# a Simple simple dictionary

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 22, 2002, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349 "2002-10-22T07:15:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ScottHaneda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@ScottHaneda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScottHaneda)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349/1 "2002-10-22T07:15:17Z")

</div>

Hello, I am a programmer of sorts, and I am looking for something I can not find, and I have a feeling someone here will know.

I have written a small application that if from a cellphone you send a email, it will talk to my email server, then my datbase, and return the result to the cellphone.

Ultimately, you will email a word in the subject, and it will give you the dictionary definition. Problem is the cellphones here in the US seem to be limited to 110 characters, which is not a whole lot, so I am looking to dump phonetics, as well as all the other possible definitions other than the first and most likely.

This is not a commercial servce, it is more a toy I am playing with in boredom.

So, [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) and [m-w.com](http://m-w.com) are not responsive to my emails, anyone got a dictionary on CD that has some exporting capabilies, I am a mac programmer as well, so I have a limit on software resources that most PC people have, such as a exportable dictionary where I could define the export to limit itself to one definition.

I can easily truncate after the 110’th character, so that is a non issue.

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349/2 "2002-10-22T08:00:25Z")

</div>

Seems to me that you could just parse the [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) returned definition to strip it down to only the text between 1. and 2. That’s just a simple regex. I assume you can take it from there.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ScottHaneda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@ScottHaneda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScottHaneda)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349/3 "2002-10-22T08:05:28Z")

</div>

🙂 I should have listed that as one of my criteria, that makes it work, not fun 😛 And also reliant on the [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) server allowing me to, as well as the format not changing a whole lot etc etc, this is more a toy than a program, but if it comes to it, I may take the regex string parsing road, though that is never ever fun.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-simple-simple-dictionary/133349/4 "2002-10-22T10:47:19Z")

</div>

Regexes not fun?!

You got a lot to learn about programming!

😃