Plan: DreamDict answers the Portuguese dictionary question

OPEN #6 assumed the pt-PT gloss was gated on finding a dataset of
ECDICT's quality. It isn't — dreamdict already covers en, fr, pt-PT and
zh, and its API maps almost 1:1 onto lexicon.Result.

Replaces the data question with an integration one (OPEN #6a): HTTP
service, build-time extraction into Petal's embedded gz format, or
importing the dictionary package and opening dict.db read-only. Argues
for the third — same CGO-free sqlite driver Petal already depends on, no
runtime service, and it deletes ~11.6 MB of embedded data plus the
ECDICT build scripts.

Adds the migration caution that matters most: the zh path is in daily
use, so wire pt-PT/fr first (nothing to regress) and leave zh on ECDICT
until CC-CEDICT gloss quality has been compared on her real lookups.

MULTIUSER_PLAN.md

@@ -210,7 +210,7 @@ dataset identical for everyone.
 
 ---
 
-## 6. Phase D — per-user language
+## 6. Phase D — per-user language (and DreamDict)
 
 Tracked here because it lands on the same `users` row and shouldn't be designed
 twice.
@@ -219,26 +219,89 @@ twice.
 language — the one glosses and explanations are written in. Mandarin ships today;
 European Portuguese (pt-PT, explicitly not pt-BR) is wanted; French is possible.
 
-That makes native language a `users` column and turns these into per-user
-lookups:
+### OPEN #6 is answered: DreamDict
 
-| Piece | Today | Notes |
-|---|---|---|
-| Gloss / lexicon data | ECDICT, English↔Chinese | pt-PT needs its own source — **this is the hard part**, not the code |
-| LLM prompt copy | Mandarin-first bilingual | `internal/llm/prompts.go` |
-| Companion tips | bilingual `tips.ts` | per-language copy |
-| TTS L1 voice | Piper zh_CN-huayan | Piper has pt-PT voices |
-| Font stacks | CJK fallbacks | not needed for Latin-script L1 |
+The original worry here was data sourcing — Petal's gloss comes from ECDICT
+(English↔Chinese), and a pt-PT equivalent of comparable quality and license
+looked like the blocker.
 
-English-side machinery (nspell en-US, the IPA/phonetic dataset, the EN Piper
-voice) is unaffected and stays shared.
+`~/git/dreamdict` already solves it, and more completely than expected. It
+supports **en, fr, pt-PT, and zh** (~136k/56k/136k/121k words), and its shape maps
+almost 1:1 onto `lexicon.Result`:
 
-**OPEN #6:** the gloss dataset is the blocker, not the plumbing. Is there an
-open English↔Portuguese dictionary of ECDICT's quality and license? If not, this
-phase is gated on data sourcing and the code work is comparatively trivial. Worth
-answering before scheduling it.
+| Petal field | DreamDict |
+|---|---|
+| `Gloss` | `Translate(word, "en", L1)` |
+| `Phonetic` | pronunciation (CMU + IPA for en, Wiktionary IPA elsewhere) |
+| `Definitions` | `Define(word, lang)` — curated sources ranked above Wiktionary |
+| `Synonyms` | `Synonyms(word, lang)` |
 
