App:TomeRaider 3.2.00 ; WordNet dictionary database available herePocketGenius 3.0 (0217) (the only one WordNet 1.x database!)MDict 2.1.3SlovoEd English talking English to English dictionary, WordNet version (with engine SlovoEd 2005 Revision 5 and/or 9)BDicty English Pro (with engine version 5.5)AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7WordNETCE 2.7WordBook 3.6 b50612Lexisgoo English Dictionary 2.7 Build 27906Lextionary 2.4
Price$38.00$30Free$29.95 with the 10 000-word Speech Pack; $19.95 with the 14 665-entry Acronym dictionary by Hein van Steenis$24.00 (bundled with two other English dictionaries)$24.95free$19.95$19.95$14.99
Trial restrictions?Some records are not shown15 daysn/a (free)More and more nagging messages as you use the dictionary, independent of the time passedOnly words starting with A and B are listed15-day; no other restrictions (except for occasional "Register" dialogs instead of definitions)Free15-day; no other restrictions14 day; no other restrictionsUseless: a random word is displayed upon tapping Go
Requirements------Official WordNet dictionary file must be separately installed; requires CF1, preferably SP3. (This also means it's definitely slower than the other, native apps.)---
Memory?-It copies some 175k in \Windows and some 37k to \My DocumentsEverything (480k engine + database files) can be stored on a cardAbout 800k in \Program Files\SlovoEd, the entire directory can be safely relocated (even the resident "Word of the Day" will work after this!) to a storage card5.9M anywhere16M anywhere36M (uncompressed, original WordNet database) +4M (program) anywhere12M (and 4.6M for the speech synthesizer DLL) anywhere; 0k in main memory.20.6M anywhere. Lexistudy.dll Today plug-in and LexistudyOpt.exe takes some 44+22k in \Windows; Lexisee.exe 33k.12M anywhere
Compatibility: Standard (SE) VGA?++++++ (pronunciation is still displayed pixel-doubled)Pixel doubling. Fortunately, forced VGA mode works (with only half of the text input fields displayed)+++
WM2003SE PL720, in True VGA mode+ + +-+; only the two command icons are misshaped in "Add note" mode+ (albeit the word chooser list doesn't entirely fill in the available screen estate) + + (1 2)+ +
WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard, in Landscape mode++++++++++
WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v A12++++++++++
WordNet feature support: All relations displayed?NopeNot really – the underlying WordNet database is really outdated and doesn’t contain much information.- +- (no hypernyms / hyponyms; only synonyms)- (no hypernyms / hyponyms; only synonyms)+; full, with word links (1 2+; full, with word links after clicking the Chain icon 1 2. +; full, with word links+, full, with word links
Synonyms / antonyms (latter tested with "good")+ / - (1 2 3 4 5 6)+ / + (see 1 2)+ / - (1 2 3)+ / ++ / - (1 2 3)+ / - + / + (result)+ / ++ / ++ / + (look for the Antonym icon; also note that, in the screenshot, in the adjectives section, icons are buggy: only blocks are displayed instead of the real icons)
Wider (hypernyms) / narrower (hyponym) definition links? - / -- / - (this is a 1.x WordNet database with very few (if at all!) hypernyms/ hyponyms!)- / -+ / +- / -- / - (!)+ / + (result)+ / + (after clicking the Chain icon) + / ++ / +
Example of 'Charm'Here and here Here Here1 2 Here 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 1 2
Additional features: Easy to further search in the answer text?Copy/paste needed; copy is impossible on WM5Word highlight + tap-and-hold, Copy in the context menu (or the Copy icon), paste to the textfield works.Word must be manually selected, copied to the clipboard and pasted back (these two functionalities with the two icons to the right of the word input field) to the word search field+ (Double-clicking a word auto-invokes lookup; highlighting some text and then, just tapping it results in the same)+ (Word or expression must be highlighted by hand (unfortunately, double-clicking a word doesn't work with the 5.5 engine, only with the old 5.0) and, then, the icon clicked)Not really (non-linked words must be copied to clipboard and pasted back)+ (clicked word is sought for at once)+ (after any kind of text hightlighting, a menu will come up with, among other things, "Lookup". Choosing it will result in instant searching.)+ (clicking any word brings up a context menu with, among other things, "Definition". This can be modified in Tools/ Smart Tap)Not really (non-linked words must be copied to clipboard and pasted back)
Lookup history?+ in 3.1.x, - in 3.2.00+ but doesn’t list everything (meant to have (see this and this) but I’ve never managed to make it work)+ (remembered and freely browsable) +; remembers it; anything can be chosen+; NOT remembered through restarts+ (doesn't remember through restarts; freely selectable in History) + (remembers through restarts; freely selectable in the "Recents" menu (in Lookup View). In the Content View tab, it's NOT freely selectable, must be navigated with the forward/backward buttons in the top right corner)+ (remembers through restarts) + (remembers through restarts; NOT freely selectable, can only be navigated with the backward button)
Favorites?+------You can add favorites from the main list; they can be seen collected in the "Favorites" main menu. It has no categories or time-based restriction, unlike LexisgooReally advanced: it allows for separating favorites based on the time they have been added. Also, allows for separating favorites into a tree structure-
User notes?----+ (adding; it is listed at the end of the given article. There is no central lookup list of user-added notes, unlike with Lexisgoo)---Pretty nicely listed - multi-row comments allowed (no drawing though)-
Speech synthesis?-+; the only app to allow for changing the pitch / female/male speaker / speed. Average quality.-Pre-recorded voice of native English speakers (of really excellent quality - in this respect, it's much better than anything else) can be purchased with 5/ 10 / 20 000 words. It's only capable of spelling individual words, unlike Flite and its "read the entire selection" capability.---FLITE, reads both the current word and any selected textFLITE, reads both the current word and any selected text; Lexisee also has text reading capabilities to read anything selected in any app-
English grammar tutorial built-in? -- (only a list of irregular verb database comes with built-in; see \Windows\IrregVerb.mgm)-- (only a list of irregular verbs)----+ very thorough (example: 1 2 3 ); even with irregular verbs-
User-added, searchable, new database records as in, say, SlovoEd 2005?-+ you can add words to your own dictionary (“My words”). Then, you have to enter the word and its description by yourself(pasting to the textfield works)- (on the desktop, however, you can easily create your own databases)By far the best. Give the new record a searchable name (here, "mynewrecord") and create the description. During this, you can use any font style / type / color (see the Format menu; an example here).

