Dictionary.com – Efficient access to a dictionary and thesaurus

Download Dictionary.com app (iPad Premium @ $4.99)

Today’s app is from Dictionary.com. There are two apps for the iPhone (free and premium at $3.99) and two apps for the iPad (free and premium at $4.99). All of the apps require at least iOS 7.0.

Lawyers use a LOT of words … ergo … lawyers need dictionaries.

When I’m writing or reading and need to look up the meaning of a word, I need it expeditiously, and it must be punctiliously accurate.

On a computer, I open a browser and visit dictionary.com since the URL is so easy to remember. So when I had a desideratum for a dictionary app on my iPhone and iPad, I naturally turned to Dictionary.com.

Dictionary.com’s primary, proprietary source http://content.dictionary.com is the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. If you’re wedded to Mr. Webster, or you’re an Oxford aficionado, then you may elect for those apps. But I’ve never had a complaint with Dictionary.com – it’s always been instantaneous, responsive, and propitious.

Now, when I need a dictionary, I just need a dictionary. And while the app does provide this of course, they throw in a lot of features that I’m not always interested in such as “word of the day,” or access to their Blog.

When you launch the dictionary app, it comes up with a search box. Start typing a word and you can take advantage of the auto-complete.

Now sometimes I DO need a thesaurus, and fortunately one is built right in the app. On the iPad, the app’s background is blue for Dictionary, orange for Thesaurus – which matches the colors from their respective websites at dictionary.com and thesaurus.com.

You can elect to search either the dictionary or the thesaurus side from the start, or the app is integrated so you can flip back and forth from any search result using the tabs.

All of this is available OFFLINE so you don’t need to be connected to the Internet in order to use the app, although you’ll first need to go into Settings and manually download the “Offline Dictionary” which requires an additional 38MB of space on your iPhone. Some features are not available offline, such as the voice pronunciations.

I like the “Recent History for quick access to my previous searches and the Favorites button so I can “star” a word that I use frequently (although I wish these would sync between my iPhone and iPad).

Dictionary.com offers apps for both the iPhone and iPad, although the iPad app hasn’t been updated since December 2014. The iPhone app was updated as recently as April 20, 2016. I reached out to the developer and they assured me they are still working on the iPad app and promise a universal app later this year.

You can download the free version … just to make sure this is useful, but then I recommend shelling out the $3.99 or $4.99 for the premium versions – they include all of the additional features such as 1) example sentences, 2) an encyclopedia, and the medical, science, and rhyming dictionaries.

It’s a little confusing with all the icons that Dictionary.com uses for the different apps but the premium versions have a subtle border around their icon.

Download Dictionary.com app (iPad Premium @ $4.99)