---
name: "dictl"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "dictd"
version: "1.13.3-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dictl"
---

# dictl(1)

wrapper script for dict that permits using utf-8 encoded dictionaries on a terminal that is not utf-8 aware.

## NAME

dictl - wrapper script for  *dict* that permits using  **utf-8** encoded dictionaries on a terminal that is not  **utf-8** aware.

## SYNOPSIS

**dictl** *\[OPTIONS\] \[word\]*

## Description

**dictl** calls  *dict* with the arguments given on the command line.   **dictl** takes the value of the environment variable **DICTL\_CHARSET** as the user's preferred character set.  If this variable is empty, dictl attempts to determine the character set to be used from the output of the locale command.

Arguments passed to dictl including *word* are converted from the user's preferred character set to server's character set specified by **DICTL\_SERVER\_CHARSET** variable (utf-8 if it is unset), and passed to  *dict*. The server's output from  *dict* is converted to the user's preferred character set.

**NOTE:** Because **iconv** omits characters from output that are invalid,\
 **recode -f** is used for character set conversions by default. If you prefer **iconv,** set **DICTL\_USE\_ICONV** variable to non-empty string. If you want to use **konwert,** set **DICTL\_USE\_KONWERT** to non-empty string.

Because *recode, iconv* and  *konwert* do not support conversion to or from the "C" or "POSIX" locales, it is recommended that all users whose locale is "C" or "POSIX", set  **DICTL\_CHARSET** to "latin1" (ISO\_8859-1).

## OPTIONS

dictl accepts all dict options as described in [dict(1)](/dict/1.md).

## AUTHOR

**dictl** was written by Aleksey Cheusov \<vle@gmx.net\>\
 This manual page was written by Robert D. Hilliard \<hilliard@debian.org\> and Aleksey Cheusov \<vle@gmx.net\>

## SEE ALSO

[**dict**(1)](/dict/1.md), [**recode**(1)](/recode/1.md), [**iconv**(1)](/iconv/1.md), [**konwert**(1)](/konwert/1.md)