---
name: "mwic"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "mwic"
version: "0.7.10-3"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mwic"
---

# mwic(1)

Misspelled Words In Context

## NAME

mwic - Misspelled Words In Context

## SYNOPSIS

**mwic** \[-l *lang*\] \[*option*...\] \[*file*...\]

## DESCRIPTION

**mwic** is a spell-checker that groups possible misspellings and shows them in their contexts. This is useful for checking technical documents, which often contain words that are not included in standard dictionaries.

## OPTIONS

- **-l** *lang,* **--language** *lang*

  Spell-check for this language. The default is **en**.

- **--list-languages**

  Print list of available languages.

- **--blacklist** *file*

  Treat words from the external dictionary as misspelled. The dictionary can be in the format used by *Lintian*, or in the format used by *codespell*, or in the format used by *kde-spellcheck* (part of *kde-dev-scripts*); or it can be plain newline-separated word list. This option can be used multiple times.

- **--camel-case**

  Split camel-cased compound words. For example, treat “eggBaconAndSpam” as 4 separate words.

- **--input-encoding** *enc*

  Assume this input encoding. The default is **UTF-8:replace** (UTF-8 encoding with error handler replacing malformed characters with U+FFFD).

- **-f** *fmt,* **--output-format** *fmt*

  If *fmt* is **plain**, output plain text verbatim and highlight misspellings with the **^** character. This is the default if stdout is not a terminal.

  If *fmt* is **color**, escape control characters and highlight misspellings with colors. This is the default if stdout is a terminal.

- **-r, --reverse**

  Print words in reverse order, that is, the most common words first.

- **--compact**

  Omit blank lines in output.

- **--limit** *n*

  Assume that words that occurred more than *n* times are spelled correctly.

- **--max-context-width** *n*

  Limit context width to *n* characters. The default is 30.

- **--suggest** *n*

  Suggest up to *n* corrections.

- **-h, --help**

  Show help message and exit.

- **--version**

  Show version information and exit.

## ENVIRONMENT

- **PAGER**

  If stdout is a terminal, mwic pipes the output through **$PAGER**. The default is **pager** (if it exists) or **more**.

- **LESS**

  If this variable is unset, mwic sets it to **-FX**, or to **-FXR** if the output is in color.

- **LV**

  If this variable in unset, and the output is in color, mwic sets this variable to **-c**.

## FILES

Spell-checking can be eased by using dictionaries of commonly misspelled words. **mwic** doesn't ship with one, but it can use a number of dictionaries from third-party projects:

- •

  Lintian:

  ```
  https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/raw/master/data/spelling/corrections
  https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/raw/master/data/spelling/corrections-case
  ```

- •

  Linux kernel:

  ```
  https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/scripts/spelling.txt
  ```

- •

  codespell:

  ```
  https://github.com/codespell-project/codespell/raw/master/codespell_lib/data/dictionary.txt
  ```

- •

  kde-dev-scripts:

  ```
  https://github.com/KDE/kde-dev-scripts/raw/master/kde-spellcheck.pl
  ```

## EXAMPLE

```
$ mwic --blacklist /usr/share/lintian/data/spelling/corrections --compact rfc1927.txt
heirarchical:
| …g paper clips vs small ones; heirarchical assembly
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
multipart:
| …tes the degree of binding of multipart documents:
                                ^^^^^^^^^
reycled:
| 1) staples could be reycled for a small credit
                      ^^^^^^^
```

*...*

```
EMail, edu, isi:
| EMail: rogers@isi.edu
  ^^^^^         ^^^ ^^^
electonic:
| drawer of the electonic desk on home PCs
|            3) electonic staples should have a standa…
                ^^^^^^^^^
```

## SEE ALSO

[**spellintian**(1)](/spellintian/1.md), [**codespell**(1)](/codespell/1.md);

“English for software localisation” \<*http://jbr.me.uk/linux/esl.html*\> by Justin B Rye