The newly added record will be stored in the user dictionary (which will be automatically created if you haven't ever added any record) and, depending on whether you let the system to access it parallelly with the "official" dictionary databases, searchable (this is the default).		-- (you can use your own, additional dictionaries, but you can't dynamically add anything to them on your PDA, unlike with SlovoEd)----
Dynamic scrolling with, preferably, hiding all the entries that are surely not looked for?+ (in index mode with Subject Lookup) / - + / - + / -+ (a bit slower than other, dynamically scrolling apps) / - + / - + / +- + / -+ / --
Multiple dictionary database support: Does it exist?++++++----
Easy-to-create, well-documented and supported custom databases?To a certain degree (not as easily as with MDict)? (couldn’t decide this as almost everything related to the app is in Chinese and there is no docs in English)+---(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)
Looking up the description of a word from more than one databases as easily as possible?-+ (it’s just the question of tapping the tab of the given database. For example, if you look up the word ‘go’ from the WordNet database (having the tab titled ‘ee-sna’) you just tap the tab of the other database you want to look up the word from. For example, the database listing the irregular verbs (and auto-deployed with the PocketGenius installation to \Windows\IrregVerb.mgm) is called ‘Irregula’ (results here); with another irregular verb database (in here, 'IrrV'), the results are here etc. All in all, lookup / switching between databases while keeping the word looked for is very easy. En/ disabling databases is very easy; here, you can get more information on the given database (see “Edit”).Possible, but not as easy as with SlovoEd: after switching the current dictionary in Library, the searched-for word remains in the text input field, but you must manually press/click Enter for the search to be conducted again.+ (the easiest, best approach)Even more complicated than with MDict (you must traverse the focus to another word and, then, back, after switching the database)- (no other English-only dictionaries)(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)
Are the words of all accessible databases included in the search list?---+ (unique in this respect)--(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)(n/a)
Search: Best match search support? (Wildcard searches (AKA puzzle helpers)?)---+ --+; even allows for regular expressions+ really sophisticated: two tabs: the simple puzzle (1 2) and the advanced wildcard (result here). The latter is pretty close to what real regular expressions are capable of.+ (Tools/Advanced Search / first tab)+ (example result)
Phonetic searches?-------+ (result) ; about as imprecise as with LexisGoo+; not very precise thoughNo real phonetic mode; other approximations (see above and below) work tolerably
Approximate match? Type (intelligent typo-checker / first match)?----- (upon trying to find Aprove from a separate app, it didn't even scroll to the first few matching characters - it just stays on the definition of the previously looked-up word (here, 'nice')-File / Sounds like; VERY slow (even with the first letter - 'a' with 'aproved' - known ) and can't be stopped! It, however, is able to find by far the best results+ steps to the dictionary list; not as good as Lextionary but, upon some searching in the result list, the correct form can eventually be found+ (from other apps; You'll need to explicitly enable Approximate / Exact match for this!). Some well-known typos are covered: an example with hire (here). First match check only (propably; aprove)It matches better (!) than Lexisgoo: Aprove propably
Anagrams; tested with 'listen'------+ (it isn't slow when run in "Scrabble Allowed Words" mode)+ (result)+ -
Full text search (all occurrences of a given word)?++, starts with the icon; 1 2 ---+ (Edit/Find in Definitions) (very slow!) --- -
Communication with outside world: icon and/or other means (for example, monitoring the clipboard)? If not, other means of quick, preferably Clipboard-based quick paste upon activation?-+ icon; highlight is sufficient. The icon will always be placed in the upper left corner and, as opposed to all the other, icon-based solutions, can’t be relocated.+ Has a word picker icon, , (relocatable anywhere on the taskbar), which works exactly the same way as with Lexisgoo and WordBook – that is, you don’t need to manually copy the highlighted text to the clipboard before tapping it. The results are presented in a window; if non-existing words are searched for (for example, “aprove”), the (alphabet-wise) closest matching word is displayed. You can easily switch to the full screen mode of the lookup by double-tapping the word picker icon to make more searches or to look up the definition of the word in other dictionaries - this is also very good news.There is no icon (the only icon it uses is solely for the "Word of the Day" functionality). It, however,

1. overrides the system-wide "copy to clipboard" functionality in a way that it notices double-copies of the same content to the clipboard. Then, it is invoked (in both a separate window and full screen mode, configurably). All this, compared to the "highlight some text and click the icon" solution implemented by Lexisgoo and Wordbook, requires copying to the clipboard (two times).

