A very useful (to me, anyway) website

[Guest]

 

[MercyMia]

Thanks, LRJ. I bookmarked the site to explore later.

 

[Seattle Zack]

I'm a crossword constructor and I use this site a lot, because you can use wild cards in the searches. For example, entering
"al??on?" gets you the following list of possible words:

1. alcione
2. alcyone
3. alfione
4. alimony
5. all one
6. allmond
7. alstona
8. altoona

 

[snooper]

... entering
"al??on?" gets you the following list of possible words:

1. alcione
2. alcyone
3. alfione
4. alimony
5. all one
6. allmond
7. alstona
8. altoona

It seems a pity that only "all one" and "alimony" are in the O.E.D.

Would you explain the meaning of any of the others?

 

[Seattle Zack]

Well, that's why this is such a cool site ... it not only searches dictionaries, but atlases and encyclopedias as well.

Truthfully, though, other than ALIMONY I couldn't see a crossword editor accepting anything else on the list except ALTOONA ("Central Pannsylvania city"). Maybe on a difficult NYT Sunday puzzle some of the others might be acceptable.

ALCIONE Nazaré (November 21, 1947 - ) is one of the greatest female sambists in Brazil.

ALCYONE, from Greek mythology, was a demi-god who was turned into a kingfisher.

ALFIONE is an edible marine fish of California.

ALSTONIA is a botanical name for the bark of the Devil Tree in India.