[dictionary] Where can I download english dictionary database in a text format?

I need to read the text file for a word and return its meaning. Any other file format will also work.

The Gutenberg Project hosts Webster's Unabridged English Dictionary plus many other public domain literary works. Actually it looks like they've got several versions of the dictionary hosted with copyright from different years. The one I linked has a 2009 copyright. You may want to poke around the site and investigate the different versions of Webster's dictionary.

I dont know if its too late, but i thought it would help someone else.

I wanted the same badly...found it eventually.

Maybe its not perfect,but to me its adequate(for my little dictionary app).

http://www.androidtech.com/downloads/wordnet20-from-prolog-all-3.zip

Its not a dump file, but a MYSQL .sql script file

The words are in WN_SYNSET table and the glossary/meaning in the WN_GLOSS table

Check if these free resources fit your need -

• FOLDOC - dictionary source is a single plain text file.
• ObjectGraph has a SQL Server database version of the WordNet lexical database from Princeton University

user1247808 has a good link with: wget -c

http://www.androidtech.com/downloads/wordnet20-from-prolog-all-3.zip

If that isn't enough words for you:

http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiktionary/latest/enwiktionary-latest-all-titles-in-ns0.gz (updated url from Michael Kropat's suggestion)

Although that file name changes, you'll want to find the latest ... that turns out just to be a big (very big) text file.

http://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiktionary/