Dictionary is an application developed by Apple as a part of macOS. The application provides definitions and synonyms from various dictionaries, Wikipedia articles and a glossary of Apple-related terms.
Dictionary was introduced in OS X 10.4 with the New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus (as well as the Wikipedia and Apple Dictionary sections). 10.5 added Japanese dictionaries, 10.7 added the British Oxford Dictionary of English, and 10.8 added French, German, Spanish and Chinese.
History
OS X's progenitor, OPENSTEP (and NEXTSTEP) provided similar functionality, called Digital Webster, providing dictionary and thesaurus definitions from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus (termed the "First Digital Edition"). OPENSTEP Services provide lookup from all applications.
Dictionary was first introduced with Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" and provided definitions from the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition. With Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion", Dictionary was updated to the Third Edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary and the British Oxford Dictionary of English was added.
Functionality
Words can be entered in the search bar by just typing the first few letters. The application will perform an incremental search to show any matching headwords or forms and will try to bypass spelling errors. Clicking on any word in a definition searches for that word in the dictionary again. Almost any word is clickable, except the pronunciations in phonetic characters and numerals.
The Preferences allow a user to select from three different pronunciation schemes, either US English (Diacritical or IPA), or British English (IPA).
The dictionary and thesaurus in Dictionary are in an XML format, but make use of precompiled binary index files to access the XML file directly. Therefore, the lexicon cannot easily be modified. However, the user can add new words to the macOS system-wide spell checker, which uses its own lexicon.
Quick access In applications which support "Services", there is an option in the application menu (for example, Safari>Services>Look up in Dictionary) which brings up the Dictionary application and displays the definition of a selected word. The same option appears in the contextual menu after a Control-click on the selected word. The key combination can be used in Cocoa applications which display text – it brings up a small contextual menu-like definition or synonym of the word under the cursor. As of Mac OS X Lion, a three finger tap on the trackpad (either the built-in MacBook trackpad or the Magic Trackpad) has the same effect as the shortcut. In applications which support the ability of the user to drag selected text, it is possible to select a word and drop it onto the icon of the Dictionary application in the Dock. Dashboard includes a widget for accessing the Dictionary application. macOS catches any queries to the dict:// URI scheme, say from a web browser, and routes them back to the Dictionary application. Since OS X Leopard, the dictionary has become tightly integrated with Spotlight, allowing users to view definitions from immediately within the system search.
Other languages
Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) added the Japanese-language dictionary Daijisen, Progressive English to Japanese and Progressive Japanese to English dictionaries, and the 25,000-entry thesaurus , all of which are provided by the Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The Japanese dictionaries do not show up by default, and must be enabled in Preferences.
In OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the Japanese dictionaries were replaced by Super Daijirin and the Wisdom English-Japanese Dictionary. In addition, dictionaries were also added for French (Multidictionnaire de la Langue Française for Macs sold in Europe, or Les Éditions Québec Amérique for Macs sold in America), German (Duden), Spanish (Vox), and Chinese (Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese).
Software such as DictUnifier can be used to add more dictionaries to the application.
List of all pre-installed dictionaries +TypeLanguage(s)Original nameEnglish namePublisherLanguage ALanguage BMonolingualEnglish (US)New Oxford American DictionaryOxford University PressMonolingualEnglish (UK)Oxford Dictionary of EnglishOxford University PressMonolingualNorwegian BokmålNorsk OrdbokNorwegian Monolingual DictionaryKunnskapsforlaget ANS (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualDanishPolitikens Nudansk OrdbogPolitikens Modern Danish DictionaryPolitikens Forlagshus (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualSwedishNE OrdbokNE DictionaryNationalencyklopedin (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualDutchPrisma woordenboek NederlandsUitgeverij Unieboek (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualGermanDuden-Wissensnetz deutsche SpracheBibliographisches Institut GmbH (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualFrenchMultidictionnaire de la language françaisLes Éditions Québec Amérique Inc. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualPortugueseDicionário de PortuguêsEditora Objetiva (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualSpanishDiccionario General de la Lengua Española VoxLarousse Editorial, S.L. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualItalianIl Devoto-Oli. Vocabolario della lingua italianaMondadori Education S.p.A. