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Mac 101: Getting the most out of Dictionary.app

by Dave Caolo Jun 25th 2009 at 9:30AM

Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of posts aimed at novice Mac users and veterans who like the occasional refresher.

Mac OS X is equipped with a dictionary application that does pretty much what you'd expect, and a few things you might not. Here's how you can get the most out of Dictionary.

Most people use a dictionary to look up a word's definition. Doing so in Dictionary is pretty straightforward: Just launch the app, type your target term into the search field and hit return. That's all well and good, but not very interesting.

Here's what is. Click any word in the definition to find the meaning of that word. Do this just once, and an orange "Snap Back" icon appears in the search field. When clicked, it brings you back to your original search term.

Here's another cool trick. Let's say you looked up "Surname." Dictionary displays it broken up by syllable: "sur•name." If you highlight and copy it, it will paste as it should be written: "surname."

But wait, there's more! Highlight or position the cursor over a word in any Cocoa application (Safari, for example) and hit Control-Command-D. A small window appears that displays that word's definition and thesaurus alternative(s). If the term in question is the name of an Apple product, you'll see that product's official description from Apple. Clicking "More" at the bottom of this tiny window launches Dictionary.

Let's say you typically misspell a word that you have to type often (my Achilles' heel is "Twitterrific"). Simply right- or Control-click that word and select "Learn Spelling" to add it to Dictionary.

Dictionary is also more than a collection of definitions. You can quickly switch between a thesaurus, official descriptions of Apple products and Wikipedia. Additionally, select "Font/Back Matter" from the Go menu to access a slew of great information, like
  • Proofreader's Marks
  • The History of English
  • Countries of the World
  • Chemical Elements
Of course, every single word you find there can be clicked to reveal its definition. Finally, here's a bit of eye candy that isn't useful but still fun. You can browse every photo in Dictionary by navigating to
/Library/Dictionaries/New Oxford American Dictionary.dictionary/Contents/Images

and switching to Cover Flow view.

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Welcome back to Mac 101, our series of posts aimed at novice Mac users and veterans who like the occasional refresher.Mac OS X is equipped...
 

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25 Comments

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Natalie

By view of the upgraded mac os with dictionary, it is more convenient 4 Mac novices,in particular, for some translators to look for the definitions or explanations between different languages.
If u r interested in my comments,u can visit or link my homepage as follows:
http://www.pavtube.com
3Q!

July 14 2009 at 4:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Natalie

By view of the upgraded Mac ox with dictionary, it is more convenient for Mac
novices as well as translators to look for different definitions and explanations of various
languages.

http://www.pavtube.com is my homepage.

July 14 2009 at 4:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alastair L

Any body got any idea how to port a dictionary from an external source (say database) to a .dictionary file.

I would like to port a Pali Language dictionary (a spoken language used by the Buddha to teach Dhamma). Seems like the definitions are in an XML file that has an associated CSS file. What about the other files in the package like the info file?

One curly aspect is that Pali has a lot of diacritics on all vowels (bit unusual in that).

July 03 2009 at 11:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steve

Zac Grose-

That's what capital letters are for. "Mail", not "mail". "Dictionary", not "dictionary". Seems clear enough to me.

Note that this article only says "Dictionary.app" in the headline; the body uses "Dictionary", which is appropriate. I would have titled the article "... most out of Apple Dictionary", which parses much better.

But of course, until I have editorial control over a Mac news site, I'll just have to deal with this pet peeve. :)



June 26 2009 at 8:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lipflip+tuaw.com

Don't forget to mention that Dictionary.App can be extended by third-party plugins like my germanenglish dictionary:


http://lipflip.org/articles/dictcc-dictionary-plugin

June 26 2009 at 4:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steve

iCaci -

Um, I know what a .app is. I meant the usage in conversation and articles. Is anyone really so confused by "Mail" or "Dictionary" that ".app" has to be appended? It's stupid.

June 25 2009 at 4:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Steve's comment
ecobore

couldn't agree more.
drop the .app stuff guys. We all know what it is!!!

June 25 2009 at 5:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zac

The suffix .app is used in Mail.app and Dictionary.app because the names ‘Mail’ and ‘Dictionary’ do not properly determine exactly what is being referred. If this article explained how to make the most of the dictionary, you would not be faulted for believing the article would be full of tips about word tips and index information that translates to any dictionary, rather than the Dictionary application on your Mac.

The same, if not to a larger extent, applies to Mail.app. Saying ‘10 tips for Mail’ could be tips for managing your email, advice for signatures, and good practices for other email etiquette. Simply sufficing ‘.app’ eliminates this potential confusion.

June 26 2009 at 8:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steve

The app is called Dictionary. Not "Dictionary.app". Also, it's Mail, or Apple Mail, not "Mail.app".

Seriously, how did this stupid-ass habit get started, tacking ".app" onto the names of programs? Annoying as fuckall.

June 25 2009 at 2:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Steve's comment
iCaci

Because most Mac OS X apps are really directories (bundles) with ".app" suffix, that's how. "Get Info" on a directory to see it for yourself.

June 25 2009 at 3:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
UnusualAspect

it says dictionary.app on my apps folder dude...

June 27 2009 at 4:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gabe

You can also quickly type in the word in your spotlight (shortcut - Cmd + Spacebar), and it will have the dictionary definition ready.

June 25 2009 at 1:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Adnium

I never realised that you could read the foreword in Dictionary.app; it's quite an interesting read.

June 25 2009 at 12:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ecobore

the essential thing missing is in the thesaurus. No way to select another word and have it automatically swopped out. You have to copy the new word and paste it over the old word in whatever you are working in. This a major pain, even MS turd allowed you to do this in the version I used years ago.. (don't have it now...)

June 25 2009 at 11:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to ecobore's comment
Mark

This is a bad sign for Dell and horrible PR. I don't know what they thought they were gonna get out of it, but apparently not a hell of a lot of good and probably a fair amount of ridicule.

It kinda hurts to see a once cocky on-top-of-the-world-ma company fall so.

June 25 2009 at 1:32 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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