The app’s philosophy: Everything is connected. And it shows you exactly how, without forcing you to sift through an abyss of incessant etymologies.
Instead of a traditional thesaurus, the app links words by separating synonyms into as many as 18 different categories to offer a well-rounded understanding of their relationship to each other. For example, search the word “dictionary” and you’ll pull up groups like More General (wordbooks), More Specific (bilingual dictionary, gazetteer), and Parts (lexical entry).
The concept is great in theory and could perhaps aid someone writing an Intro to Logic term paper, but I’ve been using this reference app for a week now and can’t say I’m finding it much more practical than any other. Interesting, but not worth any hoopla.
Still, it’s nothing if not comprehensive. It works better as a dictionary, with its clear, concise definitions for more than 1.6 million words, sentence examples and drop down page of correct pronunciations.
As a bonus, a quick shake of your iPhone (or iPod Touch) will generate a random word search to help you expand your vocabulary. And if nothing else, at least you’ll finally learn how to properly pronounce Siddhārtha Gautama.
