Words make swoon, especially when they’re chock-full of history and pop culture references. So my inner word nerd was jumping for joy when I stumbled upon Wordnik, which is “based on the principle that people learn words best by seeing them in context. We’ve collected more than 4 billion words of text (web pages, books, magazines, newspapers, etc.) and have mined them exhaustively to show you example sentences for any word you’re interested in.”
Unlike traditional dictionaries, Wordnik goes beyond a simple definition by offering sample sentence, related words, images on Flickr, stats, references on twitter, etymology, audio pronunciation and contributions from Wordnik users. My heart skipped a beat when I read that users can even add new words to Wordnik and instantly share their crafted gems with the community.
What I love most about Wordnik is the “Random Word” feature, which brings an element of spontaneity to my passion for language.
I’m thrilled to have become a Wordnik member, and can’t wait to expand my language loving mind. Hope to see you there!
Tagged: dictionary, etymology, word nerd, wordie, wordnik, words