So far this week we've posted about Google offering new international versions of Google Print and the introduction of film info to Google UK.
Today, Erik Nicolaisen Høy, writes that Google appears to be "internationalizing" their define: search operator. This operator provides definitions of many words, acronyms, etc. (via a variety of web-based sources) at the top of web results pages.
What Erik noticed and I'm also seeing is that along with English-language definitions, Google is now providing links to definitions in other languages. For example: this define: command for the word television also includes direct links (at the bottom of the page) to web-based definitions in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Each define: search shows definitions that are determined from what's found on web pages that Google believes offer an acceptable definition(s). Define: also works with non-English words from the outset. For example, this search for a French word or this search for a Spanish word. I noticed that many non-English definitions come from non-English versions of the Wikipedia.
I have issues with some of the sources selected and the currency of some of the definitions, but I'll save that beef for another time. (-:
Postscript: Oops. It looks like non-English definitions have been available for a few months. Sorry for the confusion.
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