Type a word into the main word look up screen to see matches in the database. If you just type a few letters the program will show you an alphabetical list of words that match. To see corresponding definitions just touch a word, or touch the music symbol to hear the pronunciation (check your device is not on mute and volume up!).
In addition to an alphabetical list, the program will also link to words that sound the same or are often confused. For example typing in peace will show piece as a sounds-like option, or looking for adsorb would show absorb as an often-confused alternative. In addition a drop-down list on the right shows spelling suggestions. Just touch a word to look it up.
WordWeb shows definitions, usage examples, derived forms, usage information and pronunciations. Depending on your settings it can also show synonyms, similar words and antonyms. You can touch a word in a definition or example to quickly view the definition for that word.
If a word has multiple word types or senses, these are shown on the right hand side. For example if there is a noun and a verb sense, top right will show n v. Touch one of the letters to quickly jump to the relevant sense (adverbs are denoted by the letter r).
Many words have audio pronunciations, touch the music symbol to hear the relevant sound. See Menu, Settings to change language preferences, e.g. for British/American English. WordWeb also shows a text pronunciation guide, based on a simple re-spelling scheme. Syllables are separated by a hyphen, primary stress with '-mark, and secondary stresses with a ,-mark. Touch a text pronunciation to pop-up a key showing how each symbol is pronounced. This is the key to the re-spelling scheme:
| a | cat, anger | u | ado, about |
| ã | cast, grass | ú | up, brother |
| aa | arm, calm | û | book, put |
| aw | out, now | ||
| e | bet, egg | ||
| eh | air, wear | ||
| ee | sleep, each | ||
| ey | day, rain | eer | here |
| eu | coiffeur | aw(u-)r | flower |
| i | tip, inch | I(-u)r | fire |
| I | eye, fry | ch | rich |
| o | organ, law | sh | shut |
| ó | cot | th | theme |
| oo | too, food | dh | the |
| ow | toad, own | zh | confusion |
| ów | cold, whole | ng | sing |
| oy | boy, boil | xh | Bach |
| b | but | n | near |
| d | door | p | part |
| f | fall | r | rest |
| g | good | s | soft |
| h | happy | t | turn, matter |
| j | jug | v | village |
| k | cut | w | wet |
| l | list | y | yet |
| m | moon | z | zoom |
Sounds that are sometimes present are enclosed in brackets. WordWeb can show British or North American pronunciations (or both) depending on your settings.
Note that t often sounds more like a d when in an unstressed position in North American English; for example matter sounds similar to madder. Also in most North American accents ó and aa sound the same, though in British and Australian English they are quite distinct. The symbol ã is not used if you are using North American settings (the sound is the same as a), but is distinct in some British accents (sounding like aa in RP). The ów sound is similar to ow, and in many accents there is no difference.
Touch the Pattern search button in the search screen to search for words matching a pattern. For example you can find compound words containing a word, words starting or ending with particular letters, or words to fit in a crossword or other puzzle.
You can search for a word directly, which will simply list all the words containing the given word. More powerful searches can be done using placeholder symbols to define a search pattern. You can also specify what types of words to look for by selecting the Noun, Verb, etc., buttons. The most common pattern symbols ones are shown for convenience as separate buttons, others can be entered using the keyboard:
| ? | any unknown letter | |
| * | zero or more unknown letters | |
| @ | a vowel | |
| # | a consonant |
For example
| C?T | Finds "cat", "cot", etc. |
| *GRY | Finds "angry" and "hungry" |
| @#@#@ | Finds "abate", "acute", "erode", etc. |
You can include punctuation in your search, for example TOP H* would find "top hat". To specify a sequence of unknown letters of a minimum length you can combine ? and *, for example ??* would match two or more unknown letters.
You can change settings by using the Settings option on the toolbar's drop-down menu. There are options whether to always show derived forms even if a word is regular, and which English varieties you wish to use.
The region settings determines which words are shown as synonyms and in pattern search results, and which pronunciations are used. If you always want to see everything you can turn all the regions on, otherwise words specific to an excluded region will not be listed, but can still be looked up.
You can also opt to exclude vulgar and offensive words. If you block them, all definitions and related words are hidden, and purely vulgar and offensive words cannot then be looked up. If vular and offensive related words are only hidden, the words can still be looked up but these words do not show as synonyms of other words (or in other related word lists).
You can slide out the left drawer (swipe from left of screen) to look up the current word in other app or web references, for example other dictionaries or Wikipedia. If an offline dictionary is not installed you will get the option to download it from Play Store, otherwise selecting an offline reference will switch to the other reference app, closing this one. Online references display within the program, but naturally require an internet connection to work.
The list of online references can be changed using the Edit button at the top of the reference list screen. You can delete default references using the usual list delete mechanism, or touch the New button to add the name and URL for a new reference. Simply enter the URL for the reference you want to add, using @@ as a placeholder for the word being looked up. To restore the list of references to the program defaults use the Set defaults button; this will delete any new references you have added.
WordWeb is an Android implementation of the WordWeb international dictionary and thesaurus.
WordWeb is an electronic-only dictionary designed for the modern age, without the traditional limitations of a print dictionary. It is a combination of data from public language research data from Princeton University with years of independent development. The program is also available for Windows desktop computers and online.
Email: wordweb@wordweb.info.