In this paper we describe a method of effective handling of linguistic data by means of \emph{covering and inhibiting patterns}---patterns that ``compete'' each other. A methodology of developing such patterns is outlined. Applications in the areas of morphology, hyphenation and part-of-speech tagging are shown. This pattern-driven approach to language engineering allows the combination of linguist expertise with the data learned from corpora---layering of knowledge. Searching for information in pattern database (dictionary problem) is blindingly fast---linear with respect to the length of searching word as with other finite-state approaches.