INFOGIFT.INFO

“Connect words with images and find the name of the whatchamacallit on the tip of your tongue with Merriam-Webster’s Visual Dictionary.” This is an exerpt from the great article I found today at lifehacker.com.

 
The dictionary has 20,000 words with contextual definition and 6,000 color images for variety of objects. Now you can find the word and successfully unite it with the image. Or, if English is your second language and you don’t even know the word for that small part of whatever object, now you know where to look for it.
I think, that this type of dictionary may be a great tool to teach your child new words. Actually, there is a tab for school lesson plans, but it’s under construction. There is also a “Game of the week” feature, where you “Play by associating words with images”. You may subscribe to it and get it by E-Mail.
Here is the link to this wonderful tool: visual.merriam-webster.com.
Too bad I could not find a bar to install this dictionary to my browser, as I’ve done with the regular www.M-W.com dictionary.

 
As I also found out from that same article, there is another type of the dictionary, where “Alternatively, you could try looking up a word by its definition with the Reverse Dictionary.” That is “One Look Reverse Dictionary”, where “you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept… The OneLook Reverse Dictionary search is a good one to keep in mind when you’re having one of those days when you just can’t think up a word.”
See for yourself here: www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

 
(Via http://lifehacker.com/)