Polyhymnia - A powerful command-line tool that lets you dive deep into the English language. Whether you're a writer, poet, or language enthusiast, Polyhymnia helps you discover words based on their meaning, sound, spelling, and much more—all from the comfort of your terminal. Polyhymnia is powered by the the incredible Datamuse API.

You can find more detailed information on the Polyhymnia website at https://polyhymnia.daspyro.de

Polyhymnia is a command-line tool that leverages the Datamuse API to enable users to search for words based on meaning, sound, spelling, and relationships. It's designed for writers, poets, language enthusiasts, and anyone who needs to explore the nuances of the English and Spanish languages.

Polyhymnia puts the power of words at your fingertips with four primary search modes:

• Meaning: Discover words with similar meanings using the --means-like flag. Perfect for finding that elusive synonym!
• Sound: Want words that sound alike? Use the --sounds-like flag and find perfect rhymes or assonance matches.
• Spelling: Search for words that match a specific pattern with the --spelled-like flag, even using wildcards!
• Related Words: Explore synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and more using the --related-word flag with custom relationship codes.

Polyhymnia isn’t just for language geeks—it has a wide range of practical applications!

1. Creative Writing & Poetry: Perfect for finding synonyms, rhymes, or words that fit your poem’s rhythm or themes.
2. Songwriting: Quickly grab rhymes or similar-sounding words to smooth out your lyrics.
3. Solving Word Puzzles: Find words that match specific clues based on patterns, meanings, or letter combinations.
4. Marketing & Branding: Generate catchy names, taglines, or slogans by searching for words that match a sound or idea.
5. Language Learning: Boost your vocabulary with related words and synonyms, filtered by context.
6. Game Development: Create word puzzles, crosswords, or word association games with dynamic word lists.
7. Linguistic Research: Query the API for insights into phonetics, semantics, or lexical relationships.

More examples are available on the Polyhymnia website.

Search for words with a meaning similar to "joy" and limit the results to 3 words using the --max flag.

polyhymnia --max 3 --means-like "joy"

gladden

delight

rejoice

This example finds words that sound like "kevin" and limits the results to 5 words.

polyhymnia --max 5 --sounds-like "kevin"

kevin

kevyn

kevan

cave in

cave-in

This example searches for words that begin with all and end in the letter e. It limits the results to 5 words. The results include matching words like "alleviate" and "allude".

polyhymnia --max 5 --spelled-like "all*e"

alleviate

allude

allure

alliance

allege

To find words based on specific relationships like synonyms, antonyms, or homophones, you can use the --related-word flag and one of the related word search codes.

The related word search codes allow you to specify the type of relationship you're interested in.

This query returns antonyms of the word "joy" by using the related-word code ant. We limit the number of returned words to 3 using the --max flag.

polyhymnia --max 3 --related-word ant joy

sad

sorrow

sadden

This query returns homophones of the word "joy" by using the related-word code hom.

polyhymnia --related-word hom joy

joye

This query returns synonyms of the word "joy" by using the related-word code syn. We limit the number of returned words to 3 using the --max flag.

polyhymnia --max 3 --related-word syn joy

delight

pleasure

rejoice

First, make sure you have Go installed on your system.

go install github.com/pierow2k/polyhymnia@latest

Alternatively, you can clone the repo and build the application manually:

git clone https://github.com/pierow2k/polyhymnia.git
cd polyhymnia
sudo make install

This will create an executable called polyhymnia and install the man page to /usr/local/share/man/man1.

./polyhymnia [options]

One of these flags is required for every query:

Use these flags to include specific types of metadata in your query results:

The --metadata flag allows you to request additional information about each word returned by Polyhymnia. Use a single-letter shorthand to quickly request common metadata:

You can combine metadata types to return multiple pieces of information. For example, --metadata df is equivalent to using --def --freq.

