LitMind Dictionary: An Open-Source Online Dictionary

TL;DR

The LitMind Dictionary is an open-source online tool that generates context-specific definitions for words in multiple languages, enhancing vocabulary learning with a flexible, generative approach.

Contribution

It introduces a generative dictionary model supporting multilingual and cross-lingual definitions with a user-friendly interface.

Findings

Supports Chinese, English, and cross-lingual queries

Uses state-of-the-art definition generation models

Open-source code and data available

Abstract

Dictionaries can help language learners to learn vocabulary by providing definitions of words. Since traditional dictionaries present word senses as discrete items in predefined inventories, they fall short of flexibility, which is required in providing specific meanings of words in particular contexts. In this paper, we introduce the LitMind Dictionary (https://dictionary.litmind.ink), an open-source online generative dictionary that takes a word and context containing the word as input and automatically generates a definition as output. Incorporating state-of-the-art definition generation models, it supports not only Chinese and English, but also Chinese-English cross-lingual queries. Moreover, it has a user-friendly front-end design that can help users understand the query words quickly and easily. All the code and data are available at https://github.com/blcuicall/litmind-dictionary.