----
+It also carries data Petal has no equivalent for and could use: `Antonyms`,
+`Frequency`, `Difficulty`, and `Etymology`.
+
+So Phase D stops being gated on data and becomes an integration decision.
+
+### OPEN #6a (new): how to integrate
+
+**Option 1 — HTTP client.** Petal calls DreamDict on localhost:7777, exactly the
+pattern already used for Piper TTS (including graceful degradation when it's
+down).
+- *For:* zero coupling, DreamDict updates independently, all endpoints available.
+- *Against:* a second service Petal now depends on at runtime, and the gloss is a
+  350ms hover tooltip where "the dictionary service is down" is a visible
+  regression from today's always-there embedded data.
+
+**Option 2 — build-time extraction.** A script (sibling to the existing
+`scripts/build_gloss.py`) generates Petal's embedded `.json.gz` datasets per
+language from DreamDict's `dict.db`.
+- *For:* preserves the embedded/offline property exactly; no runtime dependency;
+  no architectural change at all.
+- *Against:* every language multiplies the binary (the four current gz files are
+  already ~11.6 MB); updating the dictionary means rebuilding and redeploying
+  Petal; the richer fields are lost unless separately extracted.
+
+**Option 3 — import the package, open `dict.db` read-only.** DreamDict's
+`internal/dictionary` is a plain library with `NewReadOnly(dbPath)`, and its only
+dependency is `modernc.org/sqlite` — the same CGO-free driver Petal already uses.
+Petal opens `dict.db` as a second read-only handle beside `petal.db`.
+- *For:* no service, no HTTP, no new dependency, lookups stay local-file fast,
+  all four languages at once, and it deletes ~11.6 MB of embedded gz plus the
+  ECDICT build scripts. One dictionary, maintained once, shared with GogoBee.
+- *Against:* Petal stops being a self-contained binary in the "just run it" sense
+  — `dict.db` has to be deployed alongside. In practice Petal already ships a
+  data directory (`petal.db`, images, TTS cache), so this is a smaller loss than
+  it first sounds.
+
+**My recommendation: Option 3.** It is the only one that gets all four languages,
+keeps lookups offline and instant, and *removes* code rather than adding a
+subsystem. Option 1's runtime dependency buys flexibility Petal doesn't need for
+a dictionary that changes a few times a year.
+
+**Prerequisite:** DreamDict's module path is currently `module dreamdict`, which
+isn't fetchable. Importing it needs the module renamed to something like
+`gitea.parodia.dev/drwily/dreamdict` (or a local `replace` directive for
+development). Small, but it must happen first.
+
+### Migration caution
+
+Whichever option wins, the zh path is **currently working and in daily use**. The
+gloss quality difference between ECDICT and CC-CEDICT is unknown and matters more
+than the architecture.
+
+Proposal: introduce DreamDict behind Petal's existing lexicon interface as a
+*provider*, wire pt-PT and fr to it first (nothing to regress — they don't exist
+yet), and keep zh on ECDICT until the two have been compared on real lookups from
+her actual documents. Converge only if quality holds. This also de-risks the whole
+change: if DreamDict turns out to be a poor fit, only the unshipped languages are
+affected.
+
+### Still per-user regardless
+
+Native language becomes a `users` column, and these become per-user lookups:
+LLM prompt copy (`internal/llm/prompts.go`, currently Mandarin-first), companion
+tips (`tips.ts`), the L1 Piper voice (Piper has pt-PT voices), and the CJK font
+stacks (not needed for Latin-script L1). English-side machinery — nspell en-US,
+the phonetic dataset, the EN voice — is unaffected and stays shared.
 
 ## 7. Suggested sequence
 
@@ -250,7 +313,10 @@ answering before scheduling it.
 4. Image store table + migration (same phase, per OPEN #5).
 5. Provision the second real account; migrate `local`'s data.
 6. `localStorage` namespacing.
-7. Per-user language, gated on the dataset question.
+7. Per-user language. **No longer gated on data** — DreamDict covers all four
+   languages. Sequence within it: rename DreamDict's module path → wire it in as
+   a lexicon provider → pt-PT/fr first → compare zh quality → converge if it
+   holds.
 
 ---
 
@@ -279,7 +345,11 @@ answering before scheduling it.
 4. Migration script vs. admin endpoint for moving `local`'s data? (OPEN #4)
 5. Fix the image store alongside auth, or ship auth with it as a known
    limitation? (OPEN #5)
-6. Is there a usable open English↔European-Portuguese dictionary dataset?
-   (OPEN #6 — gates Phase D entirely)
+6. ~~Is there a usable open English↔European-Portuguese dictionary dataset?~~
+   **Answered: DreamDict**, which covers en/fr/pt-PT/zh. The live question is now
+   *how* to integrate it — HTTP service, build-time extraction, or importing the
+   package and opening `dict.db` read-only. (OPEN #6a; I recommend the third)
+7. Does replacing the zh gloss (ECDICT → CC-CEDICT) risk regressing a feature in
+   daily use, and should zh stay on ECDICT until the two are compared?
 
 Anything above that reads as settled but shouldn't be is also fair game.