Merriam-Webster Vocabulary Definitions

bunnysaini/mw-vocab-def

Features

This project fetches word definitions from Merriam-Webster Dictionary API and stores them is a CSV file.

Purpose

If you're learning a set of words for any competitive test to enhance your vocabulary (eg. GRE, TOEFL, IELTS etc.), most of the resources online provide you with a list of words that you have to manually search meanings for. For GRE - Vince's GRE Compilation and Curation is a great resource provides only words. With this project, you can provide words and automatically fetch their meaning using the Merriam-Webster API.

Steps to Use

• Create a Dev Account on Merriam Webster Developer Center and generate an API Key - to fetch word definitions.
  • The API is restricted to 1000 queries per day.
  • The URL used in this project is for the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, if you use another dictionary update the URL and any parts that handle traversing the API response.
• Replace the API Key in code or use as a Secret.
• Run the code with Input file name and path in mind.
• Alternatively declare dictionary in code for a smaller volume of words.
• The instructions in the workbook are pretty thorough and should help navigate it.

Dev's Note

This project is not optimally developed yet, so you're welcome to suggest changes by raising a PR. I did not want to spend an eternity coding so I developed a boilerplate code for MW's API response. It may not handle their "sense" concept the most efficiently but gives you something to work with.

I've also added a populated version of Vince's curated word list with their meanings incase you have stumbled upon this repo for that, it's under GRE Words List. Feel free to raise a PR and make modifications, if you access this list as it may not be at it's ideal stage yet.

Data Flow

Input: A CSV file with all words in first column and a Header.

Output: A CSV file with the words and their definitions.