---
name: "ding"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "ding"
version: "1.9-9"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/ding"
---

# ding(1)

dictionary lookup program for Unix

## NAME

ding - dictionary lookup program for Unix

## SYNOPSIS

**ding** **\[***options***\] \[***phrase***\]**

## DESCRIPTION

**ding** is a dictionary lookup program for X Windows/Unix. It comes with a German-English dictionary with about 345,000 entries.

It is based on Tk version \>= 8.3 and uses the  [**agrep**(1)](/agrep/1.md) or [**egrep**(1)](/egrep/1.md) tools for searching.

In addition to this  **ding** can also search using [**ispell**(1)](/ispell/1.md) and  [**dict**(1)](/dict/1.md).

It has many configuration options, such as search preferences, interface language (English or German), colors. It has history and help functions and comes with useful key and mouse bindings for quick and easy lookups.

If you enter some word or phrase as command line argument, **ding** will start up with a translation of this word/phrase.

## OPTIONS

- **-x**, **--selection**

  Start searching for selected word (X selection).

- **-m**, **--mini**

  Start with minimal size (search form only).

- **-r**, **--remote**

  Start search in an already running program.

- **-R**, **--remote-new**

  Start search in an already running program or start a new program.

- **--noconf**

  Do not save preferences

- **-D** *#***, --debug** *#*

  Start with debug output, *#* = number (1..15).

## USAGE

It's very simple: Start  **ding** (via KDE menu "Tools" or via command line), type in search word, press ENTER, read results. Search further by double-clicking a word, or select a word in another window and drop it by clicking with mouse button 2 over the "ding window". For further information consult the program help by pressing F1.

## SEE ALSO

[**agrep**(1)](/agrep/1.md), [**egrep**(1)](/egrep/1.md), [**ispell**(1)](/ispell/1.md), [**ding**(1)](/ding/1.md).\
 https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fri/ding/\
 /usr/share/doc/ding/html/index.html

## AUTHOR

**ding** was written by Frank Richter \<frank.richter@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de\>.

This manual page was written by Roland Rosenfeld \<roland@spinnaker.de\>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).