How to search for an English word

Question

I am a non-native English speaker/learner and one of the problem I have ever had was how should I search for an English word when I know it in my native language and I also know its meaning. Does anybody know if there are any online resources for helping me with that? Or do you have a specific/personal practice?

EDIT : I am not asking about a traditional dictionary; what I want is something similar to a dictionary, but it should give you the English word based on the meaning that the word you are searching for has in your native language(e.g. : if you search 'a place with doors and windows', then the outcome should be 'house')

Answer 1

You are searching for OneLook Reverse Dictionary where you put a phrase and the dictionary returns you a word.

This is the dictionary: https://www.onelook.com/thesaurus/

Example: search for the phrase -

person who can work with both the hands

You get: ambidexter as one of its results

Answer 2

The process should be "search in a bilingual dictionary" followed by "check in a regular dictionary" or "broaden your search with a thesaurus".

If you know the word in your native language (or in any other language) then a bilingual dictionary is the right tool to start with:

I know the word in French is "maison", what is the word in English.

This can be supported by a conventional English-English dictionary, which can help you decide between "house", "home", "dwelling", "domicile", or any other word which can be a translation for "maison" in some context.

If you don't know the word in your native language, then it probably doesn't exist in English.

What is a specific word for a drinking vessel made out of metal? Like "glass" but for metal. Not "cup" because that could be made out of plastic or pottery.

There are cases where a word exists in English, but doesn't exist in some other languages. For example, "sibling" doesn't have a convenient short translation in French. But if you don't know the word in English, and have been able to work around the meaning in French, you probably don't need to ask "How to a say 'brother or sister' in one word." The question won't even occur to you.

It is practically impossible to have a true reverse dictionary. There are so many ways that you could define "house". Should it be "Place where people live" (but that could also be a home, a flat, a dwelling, a town, a city, etc." Or "A place with windows and doors" (but churches, offices, shops, etc have windows and doors), or is is "a building with windows and doors" or "a construction with windows and doors".

A thesaurus can be helpful if you know some similar words, but want a specific one. A thesaurus search on "brother" will find "sibling". A thesaurus search on "cup" will find many words, but none that means "a metal drinking vessel" (suggesting that no such word exists).

Finally, if you have looked up the word in a bilingual dictionary, but its translations are inadequate, or you know that the word should exist in English, even though it doesn't exist in you native language, then a good thing to do is to post a question to English Language Learners Stack exchange. But be sure to give a clear summary of your prior research, and the reason that the bilingual dictionary doesn't help you.