Dictionaries

Julio Batista Silva

Last updated on May 3, 2011 2 min read Linux, Tutorial

Updated in October 2021.

Online Dictionaries

There are several online dictionaries that are very good for casual queries.
The best ones I know are:

Portuguese

Michaelis - https://michaelis.uol.com.br/moderno-portugues/
Priberam - https://dicionario.priberam.org/
Wiktionary - https://pt.wiktionary.org/

German

Bab.la - https://pt.bab.la/dicionario/alemao-portugues/
Bairisch - http://www.bayrisches-woerterbuch.de/
Beolingus - https://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
Collins german-english - https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/german-english
DeepL - https://www.deepl.com/translator
Dict.cc - https://dept.dict.cc/
Duden - https://www.duden.de/woerterbuch
Google - https://translate.google.com/#de/pt/
Langenscheidt - https://www.langenscheidt.de/
Michaelis - https://michaelis.uol.com.br/escolar-alemao/
PONS - https://pt.pons.com/tradu%C3%A7%C3%A3o
Pauker.at - https://www.pauker.at/pauker/DE_DE/PT/wb
Reverso Dictionary - https://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/
Wiktionary - https://de.wiktionary.org
Woxikon - https://www.woxikon.de/woerterbuch/de-en
Wörtebuch - https://www.worterbuch-deutsch.com/

Offline Dictionaries

Sometimes I need to make several queries or I am in a place without internet access.

The most complete program I found is GoldenDict. Some other programs are only available for Windows, but you can run them with Wine.

Wine

There are Windows versions of the Portuguese dictionaries Aurélio and Houaiss.
Both work reasonably well via Wine. Aurélio needs Windows fonts.

Considering they were installed in the Wine Prefix called dicts, you can add the following aliases in ~/.zshrc to call the dictionaries from the command line:

  alias houaiss='WINEPREFIX="/home/julio/.local/share/wineprefixes/dicts" wine /home/julio/.local/share/wineprefixes/dicts/drive_c/Program\ Files/Houaiss3/Houaiss3.exe & disown'

  alias aurelio='WINEPREFIX="/home/julio/.local/share/wineprefixes/dicts" wine /home/julio/.local/share/wineprefixes/dicts/drive_c/Program\ Files/Positivo/Miniaurelio/aurelio.exe & disown'

GoldenDict

In Windows, I used to use Babylon.
Instead of running it through Wine, I found some of its dictionaries in .bgl format and converted them to Stardict (.ifo/.dict/.idx/.syn), which also work with GoldenDict.

In addition to Babylon dictionaries, I also found some from Apple, ABBYY Lingvo, among others in a format compatible with GoldenDict.

Just place the files in a folder (~/Dicts, for example) and configure GoldenDict to read the folder recursively.

Dark Theme

$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ilius/5a2f35c79775267fbdb249493c041453/raw/5c616fa8120fbf8aee9bc2d33e70f54e0990e759/article-style.css
$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ilius/5a2f35c79775267fbdb249493c041453/raw/5c616fa8120fbf8aee9bc2d33e70f54e0990e759/qt-style.css
$ mkdir -p ~/.goldendict/styles/dark-theme
$ mv article-style.css ~/.goldendict/styles/dark-theme/
$ mv qt-style.css ~/.goldendict/

Edit » Preferences… » Interface:

Add-on style: dark-theme
Display style: Default

Arc Dark Theme

$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ManiaciaChao/ddb14a09a12c95f134003bcd552dced4/raw/af583740c303e31eb466d945389b7346bb56bf0d/article-style.css
$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ManiaciaChao/ddb14a09a12c95f134003bcd552dced4/raw/af583740c303e31eb466d945389b7346bb56bf0d/qt-style.css
$ mv qt-style.css ~/.goldendict/
$ mkdir -p ~/.goldendict/styles/dark-theme
$ mv article-style.css ~/.goldendict/styles/dark-theme/

Google Translate

$ git clone https://github.com/OPHoperHPO/GT-bash-client.git ~/bin/translate

Edit » Dictionaries… » Sources » Programs » Add…:

Name: GT: en > pt
Command Line: bash /home/julio/bin/translate/translate.sh en pt %GDWORD%

Shortcuts

Ctrl + C + C translates the selected or copied word.

More shortcuts: http://goldendict.org/wiki/index.php/Hotkeys_(Shortcut_keys)

Android

I also use GoldenDict on Android. The MDict format (.mdx) doesn’t work, but the others do.

In addition to that, I also use the dict.cc app (Pt↔En/En↔De/De↔Pt), the Pleco app (Mandarin), the Diccionario de español, and the LEO dictionary. For everything else, I use the Google Translator or DeepL apps when connected to the internet.