I mostly use Google Chrome for reading. Often when I stumble upon a word which I don’t understand, right-click and ‘search the web’ for that specific word or phrase. You also have multiple extensions such as Grammarly, or Google Dictionary which shows you the word’s meaning in a popup when you double click on any word on Google Chrome. The only issue is that it doesn’t work on some websites (WordPress) nor is it systemwide. So, if you’ve to look for meaning for any text on your PC say in Microsoft Word, Wordpad or PDFs, here’s how to enable right-click dictionary systemwide on PC.
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How to enable right-click dictionary systemwide on PC
If you’re looking for a super-easy no-hassle way to access dictionary systemwide on your PC, you’ll have to download a third-party online dictionary and thesaurus, WordWeb. The best part about this app is that it works offline, so you can search for meanings even if you don’t have an internet connection. Here’re all the things you can use it for besides finding the meaning of words quickly.
- Look up, similar words, synonyms
- Look for parts of speech by clicking on the noun, verb
- Read word references
- Search the word in Wikipedia
Here’s a quick guide to install it.
Step 1
To begin, download WordWeb for Windows or Mac and follow the steps to install the software. You can also install a portable version in this step.
Once it’s done, you can easily look up the meaning of any word across any app on your PC. All you have to do is hold down Ctrl key and right-click on the word. A new dialog box will pop up with the meaning. Alternatively, you can also use Ctrl + Alt + W as a keyboard shortcut if you don’t want to use the mouse. Just keep in mind that the meaning will pop out on whichever word the cursor is on.
Not just that, you can also change the hotkey according to your likeness (Options>Hotkey). You can change between mouse buttons, i.e, left-click, middle-click or right-click along with replacing the hold-down Ctrl option to Alt or Shift. Moreover, you can change the combination for the keyboard shortcut in the same tab.
Windows Search Box Alternative
There is no native option as of now in Windows to look for meaning with a click. However, if you don’t want to install third-party software, you can make use of the task-bar, to be specific, I’m talking about the most ignored feature, i.e the ‘search box’. If you haven’t enabled it already, right-click on the task-bar, tap on search and select show search box.
Downside to Search Box is that it needs active internet connection to show you web results and dictionary card
You can find the box to the bottom left. Now whenever you’re confused with a word, all you have to do is type the word and add mean as a suffix. The search box will show you the results by the Oxford dictionary. You can also scroll down to browse more search results.
Closing Remarks
So these were some easy ways to find meaning on your PC. I use WordWeb as it works offline and has tons of more features than just the dictionary option. Moreover, you can either click or use the keyboard shortcut to quickly look for meaning, which saves time.
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