Copyright (C) 1998, 2002 Torsten Hilbrich
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Dictionary is a Emacs1 package for accessing a dictionary server providing word definitions.
The Request for Comments 2229 http://www.dict.org/rfc2229.txt defines a protocol for communication between a dictionary client and a dictionary server. The dictionary server keeps several databases (containing dictionary definitions) and provides an interface for the client to list the definition for a word and to search for words matching to pattern.
This software implements the client side of that protocol. It allows you to use a dictionary server (for example provided by the site www.dict.org) from within Emacs.
Please note that the dictionary protocol uses the port 2628 which is likely to be blocked by firewalls. It is possible to connect to the dictionary server through a HTTP proxy similiar to the way HTTPS connections on port 443 are relayed, See HTTP Proxy.
In the following manual Emacs is a name for both GNU Emacs and XEmacs. If I need to differ between both Emacs variants I will use these names instead