MiniDic > Searching for a Word

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You can find the definitions of a particular word by browsing through the hyperlinked alphabetical index bar, which appears near the top of every HyperDic page. Additionally, you can use the searchbox to lookup words at the HyperDic website.

Also, there are many other online English dictionaries, that might be useful when a word cannot be found in the current version of HyperDic.

The Alphabetical Word Index

Let us suppose we want to read the page with all definitions of the word "can". This involves a few steps:

At the top of each page, there is an index bar, with a link labelled "C", which leads to a page in the alphabetical index, with further links to all the words that start with "c".
Depending on the coverage of the actual dictionary version, several thousand words might start with "c". Then there is a link labelled "ca", pointing to a page with further links to all the words starting with "ca". Follow that link.
This takes you to the last index-page for this time. Here you will find a link to the entry for the word "can". Follow that link.

NB: Depending on the number of words in the actual dictionary version, there may be an additional intermediate index page listing the words that start with "can".

That's it. Finding a word through the alphabetical index typically takes 4 or 5 clicks, so it is not much harder than typing a word in a searchbox.

Before the introduction of the alphabetical index bar on every HyperDic page, the index was not widely used. Now, 45% of word lookup in HyperDic happens through the index, while 55% takes place through the searchbox.

The searchbox

The searchbox gives access to an online lookup into the newest version of HyperDic. It provides a quick way to find a word, although browsing through the alphabetical index is not much harder.

Each page of HyperDic has a searchbox where you can type a word, to go directly to the page covering that word. Truncation is not supported, so you have to type the whole word, with the correct spelling. If you are not sure of how to spell the word, you should rather use the alphabetical index.