Instant dictionary?

You could try PopClip (not free), which allows for cut/copy/paste/dict.

mjanneh said:

Hi

Unfortunately English is not my first language, and when I read texts at the web, I quite often want to look specific words up in a dictionary (or thesaurus). It would be wonderful to find possible way of doing this without having to leave the page I am currently reading at.

This feature is available when I read pdf-files at my ipad or my Kindle. I have of course Apples' Dictionary available at my mac. But is it possible to get access to Dictionary directly from a web-page - for example by highlighting a word and then look it up in Dictionally without having to enter the word once more?

Click to expand...

You can do this in OS X already, it's built in. Just drag over the word to highlight it and then right-click it, then select "Look up 'whatever word is highlighted"' like the attached screenshots. There is a thesaurus too.

The highlight and right click Dictionary is only available in Cocoa applications. It is not available in Firefox and other Carbon based or custom UI applications.

mjanneh said:

...
when I read texts at the web, I quite often want to look specific words up in a dictionary (or thesaurus). It would be wonderful to find possible way of doing this without having to leave the page I am currently reading at.

This feature is available when I read pdf-files at my ipad or my Kindle. I have of course Apples' Dictionary available at my mac. But is it possible to get access to Dictionary directly from a web-page - for example by highlighting a word and then look it up in Dictionally without having to enter the word once more?

Click to expand...

That feature is already available (I use it daily).
Right-click on your desired word (no need to even select the word, unless you need to look up more than just that one word), then choose Look Up (your word) from that right-click menu.
the window may give you several choices -dictionary, thesarus, wikopedia, maybe a couple of others - depends on the word that you are looking up. Click on the category (such as Dictionary), and the full Dictionary app will come up for that word. No need to re-enter the word, eh?

Intell is correct, of course. I don't use Firefox (or other non-cocoa apps) often enough to notice that some functions that I expect aren't supported there...

mjanneh said:

Hi

Unfortunately English is not my first language, and when I read texts at the web, I quite often want to look specific words up in a dictionary (or thesaurus). It would be wonderful to find possible way of doing this without having to leave the page I am currently reading at.

This feature is available when I read pdf-files at my ipad or my Kindle. I have of course Apples' Dictionary available at my mac. But is it possible to get access to Dictionary directly from a web-page - for example by highlighting a word and then look it up in Dictionally without having to enter the word once more?

Click to expand...

Also, OS X comes with a Dictionary Application in Utilities folder. You can access it from spotlight (command spacebar). Either type dictionary and load the app, or type the word you want to look for into spotlight. If the word is found in the dictionary, it should appear as a choice from spotlight. Mousing over (or using the down arrow key) the word in spotlight displays the dictionary entry. Hit escape to exit out of that. So you can sort of do it without leaving the page you are on, or leaving the keyboard for the mouse.

Love the built in dictionary!