2. The engine also supports adding the "Translate" menu item to the highlight context menus in some (but definitely not all!) applications; for example, to PIE/IEM. Then, you won't need to double-copy anything to the clipboard.

3. The traditional invoke-by-button-and-auto-paste-the-contents-of-clipboard-to-the-input-field also works here (the button is configurable from inside SlovoEd)		+ (icon used (placed to the left of the leftmost icon on the taskbar; can't be relocated); copy to the clipboard must be manually done and, then, "Translate Clipboard" invoked)+ (relocatable icon on the taskbar; selection AND COPY (!) capabilities required). Also supports auto-paste from clipboard upon activation-; system-level button redefining + manual Paste to the Search input field work.+ Word pick icon (relocatable) on the task bar - highlighting needed (no Copy necessary)!+ Lexisee icon (relocatable) on the task bar - highlighting needed (no Copy necessary). Must be enabled in Tools / Preferences.../ Lexisee. "Auto start" puts a link to \Windows\Lexisee.exe into \Windows\Startup; then, after a restart, the icon will be displayed. Shown in action. Note that the additional icon in the IEM and Word Mobile command bar aren't displayed in WM5, unlike in prev. OS'es if you enable auto-attaching. Note that the icon can also be put in the command bar (by unticking "Taskbar") (and, as with the taskbar, positioned anywhere there). This is compatible with WM5 softkeys-; system-level button redefining + manual Paste to the Search input field work.
Copy/paste: Pasting into the input field?+++ (only with the Paste icon on the right of the word input field)+ (both Edit icon / Paste and Ctl-V)- in 5.5, + in 5.0+ (both Edit/Paste and Ctl-V)+ (by Edit/Paste only, not Ctl-V)+ (Context menu only)-+ (both Tools/Paste and Ctl-V)
Copy definition (or parts of it) to clipboard?+ in pre-WM5; - in WM5++ (only with the Copy icon on the right of the word input field)+ + (Edit/ Copy)++ (Copy in text context menu works but Edit/Copy doesn't)+ (Copy and Select All works in context menu; any text may be highlighted)+; a single click on a word or manual highlighting any text will put it onto the clipboard at once; Tools/ Select All also usable + (Text highlight followed by Tools/Copy; no Ctl-C)
Study support: Study?---Not in the way (a given list of (random) new words for each day) of WordBook / Lexisgoo. There is a Word of the Day (also accessible (note that, under WM5, the buttons are mostly hidden by the softkeys. Under previous OS'es, this isn't a problem - a WM2003SE example here) by clicking the resident SlovoEd icon on the task bar); also, you can add any word to the collection of your flash cards. Later, you can initiate a flash card quiz (1 2)---+; The study list can be configured in exactly the same way as in Lexisgoo, including the ability to select the word list to include words from. You can also add manually to the Study List only in the Look up main menuExcellent! It comes even with the 'Lexistudy' Today plug-in (settings dialog here - there, fortunately, you can also change the text color), which always keeps showing the words slated for study a day on the Today screen). Its random feature, however, isn't the best: it's really random, which may not the best for non-English speakers. A separate list, TOEFLGMAT.wst, however, contains the more frequent words, which can be used to pick (random/sequential) words from. Show/ Study List lists the words Only Word / Random (see below)
Explicit random word display?---- (only the Word of the Day - that is, only one random word a day and you can't force SlovoEd to change it to something else in the Word of the Day settings dialog)---Always displays a random word at the bottom of the main menu; the source of the random word may be configured (TOEFL etc.)+ (in a bit complicated way: use the "Clear All" and then, the "Add Now" button in Settings so that the study list is re-populated)+ (Word / Random)
Not in the WordNet DB: English pronunciation displayed?- ----+ IPA-like - not entirely compliant. It lists all sounds as as in between or rationalization. In this respect, both WordBook and Lexisgoo are better. Speaking of between and rational, the pronunciation of WordBook and Lexisgoo are a bit different (between: WordBook ; Lexisgoo; rational: WordBook; Lexisgoo). That is, not even these two apps have consistent pronunciation.-+ IPA+ IPA+ non-IPA (must be explicitly asked for by clicking the Speech bubble)
Syllabification?----------
Non-open-class words (determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles)? Tested with 'this'.- - - - +- - -+-