WiFi), and simple games. Some also support Adobe Flash (SWF files). Most of them usually will have a touch screen, Qwerty keyboard, a speaker, SD card slot, and sometimes microphone and camera also, for example, MD8500 from Instant-Dict. Their functions can even be comparable to smartphones, with the exception of phone capabilities since they do not have radios to make or receive phone calls.

Main functions[edit]

• Dictionaries: This is one of the most basic function, mostly using Oxford and Longman dictionaries
• TTS: Includes Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text
• Data transport: Uses RS-232 in the earlier ones; Mini USB in recent ones
• Learning: Programs that can help you study for vocabularies
• Note: Notepads, phone books, calendars, world clock, etc.
• Calculators: simple calculators, scientific calculators, unit converters
• Games: Play Flash games

Handheld dictionaries or PEDs[edit]

Handheld electronic dictionaries, also known as «pocket electronic dictionaries» or PEDs, resemble miniature clamshell laptop computers, complete with full keyboards and LCD screens. Because they are intended to be fully portable, the dictionaries are battery-powered and made with durable casing material. Although produced all over the world, handheld dictionaries are especially popular in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and neighbouring countries, where they are the dictionary of choice for many users learning English as a second language.^[5] Some features of handheld dictionaries include stroke order animations, voice output, handwriting recognition, language-learning programs, a calculator, PDA-like organizer functions, time zone and currency converters, and crossword puzzle solvers. Dictionaries that contain data for several languages may have a «jump» or «skip-search» feature that allows users to move between the dictionaries when looking up words, and a reverse translation action that allows further look-ups of words displayed in the results. Many manufacturers produce handheld dictionaries that use licensed dictionary content^[6] that use a database such as the Merriam Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus while others may use a proprietary database from their own lexicographers.^[7] Users can also add content to their handheld dictionaries with memory cards (both expandable and dedicated), CD-ROM data, and Internet downloads. Manufacturers include AlfaLink, Atree, Besta, Casio, Canon, Instant Dict, Ectaco, Franklin, Iriver, Lingo, Maliang Cyber Technology, Compagnia Lingua Ltd., Nurian, Seiko, and Sharp.

In Japan[edit]

The market size as of 2014 was about 24.2 billion yen ($227.1 in May 2016 USD), although the market has been shrinking gradually from 2007^[8] because of smartphones and tablet computers. The targeted customer base has been being shifted from business users to students.^[9][10] Student models of Japanese handheld dictionaries also include digital versions of textbooks and other study materials. Sony and Seiko have withdrawn from the market.^[11][12] As of 2016, Casio had 59.3% of the market share, followed by Sharp with 21.5% and Canon with 19.2%.^[13]

In 2016, Seiko announced that their mobile device apps on iPad iOS has been launched.^[14]

Dictionaries on mobile devices[edit]

Dictionaries of all types are available as apps for smartphones and for tablet computers such as Apple’s iPad, the BlackBerry PlayBook and the Motorola Xoom. The needs of translators and language learners are especially well catered for, with apps for bilingual dictionaries for numerous language pairs, and for most of the well-known monolingual learner’s dictionaries such as the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English and the Macmillan English Dictionary.

Online dictionaries[edit]

There are several types of online dictionary,^[15] including:

• Aggregator sites, which give access to data licensed from various reference publishers. They typically offer monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, one or more thesauruses, and technical or specialized dictionaries. (e.g. TheFreeDictionary.com, Dictionary.com, Kotobank, and Goo Dictionary)
• ‘Premium’ dictionaries available on subscription (e.g. Oxford English Dictionary, van Dale, and Kenkyusha Online Dictionary)
• Dictionaries from a single publisher, free to the user and supported by advertising (e.g. Collins Online Dictionary, Duden Online, Larousse bilingual dictionaries, the Macmillan English Dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary)
• Dictionaries available free from non-commercial publishers (often institutions with government funding), such as the Algemeen Nederlands Woordenboek [nl] (ANW), and Den Danske Ordbog [da].^[16][17]

Online dictionaries are regularly updated, keeping abreast of language change. Many have additional content, such as blogs and features on new words. Some are collaborative projects, most notably Wiktionary and the Collins Online Dictionary. And some, like the Urban Dictionary, consist of entries (sometimes self-contradictory) supplied by users.
Many dictionaries for special purposes, especially for professional and trade terminology, and regional dialects and language variations, are published on the websites of organizations and individual authors. Although they may often be presented in list form without a search function, because of the way in which the information is stored and transmitted, they are nevertheless electronic dictionaries.

Evaluation[edit]

There are differences in quality of hardware (hand held devices), software (presentation and performance), and dictionary content. Some hand helds are more robustly constructed than others, and the keyboards or touch screen input systems should be physically compared before purchase. The information on the GUI of computer based dictionary software ranges from complex and cluttered, to clear and easy-to-use with user definable preferences including font size and colour.

A major consideration is the quality of the lexical database. Dictionaries intended for collegiate and professional use generally include most or all of the lexical information to be expected in a quality printed dictionary. The content of electronic dictionaries developed in association with leading publishers of printed dictionaries is more reliable that those aimed at the traveler or casual user, while bilingual dictionaries that have not been authored by teams of native speaker lexicographers for each language, will not be suitable for academic work.
Some developers opt to have their products evaluated by an independent academic body such as the CALICO.

Another major consideration is that the devices themselves and the dictionaries in them are generally designed for a particular market. As an example, almost all handheld Japanese-English electronic dictionaries are designed for people with native fluency in Japanese who are learning and using English; thus, Japanese words do not generally include furigana pronunciation glosses, since it is assumed that the reader is literate in Japanese (headwords of entries do have pronunciation, however). Further, the primary manner to look up words is by pronunciation, which makes looking up a word with unknown pronunciation difficult (for example, one would need to know that 網羅 «comprehensive» is pronounced もうら, moura to look it up directly). However, Japanese electronic dictionaries (primarily on recent models) include character recognition, so users (native speakers of Japanese or not) can look up words by writing the kanji.

Similar limitations exist in most two or multi-language dictionaries and can be especially crippling when the languages are not written in the same script or alphabet; it’s important to find a dictionary optimized for the user’s native language.

Integrated technology[edit]

Several developers of the systems that drive electronic dictionary software offer API and SDK – Software Development Kit tools for adding various language-based (dictionary, translation, definitions, synonyms, and spell checking and grammar correction) functions to programs, and web services such as the AJAX API used by Google. These applications manipulate language in various ways, providing dictionary/translation features, and sophisticated solutions for semantic search. They are often available as a C++ API, an XML-RPC server, a .NET API, or as a Python API for many operating systems (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.) and development environments, and can also be used for indexing other kinds of data.^[18][19]

See also[edit]

• Sony Data Discman

Notes[edit]

Media related to Electronic dictionaries at Wikimedia Commons

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