HOWTO: Find interesting dictionary words with your Linux box
Few *nix users are aware of existence of one /usr/share/dict/words on their machines. The original purpose of this file was to assist Unix programs in spell-checking. Now that every program that supports typo-prevention includes its own dictionaries, the words file no longer fares as something significant in the geek universe.
Nevertheless, the nifty gem can still serve as a fun place to find or coin new words based on lexicographical constraints. The omnipresent egrep command can be used to exploit the power of regular expressions against the English dictionary. Here’s how:
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