Epos

Epos, from the Greek ἔπος (“word”), is a Ruby gem that gives you access to the data files of the excellent Houaiss dictionary.

Please notice that you must buy the dictionary in order to use this gem.

• Entries can be retrieved as HTML.
• Both the main dictionary and the morpheme one are supported.
• There's a parser for the structure used by entries.
• There's a parser for the RTF-like format used by the text.
• Characters are rendered correctly, even those in the etymology section or in the pronunciation of foreign words.

gem install epos

The following example looks up the word épico and saves it to a file:

require 'epos'
dict = Epos::Dictionary.new("/home/user/houaiss")
File.write("épico.html", dict.look_up("épico"))

This is what it should look like:

• No support for animal sounds, verb conjugation, etc.
• No nice interface.

I know it works with version 2009.6 (July 2013). I don't know about any other version.