Dictionary Widget dumber than an 8th Grader

[hayduke]

It is my understanding that popular newpapers are written for an 8th grade reading level. I have, however, come across a word today that I didn't know in reading the news: duplicitious. So I tried to use the Dictionary Widget to augment my lexicon and the definition of this word was not available. I have no excuse for not knowing the definition despite having completed 8th grade some time ago, but what it Dictionary.app's excuse?

Poking fun aside...is there a way to update the contents of the dictionary? It is a handy tool most of the time, but I frequently come across words that neither I nor it knows.

 

[jsw]

The word is duplicitous. Dictionary widget knows that one. Not the misspelled one.

 

[pknz]

I believe there is a word that the Dictionary widget doesn't know, and dictionary.com didnt know of it.

My parents believe it is a word and they are both teachers...if I could just remmeber the word, something with an 'un' to start. Let me go and find it

 

[pknz]

unrelentlessly

 

[biohazard6969]

how about

pneumonoultramicroscopicilicovolcanoconiosis ???

 

[jsw]

unrelentlessly

Well, yeah, you can add "un" and "non" and "anti" and "ly" and "less" and all kinds of things to make words that are valid... but anyone with even remotely decent English skills should be able to pare them down to the base form and look that up.....

 

[wide]

unrelentlessly

unrelenting is a word, but unrelentless is not. nor is unrelentlessly. it sounds like it could be a word, and it is used somewhat frequently, but it simply is not. not every word can form a different word if the prefix "un" is attached.

about "duplicitious"...when I typed it into the diccionary I naturally omitted the last "i" and wrote "duplicitous," which is a word. while no diccionaries I know of contain a definition for "duplicitious," some have redirected me to "deception" when I type in the latter word. wikipedia does this also. The pages to which I am redirected contain only one instant of "duplicitious," and that is in the context of "redirected from duplicitious"--there's no reason as to why I was redirected.

I guess it's a mystery, a very deceptive one.

 

[James Philp]

It is worthy to note that the dictionary only has real english words in it, not the bastardized words that are frequently used in modern language today.
A lot of the time a word that is spoken frequently is then written down, and no-one realizes it's wrong 'cos they've heard it spoken so much (usually by politicians or management-spiel).
Lots os "ation"s and such are appended to words nowadays that have no right to be there. I'm afraid it's the times we live in - language is used as a sort of weapon for some people to make it seem like they are superior or know more than other people, by using this kind of jargon and rhetoric to confuse the more idle mind. I just wish people would call the people who use this kind of language on it more often.
"unrelentlessly" is just such an example.
relentlessly - "oppressively constant" so unrelentlessly would be "not oppressively constant".
People do all kinds of thins with verbs now I guess.

 

[maya]

English can be a very confusing language when compared to many others, with the examples given above it is usually just a misspelling or something added to a word that makes it look proper.