$ python dictionary.py albatross albatross: 1. Any of several large web-footed birds constituting the family Diomedeidae, chiefly of the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere, and having a hooked beak and long narrow wings. 2. A constant, worrisome burden. 3. An obstacle to success.
$ python dictionary.py apoplexy apoplexy: 1. Sudden impairment of neurological function, especially that resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage; a stroke. 2. A sudden effusion of blood into an organ or tissue. 3. A fit of extreme anger; rage: The proud... members suffered collective apoplexy, and this year they are out for blood (David Finch).
$ python dictionary.py invective invective: 1. Denunciatory or abusive language; vituperation. 2. Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse.
Don't worry about all these ridiculous forms. Just go for the first <OL> block and deal with everything inside that. Some of these will include sub-<OL> blocks too. In particular, you're likely to see tags like, <OL TYPE='a'>." Such a block will also contain <LI> tags, and you should handle these like the other <LI> tags.
Don't worry about words that aren't found in the dictionary (unless you want to). In other words, there's no need to provide a, "no matches" message if the user asks for the definition of say, "iblibibibftthp," or "nucular."
Don't worry about making sure the user typed in the correct command-line arguments. You can just go ahead and assume the user typed, "python dictionary.py <word-to-look-up>."
1. Any of several large web-footed birds constituting the family Diomedeidae, chiefly of the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere, and having a hooked beak and long narrow wings. 2. a. A constant, worrisome burden. b. An obstacle to success.You may number these as simply, "1.," "2.," and "3."
There's a slight catch, though. If you're not careful, you might end up with an extra space after "2." and "3." You should be able to avoid this with a regular expression.
Although you don't need to translate special HTML characters, you should remove them. Without doing so, your third definition for apoplexy might look like this:
3. A fit of extreme anger; rage: “The proud... members suffered collective apoplexy, and this year they are out for blood” (David Finch).