NUSPELL(1)

📦
version 5.1.9 · 9 versions
, in arch rolling

✨ NUSPELL(1) — User Commands 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

nuspell — command-line tool for spellchecking. That's the whole gig, bestie: it checks your spelling and it's lowkey iconic.

This is from the User Commands manual, and your girl is about to walk you through every single flag, no cap. 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

Two moods, both valid:

nuspell [-d dict_NAME] [OPTION]...  [FILE]...
nuspell -D|--help|--version

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

It checks the spelling of each FILE. If no FILE is specified, it checks standard input instead. The text in the input is first segmented into words with an algorithm that recognizes punctuation, and then each word is checked. Literally a little word bouncer: punctuation gets handled, words get checked, slay. ✨

💅 OPTIONS 💅

Okay so here's the menu. Every option, no skipping, periodt.

  • -d, --dictionary=di_CT — Use the di_CT dictionary. Only one is supported at a time. A dictionary consists of two files with extensions .dic and .aff. The -d option accepts either the dictionary name without filename extension, usually a language tag, or a path (with slash) to the .aff file including the filename extension. When just a name is given, it will be searched among the list of dictionaries in the default directories (see option -D). When a path to .aff is given, only the dictionary under the path is considered. When -d is not present, the CLI tools tries to load a dictionary using the language tag from the active locale. Bestie, it's doing its best with your locale. 💖
  • -D, --list-dictionaries — Print search paths and available dictionaries and exit. Like a little dictionary tour. 🗺️
  • --encoding=ENC — Set both input and output encoding.
  • --input-encoding=ENC — Set input encoding, default is UTF-8.
  • --output-encoding=ENC — Set output encoding, default is UTF-8.
  • --help — Print short help.
  • --version — Print version number.

💀 EXIT STATUS 💀

Returns error if the argument syntax is invalid, if the dictionary can not be loaded, or if some input file can not be opened. Otherwise, spell checking has occurred and returns success. So if it exits happy, the words got checked, fr fr. ✨

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

Environment variables do be influencing things:

  • DICTIONARY — Specify dictionary, same as option -d.
  • DICPATH — Path to additional directory to search for dictionaries.

😭 CAVEATS 😭

Listen bestie, this part matters. The CLI tool is primarily intended to be used interactively by a human. The input is plain text, and the output is mostly plain text with some symbols and words that are meant to be read by a human and not by a machine. The format of the output is not strictly defined and may change, thus it is not machine-readable. Other programs should use the C++ library directly, which has stable API.

Machine-readable? Not this. Human-readable? Absolutely, and kinda cute. But don't parse the output like it's a stable API, because it's not. 🙈

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

Try these:

nuspell -d en_US file.txt
nuspell -d ../../subdir/di_CT.aff

🧚 REPORTING BUGS 🧚

Found a bug? Don't suffer in silence, bestie. Bug reports: https://github.com/nuspell/nuspell/issues

Copyright 2016-2026 Nuspell authors. Respect the icon. 💜

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

💜 AUTHORS 💜

Dimitrij Mijoski.

Okay bye bestie — this was NUSPELL(1) from Nuspell 5.1.9, dated 2026-09-11. Mwah 💋✨

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