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualRussianТолковый словарь русского языкаExplanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language"Universe and Education" Publishing House Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualTurkishArkadaş Türkçe SözlükArkadaş Publishing LTD (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualHebrewמילון אבן-שושן מחודש ומותאם לשנות האלפייםEven-Shoshan Dictionary Renewed and Updated for the 21st CenturyThe New Dictionary Ltd (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualHindiराजपाल हिन्दी शब्दकोशRajpal Hindi DictionaryRajpal & Sons (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualThaiพจนานุกรมไทย ฉบับทันสมัยและสมบูรณ์Complete Thai DictionarySe-Education PLC (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualKorean뉴에이스 국어사전New Ace Korean Language DictionaryDIOTEK (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualJapaneseスーパー大辞林Super Daijirin Japanese DictionarySanseido Co., Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualChinese (simplified)现代汉语规范词典The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary ChineseOxford University Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing, Co., Ltd.MonolingualChinese (traditional)五南國語活用辭典Wu-Nan Chinese DictionaryWu-Nan Book Inc. (licensed to Oxford University Press)MonolingualChinese (traditional, Hong Kong)商務新詞典（全新版）Commercial New Dictionary for common word or characterCommercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)ThesaurusEnglish (US)Oxford American Writer's ThesaurusOxford University PressThesaurusEnglish (UK)Oxford Thesaurus of EnglishOxford University PressThesaurusChinese (simplified)现代汉语同义词典Modern Thesaurus/Synonyms & AntonymsShanghai Lexicographical Publishing House (licensed to Oxford University Press)BilingualChineseJapanese超級クラウン中日辞典Sanseido's Super Crown Chinese-Japanese DictionarySanseido Company Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)JapaneseChineseクラウン日中辞典Sanseido's Crown Japanese-Chinese DictionaryBilingualDutchEnglishPrisma Handwoordenboek EngelsUitgeverij Unieboek (licensed to Oxford University Press)BilingualGermanEnglishOxford German DictionaryOxford University PressBilingualFrenchEnglishOxford-Hachette French DictionaryOxford University Press & Hachette LivreBilingualPortugueseEnglishOxford Portuguese DictionaryOxford University PressBilingualSpanishEnglishGran Diccionario Oxford - Español-InglésOxford Spanish DictionaryOxford University PressEnglishSpanishGran Diccionario Oxford - Inglés-EspañolBilingualEnglishItalianOxford Paravia Il Dizionario inglese - italianoOxford - Paravia Italian DictionaryPearson Italia & Oxford University PressItalianEnglishOxford Paravia Il Dizionario italiano - ingleseBilingualPolishEnglishWielki słownik polsko-angielskiOxford PWN Polish-English DictionaryWydawnictwo Naukowe PWN S.A. & Oxford University PressBilingualRussianEnglishOxford Russian DictionaryOxford University PressBilingualArabicEnglishOxford Arabic DictionaryOxford University PressBilingualHindiEnglishThe Oxford Hindi English DictionaryOxford University PressEnglishHindiOxford English-English-Hindi DictionaryBilingualEnglishThaiพจนานุกรมอังกฤษ-ไทย & ไทย-อังกฤษ ฉบับทันสมัยและสมบูรณ์ที่สุดNew SE-ED English-Thai & Thai-English DictionaryDr. Wit Theingburanathum (licensed to Oxford University Press)ThaiEnglishBilingualVietnameseEnglishLac Viet DictionaryLac Viet Computing Corp. (licensed to Oxford University Press)BilingualEnglishKorean뉴에이스 영한사전New Ace English-Korean DictionaryDIOTEK Co., Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)KoreanEnglish뉴에이스 한영사전New Ace Korean-English DictionaryBilingualEnglishJapaneseウィズダム英和辞典The Wisdom English-Japanese DictionarySanseido Company Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)JapaneseEnglishウィズダム和英辞典The Wisdom Japanese-English DictionaryBilingualIndonesianEnglishOxford Study Indonesian DictionaryOxford University PressBilingualCantoneseEnglish英譯廣東口語詞典A Dictionary of Cantonese Colloquialisms in EnglishCommercial Press (licensed to University Press)BilingualEnglishGujaratiGujarati Lexicon English-GujaratiGujarati Lexicon & Oxford University PressGujaratiEnglishGujarati-English DictionariesBilingualTamilEnglishOxford Tamil-Tamil-English DictionariesOxford University PressEnglishTamilOxford English-English-Tamil DictionariesBilingualEnglishTeluguOxford English-English-Telugu DictionaryOxford University PressTeluguEnglishOxford Telugu-English DictionaryBilingualEnglishUrduOxford English-Urdu DictionaryOxford University PressUrduEnglishOxford Urdu-English DictionaryBilingualFrenchGermanPONS Großwörterbuch Französisch – DeutschPONS GmbH (licensed to Oxford University Press)GermanFrenchPONS Großwörterbuch Deutsch – FranzösischBilingualEnglishChinese (simplified)牛津英汉汉英词典Oxford Chinese DictionaryOxford University Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd.Chinese (simplified)EnglishBilingualEnglishChinese (traditional)譯典通英漢雙向字典Dr. Eye Chinese English Bilingual DictionaryINVENTEC (licensed to Oxford University Press)Chinese (traditional)EnglishMonolingual, Chinese IdiomsChinese (simplified)商务成语大词典Commercial Idiom DictionaryCommercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)Bilingual, Chinese IdiomsChinese (traditional)English漢英對照成語詞典Chinese Idioms and Their English EquivalentsCommercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)OtherEnglishApple DictionaryApple Inc.OtherMultiple languagesWikipediaWikimedia Foundation, Inc.
References
External links Install dictionaries on Mac OS X - YouTube