Reverse dictionary

A normal dictionary goes from a word to its meaning. This one goes the other way: describe what you mean, and it suggests the words that fit.

How to get good results

• Write what the word means, the way you would explain it to a friend: "a building where planes are kept", "not wanting to do anything".
• Use the key words of the meaning. Small words like "a", "the" and "of" are ignored.
• Narrow it down with the part of speech or the first letters if you remember them.
• If the word you want is not there, try a synonym in your description: "sad" or "unhappy", "old" or "ancient".

How it works

The tool compares your description with the definitions and synonyms of about 57,000 English words and ranks the words whose meanings match it best, with common words first. Everything runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent to us or stored.

Word definitions and synonyms come from WordNet 3.1, a free lexical database from Princeton University (WordNet licence). WordNet 3.1 Copyright 2011 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.