Advertisment

Quick, quick – I need it now!

We’ve all become products of impatience thanks to an increasingly stressful world. Not to mention, the Internet. To help further our rush-rush mentality there’s Definr; God forbid you have to wait an entire second to find out what leiotrichous means. (For the record, smooth-haired). definrThe key to Definr’s speed is Ruby on Rails, enabling the Web site to cache tens of thousands of definitions, meaning the page does not have to reload. Unless, of course, you search for an obnoxious word like leiotrichous – which as of now – can not be found.

With the DefinrBot algorithm, 190,000 word completions can occir per second, without caching, and that translates to about 10,000 completions per second once the Ruby layer is factored in.

A Friefox extension is available for download. However, we found the speed is comparable to plugins from other online dictionary tools.

To determine if Definr is for you, here’s a question you need to ask yourself: Do I need a definition fast or do I want a better definition. The latter is something you will not accomplish with Definr. The site relies on Prenceton’s WordNet 2.0 for information, a source that is miles away from the detailed accuracy of Merriam Webster. The information is, however, serviceable.

I’m not sure if Definr will unseat Dictionary.com as the Web’s definition king, but there’s something lovable about this vowel-phobic newcomer. Maybe it’s the simple irony that a dictionary Web site has the sense of humor to omit a letter from its name. Or maybe we’re just in a rush.

Advertisment