We just introduced the ability to search for words with Words API. You can search for letter patterns, pronunciation patterns, number of syllables, parts of speech, and more.
You can read the docs for a list of all the parameters you can use, but here's a few examples of the results you can find.
Verbs that Rhyme with Wow
First, use the API to find the pronunciation of wow:
https://www.wordsapi.com/words/wow
The response json include this:
"pronunciation": {
"all": "waʊ"
}To find a rhyme, you look for words that match everything from the last stressed vowel phoneme to the end of the word. So to search for verbs that match "wow", we'll use the
pronunciationPatter parameter to specify a regular expression tho find words that end with that pattern, and the partOfSpeech parameter to only look at verbs:https://www.wordsapi.com/words/?pronunciationPattern=aʊ$&partOfSpeech=verbResults:
allow, avow, bow, cow, disallow, disavow, endow, kotow, kowtow, meow, miaow, plough, plow, row, slough, vow, wow
Really Long Words
Let's find the longest words that Words API has, excluding those that have a space in them. Since we don't know in advance how long the words are, we'll use the
lettersMin parameter to find words with at least 20 characters. We'll use the letterPattern parameter to exclude words with spaces.https://www.wordsapi.com/words/?lettersMin=20&letterPattern=^((?! ).)*$Results:
abetalipoproteinemia, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, adrenocorticotrophic, adrenocorticotrophin
Words That Don't Sound Like You May Think
You can combine the
pronunciationPattern and letterPattern parameters to find words that may not sound the way you'd think, based on their spelling. Here's a word that ends with the "am" sound (like in "clam"), but whose final letters are "chm".https://www.wordsapi.com/words/?pronunciationPattern=.*æm$&letterPattern=.*chm$Results:
drachm
If you're interested to see what else Words API can do, check out the demo on our homepage.
