I need a dictionary text file with meanings

I need a text file in the form:

aardvark : animal atlas : collection of maps . . . . . and so on.

I want 开发者_JAVA技巧to use this text file to create my own dictionary like Artha or Wordweb.It will be Python based with Tkinter for GUI.

Where can I obtain such a file.

Project Gutenberg has a few variants (including the unabridged Webster's). Not exactly the format you're looking for, but you should be able to parse it to remove parts of speech, etc.

Natural Language Toolkit.

Yes, this is a large complex library because the task is actually complex. aardvark: animal is easy; given hit: what do you put after it? Do you mean the noun, the verb, or the adjective? Which sense of the noun? Did the baseball player make a hit? Did the pop star have a hit? Did the hit baseball player hit the hit with his bat?

added:

#!/bin/sh
# tersify - returns the most terse definition for its input
#
# examples: echo "aardvark" | tersify
#           tersify < /usr/share/dict/words > ~/my_dict

while  read word  ; do
   echo "$word: $word"
done

'tis a joke, take thee not offense