The worst part of any day is when I forget what portmanteau means. I can’t tell you why I spend so much time thinking about it, but it certainly makes this introduction easier. To help you so that you never have to obsessively search for an obscure term for traveling luggage again, I thought I would compile a list of eight of the best places to go for some language advice.

Definr

Definr bills itself as an incredibly fast dictionary and it is. I honestly have not seen any site serve up words with less overhead. This is definitely a no frills operation though, don’t expect it a lot of extraneous cruft.

Visuwords

If mindmaps have always been your thing give Visuwords a look. You’ll get your definition along with a sea of related terms along the axis. It might just be some visual sugar, but dictionaries often can use the help.

Quotation Book

“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!”
–Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Bookmark, search and explore the often entertaining world of quotations with Quotations Book. Sure, there are a lot of quotation sites out there but this one is spectacularly easy to use and well put together. I just wish their library was a little larger.

Word Source

Using Word Source you can tag, vote on and add pictures to the definitions of words. It’s a “Social Dictionary” which amounts to a dictionary with a lot of extra stuff around it. Luckily, it’s all so well put together that you don’t feel overwhelmed. Better yet, this was the first of the bunch to correctly predict my word as I typed it.

Namepedia

It’s not perfect (but since it is Wiki-style it may be one day), but if you want a first point of contact for looking up your name Namepedia might be just the place to start. It will give you meanings, geographic origins and a list of related people for many names. Your certain to pick up at least one water cooler fact about yourself.

Human Brain Cloud

Human Brain Cloud is a word association game. You are presented with a word and then you write the first thing that pops into your head. Once you get bored of that, you can run the database as a seriously cool looking associated list. You can also check the leaderboard for the top connections. I’ll give you a hint, geeks like Rubik cubes.

Urban Dictionary

The world’s most complete slang dictionary, with definitions posted by users. To be honest, it’s probably one of the most complete sources of pop culture knowledge out there. If you have ever been confused by what, “the kids are saying these days,” take a walk over to Urban Dictionary.

xLingo

xLingo is a language exchange community. You can find native speakers of the language of your choice and exchange tips through forums, blogs, chat rooms or even Skype.

Web 2.0 Roundup

So the nest time that you are looking to explore the wonderful world of word working, take a look at this list. If you have any other must see language sites, be sure to leave me a comment.

[Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed Before you leave. Photo Credit]

If you enjoyed that why not find a job or read our guide to working in the 21st century. You can also join our Kiva team or hire me for your project.

Other Sites: Really Great Stories | All The Little Things (Book) | Twitter