C#: sort dictionary in descending order

Use LINQ:

Dictionary<string, int> myDict = new Dictionary<string, int>();
myDict.Add("one", 1);
myDict.Add("four", 4);
myDict.Add("two", 2);
myDict.Add("three", 3);

var sortedDict = from entry in myDict orderby entry.Value ascending select entry;

This would also allow for great flexibility in that you can select the top 10, 20 10%, etc. Or if you are using your word frequency index for type-ahead, you could also include StartsWith clause as well.

The sorted() function takes a key= parameter

newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=lambda d: d['name']) 

Alternatively, you can use operator.itemgetter instead of defining the function yourself

from operator import itemgetter
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name')) 

For completeness, add reverse=True to sort in descending order

newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name'), reverse=True)