That is a good point, and Chadwick Matlin mentions it in the original Washington Post/Slate article referenced above. Google presents a definition extracted from the WordNet lexical database at Princeton at the top of the search results. If you type a phrase such as “define blue helmet” then Google extracts a short definition from Wikipedia.

Thus Google is willing to grab search traffic when a user executes an additional act. The user can type the six-letter word “define” or click on a link label “definition” in the upper right after the initial search. Matlin points out that Bing demands no additional action from the user. Definitions are displayed by default.

John Mark Ockerbloom mentions Wordnik. That website was cited on Teleread on September 8th and it looks great. Good fortune to the website and your spouse.

Looking up “loquacious” on a site like wordnik.com, for example gives you much more information, including definitions from several dictionaries, examples from literature and Twitter, audible pronunciations, statistics on the word’s use, and various other bits of info either on the fonr page or behind various tabs. Oh, and one ad down the sidebar. Quite nice. (I’m a bit biased, since my spouse works for Wordnik, but compare it yourself against other dictionary sites to see what I mean.)

By the way, if you type loquacious and definition into the google box, the definition will appear on the search results page.

Another thing. Am I just paranoid, or has Google disabled the feature that keeps 100 search results per page? Previously, you set your preferences and it always showed 100 search results. Now you have to manually set it every time you want 100 search results. This is all part of the secret conspiracy of google to make you view more ads.

Answers.com provides comprehensive information compiled from a vast number of resources, e.g., The American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, Columbia Encyclopedia, Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary, E-Spindle Word Tutor, Wizcom Translations, Wikipedia and more. Do a search for “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” on Google and follow the “definition” link in the upper right to see a wide-ranging collection of data displayed. I suspect that the source material gathered is licensed.

It does require an extra click to reach the Answers.com website, and Google downplays the “definition” link by placing it in the corner. However, it is clear that Google knows all about disintermediation, and yet the company hesitates. Google could directly present material from Answers.com on its search results page. Yet, Google is already regularly denounced as a quasi-monopoly and it probably does not wish to further alienate additional groups.