use sdcv to create a simple `define word` function for bash in Ubuntu 14.04 -- lifted and modified from: http://askubuntu.com/questions/191125/is-there-an-offline-command-line-dictionary

define words in bash

# install sdcv
sudo apt-get install sdcv

# make a dictionary folder
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/stardict/dic

# download some dictionaries (check askubuntu link for better list of available dictionaries, 
# but keep in mind that you will get multiple definitions with multiple dictionaries)
wget http://abloz.com/huzheng/stardict-dic/dict.org/stardict-dictd_www.dict.org_gcide-2.4.2.tar.bz2

# untar it into the dictionary folder
sudo tar xf stardict-dictd_www.dict.org_gcide-2.4.2.tar.bz2 -C /usr/share/stardict/dic

# NOTE: the wget + untarring can probably done more simply with curl

# at this point you can use `sdcv hello` to define a word, but I find it slightly less readable than I'd prefer.  
# so...
echo 'function define() { sdcv "$@" | less ;}' >> ~/.bashrc

# that bash function makes the command "define" and pipes the output to less, much nicer :)