This package allows you to query the dictionaries at https://wordreference.com from within emacs.

It displays terms, part of speech, links to conjugation tables (shown as ▦ or #), contextualizing terms, example sentences, usage infomation, notes, other entries the term is found in, and links to forum entries.

The sole entry point is wordreference-search.

You can customize the default source and target languages wordreference-source-lang and wordreference-target-lang. If you call wordreference-search with a prefix argument, you can also choose your languages interactively.

The package has been tested with French <> English and Portuguese <> English. Other languages work but may not be parsed as well.

wordreference.el is available on MELPA.

If you already have it set up, you can simply call M-x package-install RET wordreference.

Minimum emacs version is now 27.1.

• w or s to start a new search (mark any word first to search it by default) with the same language pair as last search
• <tab> / <backtab> to move point backward and forward between entries
• <return> when on an entry to do a new search for that entry
• click on a word in an entry to search for just that single word
• <return> to open a usage note, conjugation table or forum entry in external browser
• click on a forum entry to view it in a new buffer using shr.el.s
• , / . to go to the previous/next heading
• b to view page in external browser
• C to copy current search term
• n to list and search nearby entries in the dictionary
• c to search same term on https://www.cntrl.fr (only works with well-formed French queries)
• l to search the same term on https://www.linguee.com
• L to search the same term in the Littré using sdcv.el.
• r to search the same term with reverso.el
• S to swap source and target and search for same term again
• v to immediately search most recent item in the kill ring.
• ? to view these commands.

Contributions and feedback are welcome. Feel free to make suggestions, either by opening an issue or sending me an email.

You may also be interested in my fork of emacs-leo.

If you’d like to support continued development of wordreference.el, I accept donations via paypal: paypal.me/martianh. If you would prefer a different payment method, please write to me at <[email protected]> and I can provide IBAN or other bank account details.

I don’t have a tech worker’s income, so even a small tip would help out.

• [ ] definition searches