English Dictionary needed

Does anyone know where I can download an English dictionary or just a list of words.

It does't have to have all the words.

Unless you know how to get the list of words form Word (spell check).

I'm getting the feeling that an actual English dictionary, even in .txt format, would be HUGE! That's alot of words! I also think that Word's words are heavily compressed (and for good reason).

Not saying that there's nothing out there, but my quick search on Google turned up nothing.

:-\

It shouldn's be that large,

I think just common words amount to 50,000. (that's all I need)

Well, I suppose your right, but that would only cover common words.... hmm... I don't know. You could look into getting the words from Word, but I don't know if you can. There are other spellchecking things. Maybe you could buy one? Or is that not what this is for?

What I am doing is, trying to generated words randomly.

Something like a spelling bee.

Aha. Well, my suggestion is that you input a few hundred words yourself, then allow addition of other words by way of a file or something like that. If it's like a spelling bee, this way you get to choose what kind of words you want to test, so words like 'the' and 'a' don't get asked. ;) It may take a bit longer, but if you just sit down in Notepad, I bet it would take 15-20 minutes to think of a few hundred words. Just look around the room. :-\

Hi Robby

A while back i found some code that did spell checking and it came with a list (6000 words I think) I think it was expanding with each version though.

The link is HERE (http://www.vbweb.co.uk/dev/?spell_checker.htm) but is no good. i would post the zip but the readme asks to only provide a link and not to redistribute the source.


You might be able to find it on the site in the link or a search on the web. It was called spell_check.


Hope this helps.

JDT

YUP... JTD you hit the nail on the head.

It is exactly what I need, it has 6,000 words.

I'll probably use Voltes' suggestion to adding to the list...

Thanks guys.


:D

HERE (http://www.vbweb.co.uk/show/337/3/) is a good link.


JDT

Thanks JTD, I found it from your first link. It's great...

Hmmm, read somewhere the other day that the English language now has over 200,000 words in it. Contrast that to French which only has 60,000. Small wonder that English is so tough to understand :)

No links though to dictionaries :D

Hey Don, your right the entire language has 200,000 or more.

I think, again I'm not sure, common words are about 50,000. The
reason I say this is, I used to have a Websters pocket dic with
that many words.

BTW the download from JTDs link of 6,000 words is only 51k in ansi (txt)

OK, maybe I was overestimating our language. ;) Oh well... Glad you found what you needed.

Good luck on your project.



BTW, it's JDT not JTD ;)

Sorry JDT for messing up your name...

I now have a database of 15,000 words

In Access it's 1meg, and I can find a random word in a split second. Real cool.

I can't believe I'm exited about this. :-\