Dictionary API or Library [closed]

Question

Does anyone know of a good dictionary API or ruby library to lookup the definitions of words?

I'm thinking it should work something like:

1. I call get_definition(word)
2. It returns the definition for that word (ideally in some way to easily format the definition for display.

Thanks

Answer 1

Wordnik.com has several word-info APIs, including a definitions API. More info is here: http://developer.wordnik.com/

[I work for Wordnik. We will have more APIs soon, let us know what you want!]

Answer 2

I discovered a webservice for this yesterday.

Go to the British Council homepage and double click on any word (that isn't already a hyperlink).

This should open a popup window with a Cambridge Dictionary definition in it. The API is relatively simple (and it is a public API, I checked it yesterday):

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/learnenglish/results.asp?searchword=SEARCH_PHRASE&dict=L 

For reference, here's the code they use to launch this on double-click:

/* BC double-click pop-up dictionary */ var NS = (navigator.appName == "Netscape" || navigator.product == 'Gecko') ? 1 : 0; if (NS) document.captureEvents(Event.DBLCLICK); document.ondblclick = dict; var dictvar;  function dict() {     if (NS) {         t = document.getSelection();         pass_to_dictionary(t);     } else {         t = document.selection.createRange();         if(document.selection.type == 'Text' && t.text != '') {             document.selection.empty();             pass_to_dictionary(t.text);         }     } }  function pass_to_dictionary(text) {     //alert(text);     if (text > '') {         window.open('http://dictionary.cambridge.org/learnenglish/results.asp?searchword='+text+ '&dict=L', 'dict_win', 'width=650,height=400,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes');     } }