The README file
To accompany the GNU version of the set of files (CIDE.*) containing
the electronic version of the
Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
(called also GCIDE)
These files contain Version 0.51 (January 2012)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* OVERVIEW
This document describes the GNU version of the Collaborative International
Dictionary of English. It is organized into a series of chapters,
introduced by headings beginning with a single asterisk. A chapter may have
sections, which are marked with two asterisks. For those readers who use
Emacs, this structure corresponds to its "Outline mode", which will be
enabled automatically upon loading this file.
The chapter "INTRODUCTION" describes the structure of this package. The
chapter "STRUCTURE OF THE DICTIONARY" describes the dictionary structure in
general. An overview of the markup tags is provided in the chapter "TAGS".
A detailed information about dictionary markup can be obtained from a set of
ancillary files included in this package, which are described in the chapter
"ANCILLARY FILES".
The chapter "DICTIONARY LOOKUP" describes how to use GNU Dico for reading
this dictionary. Finally, other versions of the Webster dictionary are
listed in the chapter "OTHER VERSIONS OF THE DICTIONARY".
* INTRODUCTION
The dictionary was derived from the
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Version published 1913
by the C. & G. Merriam Co.
Springfield, Mass.
Under the direction of
Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D.
and has been supplemented with some of the definitions from
WordNet, a semantic network created by
the Cognitive Science Department
of Princeton University
under the direction of
Prof. George Miller
and is being proof-read and supplemented by volunteers from around the
world. This is an unfunded project, and future enhancement of this
dictionary will depend on the efforts of volunteers willing to help build
this free resource into a comprehensive body of general information. New
definitions for missing words or words senses and longer explanatory notes,
as well as images to accompany the articles are needed. More modern
illustrative quotations giving recent examples of usage of the words in
their various senses will be very helpful, since most quotations in the
original 1913 dictionary are now well over 100 years old.
This electronic version is being maintained by World Soul, a non-profit
organization in Plainfield, NJ. For additional information or if you are
willing to assist construction of this data source, contact:
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Patrick J. Cassidy | TEL: (908) 561-3416
World Soul | if no answer, (908) 668-5252
735 Belvidere Ave. | FAX: (908) 668-5904
Plainfield, NJ 07062-2054
pc@worldsoul.org or cassidy@micra.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
GCIDE is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
GCIDE is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this copy of GCIDE; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.
* STRUCTURE OF THE DICTIONARY
When the archive is unpacked, the main dictionary text of the GCIDE will be
found in 26 files named "CIDE.*", where the asterisk indicates which letter
of the alphabet begins the words in each file. For example, file "CIDE.B"
contains words beginning with the letter "B". Additional information about
the tagging conventions and special character symbols are contained in
ancillary files in this directory (see below the section entitled "ANCILLARY
FILES"). The main body of the 1913 dictionary was essentially identical to
the edition published in 1890, and was republished in 1913 with an appendix
containing "New Words". The new words of that appendix have been integrated
into the main file in this version. However, it is important to keep in
mind that the definitions in this dictionary are in most cases over 100
years old. Use them with caution!
At the bottom of each paragraph in this dictionary, there is a bracketed and
tagged "source" indicated. This tells from where the definition or other
text in that paragraph came, as follows:
[]
= From the original 1890 dictionary.
[]
= From the 1913 "New Words" supplement to the Webster.
[]
= From the WordNet on-line semantic network.
[]
= From the Century Dictionary published in 1906, especially from
the "proper Names" supplement (volume IX).
published
[]
= Added by one of the volunteers.
The original definitions have been tagged and in some cases reformatted or
slightly rearranged. If substantive information is added from a second
source, usually the additional source is also noted, as in:
[ + ]
This version is tagged with SGML-like tags of the form
...
do *not* always nest properly with certain other tags, such as...
tags. The unusual characters (such as Greek or the European accented characters, as well as special characters used in the pronunciations) are described in the accompanying file "webfont.txt". Some information on the pronunciation system used may be found by viewing the file "pronunc.jpg", and additional explanations of pronunciation are in the file "pronunc.txt". Each paragraph of the original text is enclosed within tags of the form. . .