Polyhymnia's "Related Word" feature offers a deeper dive into lexical relationships, allowing you to discover words that are connected through various semantic, phonetic, and usage-based associations. This feature is especially useful for anyone looking to explore how words are related beyond mere definitions—whether you're hunting for synonyms, antonyms, or words commonly paired together. By leveraging advanced search codes, you can fine-tune your queries to surface words with specific kinds of relationships, all powered by rich data sources like WordNet and Google Books Ngrams.

Explore the various relationship types below to uncover new word connections that can inspire creativity, solve puzzles, or enrich your linguistic research.

The --vocabulary flag specifies which vocabulary to use.

• If no vocabulary is specified, a 550,000-term vocabulary of English words and multiword expressions is used.
• es - a 500,000-term vocabulary of words from Spanish-language books.
• enwiki - approximately 6 million-term vocabulary of article titles from the English-language Wikipedia, updated monthly.

Polyhymnia provides the following results:

• Word: The vocabulary word.
• Score: Relevance score.
• Syllables: Number of syllables.
• Pronunciation: Phonetic representation (if available).
• Frequency: How common the word is.
• Parts of speech: Noun, verb, etc. (See Parts of Speech below)
• Definition: The meaning of the word (if available).

Use the --metadata flag to customize the data returned.

One or more part-of-speech codes will be returned with the search results.

• adj means adjective
• adv means adverb
• n means noun
• v means verb
• u means that the part of speech is none of these or cannot be determined.

Polyhymnia adds multiple entries when the word's part of speech is ambiguous, listing the most popular part of speech first.

Need assistance? Polyhymnia’s got your back:

• The Polyhymia website includes detailed documentation.
• Use the --help flag for a quick overview of commands and options.
• Check out the man page for detailed information.
• Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on the project repository!

Polyhymnia's --help flag provides an overview of the application's usage and the various flags that can be used to customize queries and output.

polyhymnia --help

Polyhymnia leverages the Datamuse API to enable users to search for words
based on meaning, sound, spelling, and relationships.

Usage:
  polyhymnia [search term] [flags]

Flags:
  -c, --count                      Show number of words returned by query
  -d, --def                        Include definitions in results
  -f, --freq                       Include frequency in results
  -h, --help                       help for polyhymnia
      --left-context string        Left context
      --max int                    Maximum number of results to return (
                                   1-1000) (default 100)
  -l, --means-like                 Words with meaning similar to this
                                   string
      --metadata string            Metadata flags (dfprs)
  -p, --pos                        Include parts of speech in results
  -r, --pro                        Include pronunciation in results
      --related-word stringArray   Related word constraints
      --right-context string       Right context
  -s, --score                      Include score in results
  -q, --show-query                 Show the URL used for the query
  -n, --sounds-like                Words that sound like this string
  -t, --spelled-like               Words spelled like this string
  -y, --syl                        Include syllables in results
      --topics stringArray         Topics (comma-separated)
  -v, --version                    version for polyhymnia
      --vocabulary string          Vocabulary identifier

Check out the man page in troff or PDF format for detailed documentation.

POLYHYMNIA(1)               General Commands Manual              POLYHYMNIA(1)

NAME
       polyhymnia - query the Datamuse API from the command line

SYNOPSIS
       polyhymnia options

DESCRIPTION
       polyhymnia  provides  a  means  to query the Datamuse API from the com-
       mand-line

   Key Features
       - Find words by meaning, sound, or spelling: Query the Datamuse API for
       words similar to, sounding like, or spelled like a given word.
       - Retrieve related words: Get words related to a specific concept using
       the API's rel codes.
       - Optional search filters: Limit results by specifying vocabulary, con-
       text, maximum number of results, and more.
       - Word metadata: Receive additional information such as word  frequency
       and pronunciation.

OPTIONS
   Required Flags
       -means-like
              Find words with a meaning similar to this string

       -sounds-like
              Find words that sound similar to this string

       -spelled-like
              Find words spelled similarly to this string

   Optional Flags
…

Have an idea for a new feature or noticed something that isn’t working quite right? Open an issue to let us know. Your feedback helps us keep Polyhymnia reliable and feature-rich.

Polyhymnia is released under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.

We love contributions! Feel free to submit a pull request or open an issue to discuss new ideas or improvements.