How to search for word definitions?

I am working on a app in android where I need to select a word开发者_StackOverflow社区 and display its definition from Google. Do I have to use some search API provided by Google, or another API?

An example will do. Thanks!

It seems Google Dictionary is no longer available, but even when it was, the API was unavailable to 3rd parties. Instead, I found several alternative options.

XML Dictionary Exchange Format

You could use XDXF to download a flat-file dictionary in your desired language, and use a hash table to index the file appropriately.

This has two distinct advantages:

• Network access is not required to support dictionary look-ups

• It's ultimately more flexible because the data can be easily manipulated (sorted, filtered, specially formatted) to better support application design & requirements.

Abbreviations.com API

If you prefer not to home-brew your own hash-table, abbreviations.com has a public dictionary API that uses REST to obtain definition information in XML format for a given word.

Sample Request URL:

http://www.abbreviations.com/services/v1/defs.aspx?tokenid=tk324324&word=consistent 

Sample Response:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<results>
  <result>
    <term>consistent, uniform</term>
    <definition>the same throughout in structure or composition</definition>
    <partofspeech>adj</partofspeech>
    <example>
       bituminous coal is often treated as a consistent and homogeneous product
    </example>
  </result>
</results>