. Within these paragraphs there are no line breaks, and some of the paragraphs are over 12,000 characters long, which may prove too long to be handled by some editors. At some points, embedded line breaks within a "paragraph" are marked by aillustrative quotation -- in block quote formatauthor of an illustrative quotationalternative name for the headword -- essentially a synonym alternative spelling of the headword list of synonyms for the headword paragraph bold type
italic type For other tags, see the file "tagset.txt" * ANCILLARY FILES In addition to the main text of the dictionary, additional explanatory material about this version of the dictionary is available in the ancillary files: ** COPYING The license terms for distributing and modifying this dictionary. ** abbrevn.lst List of the abbreviations used in the dictionary. ** authors.lst List of authors whose works are quoted in the dictionary. ** pronunc.txt Description of the special markup used in this dictionary to represent pronunciations. ** pronunc.jpg A copy of the dictionary page describing the pronunciation symbols used in the original work. ** symbols.jpg This file lists original pronunciation symbols with the corresponding markup entities used in this version. ** tagset.txt Description of the markup tags. ** titlepage.png A copy of the original title page. ** webfont.txt Description of the special escape sequences used in this dictionary. This file also explains the Greek transliteration syntax used in it. * DICTIONARY LOOKUP The GNU Dico project contains a module for reading GCIDE files. This distribution provides a configuration file "gcide.conf" which you can use with the "dicod" server in order to look up words in the dictionary. See http://www.gnu.org.ua/software/dico for a description of GNU Dico, including links to download. The instructions below describe how to configure GNU Dico server (dicod) to access a copy of the GCIDE dictionary. 1. Unpack the GCIDE dictionary; 2. Copy the file "gcide.conf" to a directory where you keep your local configuration files (/etc or /usr/local/etc are usual choices). 3. Replace the word GCIDE_PATH in the "gcide.conf" statement with the path to the gcide-0.51 dicrectory. You can omit this step and use the -D option instead: 4. Check the configuration file. Run: dicod --config /path/to/gcide.conf --lint If you skipped the step 3, supply the -D option with the acual path to the dictionary. For example, if you copied "gcide.conf" to /etc and unpacked GCIDE to /usr/local, then run: dicod --config /etc/gcide.conf -D GCIDE_PATH=/usr/local --lint If no errors are reported, then go to the step 5. 5. Start "dicod". Run the same command as described in step 4, but without the "--lint" option. This will start the dictionary server which will be avaialble on localhost (127.0.0.1) port 2628. The server provides extensive searching facilities. It also parses the GCIDE markup and automatically reformats the articles before returning them. Now you can access the dictionary using dico (a GNU dictionary command line utility), or another dictionary client program (such as Kdict or the like). * OTHER VERSIONS OF THE DICTIONARY There are several other derivative versions of this dictionary on the internet, in some cases reformatted or provided with an interface. Those that I am aware of are: ** Dicoweb This version of GCIDE is available online at the GNU Dico web site: http://dicoweb.gnu.org.ua/?db=gcide The site provides extensive search facilities. ** Project Gutenberg In the extext96 directory of Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96), there is a version of the original 1913 dictionary, which is in the **public domain**. The main files are labeled pgw050*.*. The tags for that version are a subset of those used in this GNU version. ** The DICT development group This group has created a program to index and search this dictionary. The program can be downloaded and used locally, but at present is available only in a Unix-compatible executable version. See their web site at http://www.dict.org. ** The University of Chicago ARTFL project Mark Olsen and Gavin LaRowe at the University of Chicago have converted the original 1913 dictionary to HTML and have provided an interface allowing search of the headwords. When the supplemented version has developed sufficiently to warrant the effort, a similar searchable version may be posted there as well. The search page is at: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/webster.form.html That page will provide links to other ARTFL projects and contact information for the ARTFL group, who alone can provide information about the HTML version or interface. Local Variables: mode: outline paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$" version-control: never fill-column: 76 End: