WordAlchemy: A transformer-based Reverse Dictionary

Abstract: A reverse dictionary takes a target word's description as input and returns the words that fit the description. Reverse Dictionaries are useful for new language learners, anomia patients, and for solving common tip-of-the-tongue problems (lethologica). Currently, there does not exist any Reverse Dictionary provider with support for any Indian Language. We present a novel open-source cross-lingual reverse dictionary system with support for Indian languages. In this paper, we propose a transformer-based deep learning approach to tackle the limitations faced by the existing systems using the mT5 model. This architecture uses the Translation Language Modeling (TLM) technique, rather than the conventional BERT's Masked Language Modeling (MLM) technique.