Cambd

Cambridge dictionary cli app

Warning

cambd is currently not working. dictionary.cambridge.org is now behind a Cloudflare bot challenge and returns 403 to plain HTTP requests, so every lookup fails with "No definition found". This affects the whole site, not just one endpoint, and it is not fixable by changing the request headers or User-Agent - clearing the challenge requires running its JavaScript. A fix means moving to a headless browser or a different data source; no decision made yet. Tracking this before spending time on a PR.

Features

• Automatically suggests related words when a typo is detected.
• Provides an interactive suggestion menu for selecting the correct word in case of a typo.
• Supports past and past participle forms, returning the definition of the root word.
• Operates without relying on any external APIs or databases.
• Implements persistent caching to store previously searched words, ensuring faster results. The cache is maintained using Python's built-in sqlite3.

Install

pip install cambd

Or using pipx

pipx install cambd

Usage

Usage: cambd [OPTIONS] WORD

Options:
  -a, --show-all         Show all the definitions of a word.
  -d, --dictionary TEXT  Determine which dictionary region to use (uk, us) [default: uk]
  -v, --verbose          Show extra word info ie, word codes & labels. [ex: A2 informal]
  -c, --clear-cache      Clear all the stored cache from system.
  --version              Show the version and exit.
  --help                 Show this message and exit.

FAQ

Q. Why scrape instead of using a Dictionary API?

Note

TBH, As a non native english speaker, I find the cambridge dictionary the most easy to understand. But they don't have any public free API with all the features I want like getting suggestions on misspelled words and give both US and UK definations etc. So I ended up building this cli tool with basic scrapping for my own usecase as I am a terminal power user and don't want to leave the terminal, go to browser, open a new tab just to search for a word meaning.

LICENSE

MIT License © Rocktim Saikia 2024