cambd

Cambridge dictionary cli app

Features

• Autosuggest related words on typo.
• Interactive suggestion menu to select words from in the above case.
• Handles past and past-particle words. Returns the original word definition.
• No API/database involved.
• A Persistent caching mechanism. This avoids looking up already searched words; hence fast results.

Uses python's integrated sqlite3 for maintaning a persistent cache.

Installation

pip install cambd

Usage

Usage: cambd [OPTIONS] WORD

Options:
  -a, --show-all         Show all the definitions of a word.
  -d, --dictionary TEXT  Determine which dictionary region to use (uk, us) [default: uk]
  -v, --verbose          Show extra word info ie, word codes & labels. [ex: A2 informal]
  -c, --clear-cache      Clear all the stored cache from system.
  --version              Show the version and exit.
  --help                 Show this message and exit.

By default it caches words in $HOME/.cambd-cache.db. To clear the cache if needed
run cambd --clear-cache. It is strongly recommended to not modify this file manually.

FAQ

1. Why scrape instead of using a Dictionary API?

TBH, As a non native english speaker, I find the cambridge dictionary the most easy to understand. But they don't have any public free API with all the features I want like getting suggestions on misspelled words and give both US and UK definations etc. So I ended up building this cli tool with basic scrapping for my own usecase as I am a terminal power user and don't want to leave the terminal, go to browser, open a new tab just to search for a word meaning.

LICENSE

MIT License © Rocktim Saikia 2022