Look up a word in the dictionary

When a word is almost the right one — you want another with the same sense, a rhyme for the end of a line, or the expressions it lives in — look it up without leaving your work. The dictionary opens in a drawer beside your text and gives, for the word you search, definitions, synonyms, antonyms, a lexical field, a word family, rhymes, homophones, expressions and figures of speech.

Open the dictionary

Use any of these:

  • press ⌘ + D;
  • open Tools → Dictionary;
  • select Dictionary in the tool palette on the left;
  • select a word in your work, right-click it and select Dictionary: the drawer opens with that word already searched.

To close it, press ⌘ + D again or select Dictionary in the palette. Esc leaves it open.

Search a word

  1. Type the word in Search a word... at the top of the drawer.
  2. Press Enter or select the search button beside the field.

The sections appear one by one as their answers arrive, with a spinner below them while Ilena is still looking. A lookup can take several seconds.

Read the results

Each section heading carries its count, for example Synonyms · 7. One section is open at a time: Definition opens with every new lookup, and selecting another heading opens it and closes the previous one. A section with a count of 0 is usually greyed out and cannot be opened. Rhymes is the exception: it can stay available at 0, and while a lookup is still running it can show 0 before its count arrives.

A section at 0 can show an icon beside its heading, Ask again for this section. Select it to ask again for that section only; the others stay as they are, and the icon shows a loader while Ilena looks. If something comes back, it is kept and shown to everyone who looks that word up afterwards. This is offered once for a word and a section: if the second answer is empty too, the heading shows Still nothing and the icon disappears for everyone. A section that holds items never offers it. Rhymes covers five categories under one heading; when any of them can be asked again, the icon sits beside Rhymes and asks again for those categories only.

The dictionary drawer after searching “stone”: Definition open with numbered senses, then the other eight sections with their counts, those at 0 greyed out, with the Ask again for this section icon beside them.
The drawer for “stone”: one section open, each heading with its count.
Definition
The word’s senses, numbered, each with an example sentence.
Synonyms, Antonyms, Lexical field
Words related to yours, each with short labels under it, such as an emotion or a register and a level from A1 to C2.
Rhymes
Rhyming words, each with its rhyme category under it.
Expressions
Set phrases containing the word, each with its meaning.
Figures of speech
Figures using the word, each with the device it rests on and its meaning.

Family and Homophones carry their count too, and open like the others when it is not 0.

Select a word in Synonyms or Rhymes to look it up in turn.

Unexpected results

A Did you mean line appears
The word you typed was taken for another one. For silense, the drawer shows the results for silence and Did you mean silence above them.
A section is at 0
Look beside its heading for the Ask again for this section icon and select it. If the heading then shows Still nothing, the second answer was empty too and the section cannot be asked again.
A section says Could not load this section.
This was seen when the search was not a word, for example qzxvbnm. A Retry this section button appears beside its heading.