Question: is there a dictionary i can download for java? 
i want to have a program that takes a few random letters and sees if they can be rearanged into a real word by checking them against the dictionary

Answer: 
[OpenOffice dictionaries](http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries#English_.28AU.2CCA.2CGB.2CNZ.2CUS.2CZA.29) are easy to parse line-by-line.

You can read it in memory (remember it's a lot of memory):

[`List words = IOUtils.readLines(new FileInputStream("dicfile.txt"))`](http://commons.apache.org/io/api-1.4/org/apache/commons/io/IOUtils.html#readLines%28java.io.InputStream%29) (from [commons-io](http://commons.apache.org/io/))

Thus you get a `List` of all words. Alternatively you can use the Line Iterator, if you encounter memory prpoblems.
Check out - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/test-dictionary/>, it might give you some clue

I am not sure if there are any such libraries available for download! But I guess you can definitely digg through sourceforge.net to see if there are any or how people have used dictionaries - <http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&words=java+dictionary>