A Latin Dictionary at My Fingertips

I use Alfred all the time. It is my app launcher, my file finder, and my script swiss army knife.

I am taking up Latin again. My grammar is still decent by my vocabulary is pretty rough. I frequently need to look up a word. Using an online diction is onerous. So, chatgpt and I wrote a script to use Alfred and the Latin Is Simple API to make this much faster.

Command + <space>, followed by the letter ’l’, and I can start typing a Latin word and the dictionary populates before my eyes.

Download the Alfred Workflow

The Alfred Workflow is all you need. But if you are interested in how it is made, continue reading:

See the Alfred Docs on creating workflows.

This is a simple workflow that uses a script filter and copy to clipboard block.

Here is the script:

import sys
import urllib.request
import urllib.parse
import json

BASE_URL = "https://www.latin-is-simple.com/api/vocabulary/search/"

def search_latin_word(query):
    """Search for a Latin word using the Latin-is-Simple API."""
    params = {
        'query': query,
        'forms_only': 'false',
        'format': 'json'
    }
    url = BASE_URL + '?' + urllib.parse.urlencode(params)
    
    headers = {
        'accept': 'application/json',
        'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'
    }
    
    req = urllib.request.Request(url, headers=headers)
    
    with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as response:
        data = response.read().decode('utf-8')
    
    results = json.loads(data)
    return results

def main():
    # Get the query from Alfred's {query} variable
    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
        print(json.dumps({'items': []}))
        sys.exit(0)
    
    query = ' '.join(sys.argv[1:])
    
    try:
        results = search_latin_word(query)
        if not results:
            output = {'items': [{
                'title': 'No results found.',
                'valid': False,
                'icon': {'path': 'icons/error.png'}
            }]}
        else:
            items = []
            for entry in results:
                translations = entry.get('translations_unstructured', {})
                en_translation = translations.get('en', 'No English translation available.')
                item = {
                    'title': entry['full_name'],
                    'subtitle': en_translation,
                    'arg': en_translation,
                    'mods': {
                        'cmd': {
                            'arg': entry['url'],
                            'subtitle': 'Copy URL to Clipboard'
                        }
                    },
                    'icon': {'path': 'icons/latin.png'}
                }
                items.append(item)
            output = {'items': items}
        print(json.dumps(output))
    except Exception as e:
        output = {'items': [{
            'title': 'Error occurred.',
            'subtitle': str(e),
            'valid': False,
            'icon': {'path': 'icons/error.png'}
        }]}
        print(json.dumps(output))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

The only trick with the API was adding a User-agent in the header to prevent a 403 error. The API page has info about API auth that you can get when creating an account. I created an account and could not find it. I messaged the site and did not recieve a response, so this works for now.

Here is how the script is setup in Alfred:

To get the live search, set the Queue Delay to “Immediately after each character typed”.

That’s it. You have a fast Latin Dictionary at your fingertips.