Mac OS X 10.4 ’s Dictionary program is a ready to hand consultation tool , as it ’s available straightaway in many applications ( Safari , Mail , TextEdit , Stickies , and legion third - company platform ) via the contextual menu . Just restraint - tap a word in your document and opt Look Up in Dictionary from the pop - up computer menu . ( Or campaign Control - Command - D to display a floating definition window for the discussion presently under the mouse cursor . ) We ’ve covered a couple of Dictionary tricks here in the past ( change Dictionary ’s keyboard shortcut and using double - pawl within Dictionary ) , and here ’s one more to add to your assembling .
By nonpayment , Dictionary looks up entire word . Generally , this is exactly what you want , but for some words , the final result are less than useful . If you see up pedantic , for instance , you ’ll get this helpful definition : “ of or like a pedant . ” Try gothic , and you see more item , but the definition still begins with “ of or relating to the Goths … ” In both cases , you ’re left require more knowledge — what is a pedant or a Goth , in these examples .
There are two easy solutions to this problem . My preferred solution is to use the above - linked double - click hint , and just double - clink on the word in question . The second method acting , and the real subject of today ’s Hint , is to just pick out part of the word in your rootage document before using the see Up in Dictionary contextual menu . Dictionary will only look up as much text as you ’ve selected , so you ’ll get the root word of honor ’s definition , rather of that of the adjective ( in these object lesson ) .
For instance , if you select pedant out of donnish , Dictionary will tell you that a bookworm is “ a soul who is to a fault implicated with minor detail and formula ” ( which intelligibly does n’t describe me ! ) . Do the same with Goth in Gothic , and you ’ll learn that a Goth is “ a extremity of a Teutonic multitude that invaded the Roman Empire from the east between the tertiary and fifth century . ” ( A hint and a history lesson ; what more could you want ? )
Finally , you could apply this prize - and - define trick to look up multiple - give-and-take entries in the dictionary , for thing such as face paint , standard of measurement theory , daddy longlegs , or even moxie point well ( 10 bonus item if you know that one without expect it up ! ) . Just choose all of the discussion in the phrase , and then utilise the Look Up in Dictionary contextual menu to find their definition .
