macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

Dictionary

For word nerds everywhere, the Dictionary (and thesaurus) is a blessing—a handy way to look up word definitions, pronunciations, and synonyms (Figure 12-11). To be precise, macOS comes with electronic versions of multiple reference works in one:

• The entire New Oxford American Dictionary. The third edition, actually. You’ll note that its entries give you more examples, background, and tables that help to differentiate fine shades of meaning (look up weak for an example).

• The complete Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus.

• Two venerable guides to British English: the Oxford Dictionary of English and Oxford Thesaurus of English.

• A dictionary of Apple terms, from “access control lists” to “Yosemite.” (Apparently there aren’t any Apple terms that begin with Z.)

• Wikipedia. This famous citizen-created encyclopedia isn’t actually on your Mac. Dictionary just gives you an easy way to search the online version, and display the results right in the comfy Dictionary window.

• Foreign language dictionaries: Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Korean, Italian, and Chinese.

  Note

  You don’t ordinarily see these reference books. You have to turn them on in Dictionary→Preferences.

MacOS also comes with about a million ways to look up a word:

• Search it in Spotlight. Press -space, type the word you want into the Spotlight search box, and marvel as the dictionary entry appears at the bottom of the results ...