Sometimes I come across an online tool so different, useful and imaginative that I can’t help but sing its praises. The OneLook Dictionary (www.onelook.com) is one such application, available for free to all English writers of the world.

Imagine you are describing the way a room is furnished but you do not want to use the word "drapery" because you've already used it a sentence earlier.

How do you go about finding the semantic equivalents of the word "drapery"?

Simple. You go to OneLook and type ":drapery" in the search window and hit the search button. And you get back 39 semantic equivalents at your disposal.

Or, imagine you are trying to remember a phrase that included the word "drapery." Solution: you type "*drapery" in the search window and hit the search button. And you get back 3 unique phrases that END with "drapery."

What if you are interested in phrases that START with "drapery"? Easy. You type in "drapery*" in the search window and voila! You get back 6 unique phrases that start with "drapery."

Other search possibilities, including searching with wildcards, are explained on the Index page of the web site.

If you love writing like I do I know you'll spend endless hours playing around with this amazing tool to your heart's content. Ahh, how great it is to be a kid again!

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