My favourite online dictionary is, without a doubt, Wordnik.

Do you think we need a social dictionary like Wordnik for medicine?

Here’s the thing. I’ve always said that the reason I’m not retaining new words is that I don’t really understand how they’re used: Wordnik remedies this problem by providing a plethora of contextual clues. Here’s a rundown of my favourite features using the examples of “fibromyalgia” and “h1n1”:

• Examples. This section pulls the oddest sentences (not intentionally, I’m sure, but the result is often very original) featuring your word from a vast array of unconventional sources, including CNN transcripts, diary entries, and classic literature.

The worst part about having the fibromyalgia is looking foward to being able to go to bed. —bettyalready Diary Entry

WEIL: I would say that fibromyalgia is a subset of chronic pain syndrome. —CNN Transcript Nov 10, 2004

Lyrica for nerve pain and fibromyalgia is now a $2.5 billion-a-year product, but smoking cessation treatment Chantix hasn’t lived up to expectations because of links to depression and suicidal thoughts. —Kansas City Star: Front Page

• On Twitter. The latest tweets containing your word. If we could somehow filter out the spammy tweets, how great would this tool be to gauge the hive mind!

• Flickr. These are some photos for h1n1. Check out the masks!

• Related. Sort of like a thesaurus. I know it looks a bit sparse (there are more under the Related tab), but compared to typical online dictionaries (some of which don’t even contain fibromyalgia), this is pretty good!

• Stats. Charts and graphs showing frequency of occurrence, punctuation patterns, and more.
• Comments. There are some good social networking features like the ability to favourite, comment, and create lists of words.

Plus, Wordnik has all the typical features of a dictionary including definitions from multiple sources, pronunciations, and etymologies.

Now, I know there are a lot of medical dictionaries out there. It also seems that communities such as PatientsLikeMe have sections that are starting to look like social medical dictionaries – for example, a search for Lyrica pulls up related forum posts, and detailed information like side effects that Wordnik does not have (click to enlarge):

Yet I feel that there might be room for something more “social” than the rigid definitions on The Free Dictionary’s Medical Dictionary (although it’s pretty good) yet more systematically organized than the PatientsLikeMe forums.

Another reason: as much as patients are being empowered by the internet, I wonder if the adventure for most even gets as far as signing up for a website like PatientsLikeMe. If a reliable, crowd-sourced, and dynamic medical dictionary could show up as the number one hit on Google for their queries, perhaps useful medical knowledge would reach the most people most quickly.

In the meantime, Wordnik is actually having a 2010 Developer’s Challenge right now, so if you’re inspired by this post, get cracking and maybe the medical community will one day owe you a debt of gratitude!

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• Storytelling 2.0: Part I – Telling Better Stories in Medicine
• More ResearchMatch, Please: On Social Media for Recruitment of Research Participants
• Does Social Media in Medicine Help Or Hinder The Illusion of Confidence?
• Aging in the Age of Social: 3 Hops