Introduction
Many non-native English speakers frequently look up obscure words in Google. It would be great if there was a plugin that could do the lookup without leaving Obsidian.
Moreover, one of the best ways of getting better at a foreign language is building (and growing) your vocabulary based on the relationship between words; something like a Wordnet (Relevant to this topic, too.).
I have an idea for a plugin that looks up words and stores them in the vault as a note with internal links to other words.
How does it work
So the idea is that the user can query the dictionary with a command or hotkey and type in the word they are looking for, or select a word and invoke the plugin.
The plugin would first look into Dictionary folder to see if the definition note (e.g., hello.md) already exists. If not, it queries a dictionary API (like the unofficial Google Dictionary API).
The API returns the following for hello:
[
{
"word": "hello",
"phonetics": [
{
"text": "/həˈloʊ/",
"audio": "https://lex-audio.useremarkable.com/mp3/hello_us_1_rr.mp3"
},
{
"text": "/hɛˈloʊ/",
"audio": "https://lex-audio.useremarkable.com/mp3/hello_us_2_rr.mp3"
}
],
"meanings": [
{
"partOfSpeech": "exclamation",
"definitions": [
{
"definition": "Used as a greeting or to begin a phone conversation.",
"example": "hello there, Katie!"
}
]
},
{
"partOfSpeech": "noun",
"definitions": [
{
"definition": "An utterance of “hello”; a greeting.",
"example": "she was getting polite nods and hellos from people",
"synonyms": [
"greeting",
"welcome",
"salutation",
"saluting",
"hailing",
"address",
"hello",
"hallo"
]
}
]
},
{
"partOfSpeech": "intransitive verb",
"definitions": [
{
"definition": "Say or shout “hello”; greet someone.",
"example": "I pressed the phone button and helloed"
}
]
}
]
}
]
The plugin would then parse it to a note Dictionary/hello.md wherein the definition is bolded, examples are italicized, part of speech is tagged, and the synonyms/antonyms appear as internal links:
# Hello
#dictionary
`/həˈloʊ/`,
`/hɛˈloʊ/`
---
#exclamation
- **Used as a greeting or to begin a phone conversation.**
- *"hello there, Katie!"*
---
#noun
- **An utterance of “hello”; a greeting."**
- "she was getting polite nods and hellos from people",
- synonyms": [[greeting]], [[welcome]], [[salutation]], [[saluting]], [[hailing]], [[address]], [[hello]], [[hallo]]
---
#intransitive-verb
- **Say or shout “hello”; greet someone.**
- *I pressed the phone button and helloed*
Which would look similar to Google Dictionary results:
Wrap up
After using it for a while, this will produce a nice graph of interconnected words. (I am not an Anki fan, but) The dictionary can be used as a deck of Anki flashcards, too.
I do not have enough programming knowledge to make Obsidian plugins (thus “lack the ability to can” 
) Though, this plugin—at least, a very simple version of it—does not seem to be hard to implement, right?