DictionaryLookup[patt]
finds all words in an English dictionary that match the string pattern patt.
DictionaryLookup[patt,n]
gives only the first n words found.
DictionaryLookup[{"lang",patt}]
finds words in the language specified by lang.
DictionaryLookup
DictionaryLookup[patt]
finds all words in an English dictionary that match the string pattern patt.
DictionaryLookup[patt,n]
gives only the first n words found.
DictionaryLookup[{"lang",patt}]
finds words in the language specified by lang.
Details and Options
- No word stemming is done by default, so words like "jump", "jumps", and "jumping" appear separately.
- By default, words appear as they would within a sentence. Setting the option IgnoreCase->True retrieves words whose letters appear in different cases.
- DictionaryLookup[] gives a list of all words in the dictionary.
- DictionaryLookup[All] gives a list of available dictionary languages.
- DictionaryLookup[{"lang",All}] retrieves all words in the language dictionary lang.
- DictionaryLookup[{All,patt}] retrieves all the languages containing words matching patt.
Examples
open all close allBasic Examples (3)
Look up all English words beginning with "abb":
DictionaryLookup["abb" ~~ ___]Look up all Spanish words beginning with "c", ending with "n", and with an "ñ" in between:
DictionaryLookup[{"Spanish", "c" ~~ ___ ~~ "ñ" ~~ ___ ~~ "n"}]Get the list of all available words in the dictionary:
DictionaryLookup[]Scope (3)
Variants such as "jumps" and "jumping" appear separately:
DictionaryLookup["jump" ~~ ___]DictionaryLookup supports in-string patterns:
DictionaryLookup["jump*"]The first 10 words beginning with "z":
DictionaryLookup["z" ~~ ___, 10]Generalizations & Extensions (3)
Give a list of available dictionary languages:
DictionaryLookup[All]Look up words beginning with "molecu" in all available languages:
DictionaryLookup[{All, "molecu" ~~ ___}]Look up all Dutch and Spanish words beginning with "molecula":
DictionaryLookup[{{"Dutch", "Spanish"}, "molecula" ~~ ___}]Find all languages containing a word:
DictionaryLookup[{All, "fiancée"}]Options (1)
Applications (5)
Find the number of words in the dictionary starting with each letter:
Length[DictionaryLookup[# ~~ ___]]& /@ CharacterRange["a", "z"]ListPlot[%, Filling -> Axis]Find all palindromes in the dictionary:
DictionaryLookup[x__ /; x === StringReverse[x]]Find all palindromes that are both English and French words:
Intersection[DictionaryLookup[{"English", x__ /; x === StringReverse[x]}], DictionaryLookup[{"French", x__ /; x === StringReverse[x]}]]Find how many words contain each of the possible permutations of "a", "b", and "c":
StringJoin /@ Permutations[{"a", "b", "c"}]Length[DictionaryLookup[___ ~~ # ~~ ___]]& /@ %Find all 4-letter words formed from "a" through "e":
Select[StringJoin /@ Tuples[{"a", "b", "c", "d", "e"}, 4], Length[DictionaryLookup[#]] ≠ 0&]Create a nearest function from all words in the dictionary:
nf = Nearest[DictionaryLookup[__]]Look up words closest to a given word:
nf["pickel"]nf["pickel", 10]Neat Examples (4)
Find what words might be confused with genomic sequences:
DictionaryLookup[("a" | "g" | "c" | "t").., IgnoreCase -> True]Pick 10 random words beginning with "a" from the dictionary:
RandomChoice[DictionaryLookup["a" ~~ ___], 10]A random collection of words from different languages:
randomWord[] := RandomChoice[DictionaryLookup[{RandomChoice[DictionaryLookup[All]], All}]];Graphics[Table[Rotate[Text[Style[randomWord[], Hue[RandomReal[]], Italic, RandomInteger[{10, 30}]], RandomReal[10, 2]], RandomReal[{0, 2Pi}]], {40}], AspectRatio -> 1 / GoldenRatio]Plot the word length histograms for each language:
Table[Histogram[StringLength /@ DictionaryLookup[{l, All}], {Range[25]}, ImageSize -> 150, PlotLabel -> l, PlotRange -> {{0, 25}, All}], {l, DictionaryLookup[All]}]Related Guides
Related Links
Text
Wolfram Research (2007), DictionaryLookup, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/DictionaryLookup.html (updated 2008).
CMS
Wolfram Language. 2007. "DictionaryLookup." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2008. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/DictionaryLookup.html.
APA
Wolfram Language. (2007). DictionaryLookup. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/DictionaryLookup.html
BibTeX
@misc{reference.wolfram_2026_dictionarylookup, author="Wolfram Research", title="{DictionaryLookup}", year="2008", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/DictionaryLookup.html}", note=[Accessed: 13-June-2026]}
BibLaTeX
@online{reference.wolfram_2026_dictionarylookup, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={DictionaryLookup}, year={2008}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/DictionaryLookup.html}, note=[Accessed: 13-June-2026]}