look up a word in Dictionary.app in Terminal

Question

Is there a bash or applescript to look up a word in /Applications/Dictionary.app from a Terminal window ?

open -a /Applications/Dictionary.app/ --args word

ignores --args, says "type a word to look up"

Mac Dictionary improvements suggests ⌃ Control ⌘ Command D however I'm looking to launch the full app, not just the small popover.

Answer 1

You can use...

open dict://my_word

...which will open the Dictionary application and lookup the string my_word. If you want to use multiple words use something like open dict://"Big Bang Theory".

There's no output in the Terminal though.

Answer 2

Using the Python Objective-C bindings, you could create just a small python script to get it from the built in OS X Dictionary. Here's a post that details this script"

#!/usr/bin/python3

import sys
from CoreServices import DictionaryServices


def main():
    try:
        searchword = sys.argv[1]
    except IndexError:
        errmsg = 'You did not enter any terms to look up in the Dictionary.'
        print(errmsg)
        sys.exit()
    wordrange = (0, len(searchword))
    dictresult = DictionaryServices.DCSCopyTextDefinition(None, searchword, wordrange)
    if not dictresult:
        errmsg = "'%s' not found in Dictionary." % (searchword)
        print(errmsg)
    else:
        print(dictresult)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Save that to dict.py, and then just run python dict.py dictation

Check out the post for more instructions on making it accessable all across your terminal.

Answer 3

I found a solution using Swift 4.

#!/usr/bin/swift
import Foundation

if (CommandLine.argc < 2) {
    print("Usage: dictionary word")
}else{
    let argument = CommandLine.arguments[1]
    let result = DCSCopyTextDefinition(nil, argument as CFString, CFRangeMake(0, argument.count))?.takeRetainedValue() as String?
    print(result ?? "")
}

1. save this as dict.swift
2. add permission by chmod +x dict.swift
3. lookup dictionary
   • run with interpreter ./dict.swift word
   • build by compiler swiftc dict.swift and run ./dict word

Answer 4

I was also going to suggest open dict://word, but Google's dictionary API also uses the New Oxford American Dictionary:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require "open-uri"
require "json"
require "cgi"

ARGV.each { |word|
  response = open("http://www.google.com/dictionary/json?callback=dict_api.callbacks.id100&q=#{CGI.escape(word)}&sl=en&tl=en&restrict=pr,de").read
  results = JSON.parse(response.sub(/dict_api.callbacks.id100\(/, "").sub(/,200,null\)$/, ""))
  next unless results["primaries"]
  results["primaries"][0]["entries"].select { |e| e["type"] == "meaning" }.each { |entry|
    puts word + ": " + entry["terms"][0]["text"].gsub(/x3c\/?(em|i|b)x3e/, "").gsub("x27", "'")
  }
}

Answer 5

The updated code from David Perace answer, add some colors and new lines:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import sys
import re
from DictionaryServices import *

class bcolors:
    HEADER = '\033[95m'
    OKBLUE = '\033[94m'
    OKGREEN = '\033[92m'
    WARNING = '\033[93m'
    FAIL = '\033[91m'
    ENDC = '\033[0m'
    BOLD = '\033[1m'
    UNDERLINE = '\033[4m'

def main():
    try:
        searchword = sys.argv[1].decode('utf-8')
    except IndexError:
        errmsg = 'You did not enter any terms to look up in the Dictionary.'
        print errmsg
        sys.exit()
    wordrange = (0, len(searchword))
    dictresult = DCSCopyTextDefinition(None, searchword, wordrange)
    if not dictresult:
        errmsg = "'%s' not found in Dictionary." % (searchword)
        print errmsg.encode('utf-8')
    else:
        result = dictresult.encode('utf-8')
        result = re.sub(r'\|(.+?)\|', bcolors.HEADER + r'/\1/' + bcolors.ENDC, result)
        result = re.sub(r'▶', '\n\n ' + bcolors.FAIL + '▶ ' + bcolors.ENDC, result)
        result = re.sub(r'• ', '\n   ' + bcolors.OKGREEN + '• ' + bcolors.ENDC, result)
        result = re.sub(r'(‘|“)(.+?)(’|”)', bcolors.WARNING + r'“\2”' + bcolors.ENDC, result)
        print result

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 6

checkout this github repo: https://github.com/aztack/osx-dictionary

install： brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/takumakei/osx-dictionary/master/osx-dictionary.rb --HEAD

Answer 7

I installed dict from homebrew so now when I use dict from command line it's working simply. I needed this one for my custom emacs configuration

Answer 8

Try Dictionary OSX (I made this after getting stuck with other answers and wanting a non-Python solution). It uses the definitions from Dictionary.app.

dictionary cat
# cat 1 |kat| ▶noun 1 a small domesticated carnivorous mammal with soft fur...

It uses DictionaryKit, a wrapper for the private Dictionary Services available on OSX. There's interesting background information about how this works on NSHipster.

Answer 9

I use this alias:

alias dict='f(){ open "dict://${1}"; unset -f f; }; f'

Explanation here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/366683

Answer 10

I came across this post looking for a similar thing. Wasn't happy with the options available so made simple script. Its a terminal based thesaurus with text to speech. May be of interest ...

https://github.com/aefty/thes

Answer 11

Look in the following thread to find out how to use Dictionary.app in the Terminal: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2679911?start=0&tstart=0

Answer 12

This simple solution works for multiple words too

function dict() {
    __QUERY=$1
    for term in ${@:2}; do
        __QUERY="$__QUERY%20$term"
    done
    open "dict://$__QUERY"
}

Answer 13

Here's a super straightforward thing I threw together.