Using Stardict in the Mac OS X command line

As I am continuously missing some words when writing articles I was in need of some dictionary. Usually I would use dict.cc or something similar. But it is a kind of disruptive and only available with a working Internet connection.

So I was looking for a solution which would be accessible even when I was travelling without being online. SDCV came to my rescue. It is Stardict for the command line. On Mac OS X it is available thought Homebrew

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$ brew install sdcv

The default installation does not come with any dictionaries, so we have pick up them on our own.

Dictionaries are located at /usr/share/stardict/dic/ usually and are accessible by all system's users. Managing dictionaries at that location would have meant to make use of superuser rights.

As I am the only one who is using my system I prefer a minimal inversive method. and put them at $HOME/.stardict/dic, which has to be created first.

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$ mkdir -p $HOME/.stardict/dic
$ tar -xvzf ~/Downloads/dict.tgz -C $HOME/.stardict/dic