Same Site, New Design!

Salve, everyone! I know it’s been years since the site has been updated. So I am very proud to announce that the entire website has been completely redesigned from the ground-up, including a new grammar section. I’ve also tweaked the search algorithms a bit to give you more meaningful search results, and I’ve also reimplemented the A‑Z Word List section — back by popular demand.

This is an Ongoing Process

Rather than wait any longer to get this redesign launched, I wanted to release it in separate stages so everyone could start reaping the benefits of the new site sooner rather than later. As of right now, the grammar section is still limited, and the Advanced Search has still not been implemented. But, I will be rolling out updates as quickly as I can, so check back often to see what’s new!

I want to thank everyone who continues to send me feedback on this site. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line at kevin@latin-dictionary.net. Thanks!

—Kevin

What is Latdict?

Latdict is a powerful dictionary tool to aid those wishing to lookup Latin words or their English equivalents. Latdict currently boasts 39,225 Latin word entries, and 229,345 searchable English words.

What’s so Great about Latdict?

Several Latin dictionaries currently exist on the web, but most of them provide raw, cryptic or otherwise unwanted results. I created LATdict because I was tired of dealing with irrelevant search results and digging through cryptic codes that described a word's function and history. When I finished creating LATdict, the dictionary exhibited the following features:

  • Latdict uses an effective and efficient search algorithm, based on experience working with other websites that provide a query-based service.
  • Latdict also ranks entries based on how often they appear in Latin literature; Latin can have several different words for the same term, but some words are more popular than others. Latdict utilizes the information to provide more common words at the top of dictionary search results.
  • Latdict spells everything out in plain English (or Latin). One thing that constantly pains me about Latin dictionaries is that they often omit information about their entries, such as omitting declension, conjugation, and other auxiliary information. Other dictionaries might list this information, but provide it in a raw or otherwise cryptic format. Latdict goes out of its way to specify information about each entry. In fact, Latdict also provides other information as well, including the age of the entry, its area of use, its geographical influence, its frequency, and the source of the entry.

What’s Coming up?

Two Words: Advanced Search

Still one of the largest unfulfilled requests is the ability to perform advanced searches. I plan to rectify this situation once I finish the grammar section. “Advanced Search” will have the following features:

  • Search a particular part of speech (verb, adverb, adjective, etc.)
  • Search by word commonality, geographic location(s) used, time periods used, or source
  • Search by declension or conjugation

Once that is complete, I hope to start having inflection matching. This means that you will no longer have to search for a word in its dictionary form (e.g. nominative/genetive for nouns and adjectives, principle parts for verbs). This will really help casual visitors who are wanting to look up words but know absolutely nothing about Latin inflection. The real challenge with this feature, however, is the fact that there are so many exceptions to each inflection pattern that it will be hard to get most of them down.

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