Dictionary
Developer(s)Apple Inc.
Stable release
2.3.0 / August 18, 2018 (2018-08-18)[1]
Operating systemmacOS
TypeDictionary
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.apple.com Edit this on Wikidata

Dictionary is an application developed by Apple Inc. 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.[2]

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 control+⌘ Command+D 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 control+⌘ Command+D 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.[3]

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 "Tsukaikata no Wakaru Ruigo Reikai Jiten" (使い方の分かる類語例解辞典), 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[4] can be used to add more dictionaries to the application.

List of all pre-installed dictionaries

Type Language(s) Original name English name Publisher
Language A Language B
Monolingual English (US) New Oxford American Dictionary Oxford University Press
Monolingual English (UK) Oxford Dictionary of English Oxford University Press
Monolingual Norwegian Bokmål Norsk Ordbok Norwegian Monolingual Dictionary Kunnskapsforlaget ANS (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Danish Politikens Nudansk Ordbog Politikens Modern Danish Dictionary Politikens Forlagshus (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Swedish NE Ordbok NE Dictionary Nationalencyklopedin (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Dutch Prisma woordenboek Nederlands Uitgeverij Unieboek (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual German Duden-Wissensnetz deutsche Sprache Bibliographisches Institut GmbH (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual French Multidictionnaire de la language français Les Éditions Québec Amérique Inc. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Portuguese Dicionário de Português Editora Objetiva (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Spanish Diccionario General de la Lengua Española Vox Larousse Editorial, S.L. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Italian Un dizionario italiano Mondadori Education S.p.A. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Russian Толковый словарь русского языка Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language "Universe and Education" Publishing House Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Turkish Arkadaş Türkçe Sözlük Arkadaş Publishing LTD (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Hebrew מילון אבן-שושן מחודש ומותאם לשנות האלפיים Even-Shoshan Dictionary Renewed and Updated for the 21st Century The New Dictionary Ltd (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Hindi राजपाल हिन्दी शब्दकोश Rajpal Hindi Dictionary Rajpal & Sons (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Thai พจนานุกรมไทย ฉบับทันสมัยและสมบูรณ์ Complete Thai Dictionary Se-Education PLC (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Korean 뉴에이스 국어사전 New Ace Korean Language Dictionary DIOTEK (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Japanese スーパー大辞林 Super Daijirin Japanese Dictionary Sanseido Co., Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Chinese (simplified) 现代汉语规范词典 The Standard Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Oxford University Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing, Co., Ltd.
Monolingual Chinese (traditional) 五南國語活用辭典 Wu-Nan Chinese Dictionary Wu-Nan Book Inc. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Monolingual Chinese (traditional, Hong Kong) 商務新詞典（全新版） Commercial New Dictionary for common word or character Commercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Thesaurus English (US) Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus Oxford University Press
Thesaurus English (UK) Oxford Thesaurus of English Oxford University Press
Thesaurus Chinese (simplified) 现代汉语同义词典 Modern Thesaurus/Synonyms & Antonyms Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Bilingual Chinese Japanese 超級クラウン中日辞典 Sanseido's Super Crown Chinese-Japanese Dictionary Sanseido Company Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Japanese Chinese クラウン日中辞典 Sanseido's Crown Japanese-Chinese Dictionary
Bilingual Dutch English Prisma Handwoordenboek Engels Uitgeverij Unieboek (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Bilingual German English Oxford German Dictionary Oxford University Press
Bilingual French English Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary Oxford University Press & Hachette Livre
Bilingual Portuguese English Oxford Portuguese Dictionary Oxford University Press
Bilingual Spanish English Gran Diccionario Oxford - Español-Inglés Oxford Spanish Dictionary Oxford University Press
English Spanish Gran Diccionario Oxford - Inglés-Español
Bilingual English Italian Oxford Paravia Il Dizionario inglese - italiano Oxford - Paravia Italian Dictionary Pearson Italia & Oxford University Press
Italian English Oxford Paravia Il Dizionario italiano - inglese
Bilingual Polish English Wielki słownik polsko-angielski Oxford PWN Polish-English Dictionary Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN S.A. & Oxford University Press
Bilingual Russian English Oxford Russian Dicitonary Oxford University Press
Bilingual Arabic English Oxford Arabic Dictionary Oxford University Press
Bilingual Hindi English The Oxford Hindi English Dictionary Oxford University Press
English Hindi Oxford English-English-Hindi Dictionary
Bilingual English Thai พจนานุกรมอังกฤษ-ไทย & ไทย-อังกฤษ ฉบับทันสมัยและสมบูรณ์ที่สุด New SE-ED English-Thai & Thai-English Dictionary Dr. Wit Theingburanathum (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Thai English
Bilingual Vietnamese English Lac Viet Dictioanry Lac Viet Computing Corp. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Bilingual English Korean 뉴에이스 영한사전 New Ace English-Korean Dictionary DIOTEK Co., Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Korean English 뉴에이스 한영사전 New Ace Korean-English Dictionary
Bilingual English Japanese ウィズダム英和辞典 The Wisdom English-Japanese Dictionary Sanseido Company Ltd. (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Japanese English ウィズダム和英辞典 The Wisdom Japanese-English Dictionary
Bilingual Indonesian English Oxford Study Indonesian Dictionary Oxford University Press
Bilingual Cantonese English 英譯廣東口語詞典 A Dictionary of Cantonese Colloquialisms in English Commercial Press (licensed to University Press)
Bilingual English Gujarati Gujarati Lexicon English-Gujarati Gujarati Lexicon & Oxford University Press
Gujarati English Gujarati-English Dictionaries
Bilingual Tamil English Oxford Tamil-Tamil-English Dictionaries Oxford University Press
English Tamil Oxford English-English-Tamil Dictionaries
Bilingual English Telugu Oxford English-English-Telugu Dictionary Oxford University Press
Telugu English Oxford Telugu-English Dictionary
Bilingual English Urdu Oxford English-Urdu Dictionary Oxford University Press
Urdu English Oxford Urdu-English Dictionary
Bilingual French German PONS Großwörterbuch Französisch – Deutsch PONS GmbH (licensed to Oxford University Press)
German French PONS Großwörterbuch Deutsch – Französisch
Bilingual English Chinese (simplified) 牛津英汉汉英词典 Oxford Chinese Dictionary Oxford University Press & Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd.
Chinese (simplified) English
Bilingual English Chinese (traditional) 譯典通英漢雙向字典 Dr. Eye Chinese English Bilingual Dicitonary INVENTEC (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Chinese (traditional) English
Monolingual, Chinese Idioms Chinese (simplified) 商务成语大词典 Commercial Idiom Dictionary Commercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Bilingual, Chinese Idioms Chinese (traditional) English 漢英對照成語詞典 Chinese Idioms and Their English Equivalents Commercial Press (licensed to Oxford University Press)
Other English Apple Dictionary Apple Inc.
Other Multiple languages Wikipedia Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

References

  1. ↑ "OS X 10.10 Yosemite release date". October 16, 2014. Retrieved November 16, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Inside Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: New dictionaries, multiple word views, multitouch lookups". Apple Insider. April 12, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Get Immediate Dictionary Definitions Using Spotlight". OS X Daily. Archived from the original on April 13, 2012. Retrieved May 14, 2012.
  4. ↑ "mac-dictionary-kit - Mac Dictionary Kit - Google Project Hosting". Retrieved June 15, 2013.
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