how to use google as a dictionary/encyclopedia

in this world of acronyms and new terms everyday we can't keep up with all those things, that's where google comes to the rescue

at the search box just type
define:your term here

here are some samples and their results:

define:google
Google, a popular search engine, is a tool for finding resources on the World Wide Web. Google scans web pages to find instances of the keywords you have entered in the search box.

define:Microsoft Corporation
An incredibly successful supplier of computer software founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen. Microsoft has grown to become the world leader in the software industry by supplying software to the world’s largest computer base (IBM-compatibles). A large portion of Microsoft’s success is due to its popular Windows operating environment.

define:Test Driven Development
Testing methodology associated with Agile Programming in which every chunk of code is covered by unit tests, which must all pass all the time, in an effort to eliminate unit-level and regression bugs during development. Practitioners of TDD write a lot of tests, ie an equal number of lines of test code to the size of the production code.

as you can see you can enter more than a single word to find the definition

now, it gets interesting, you can also enter things like file formats, ZIP, PDF, EXE and get a definition for those as well

define:pdf
Portable Document Format. An electronic document that must be read with the Adobe Acrobat computer program.

define:js
An external JavaScript file. One of the methods of implementing JavaScript on to a page is to write an independent file containing all methods and variables and store it as a .js file. This file is then imported into an HTML or other type of web page as and when required.

how cool is that!

you can also use it as an encyclopedia

define:Salt Lake City
# Salt Lake City is the state capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Utah. Its population as of the 2000 Census was 181,743. The Salt Lake City-Ogden metropolitan area, defined as Salt Lake, Davis, and Weber counties, had a population of 1,333,914 as of 2000.

define:George Bush
# Bush: 43rd President of the United States; son of George Herbert Walker Bush (born in 1946)
# Bush: vice president under Reagan and 41st President of the United States (born in 1924)

nice!, you can also use it to find acronyms (HTML, WEB, CSS, etc), jeez, how easy is for kids to do homework these days

you might not always get the definition on the first result, but I've seen good results usually in the top 3 definitions

you also get a list of related phrases which may give you a more detailed result on whatever it is you are looking for