[kccqzy]

Actually, iOS already has built-in support for dictionary and thesaurus. In any native text input field, select a word and choose Define or Look Up. The choice of dictionary is customizable; I usually choose New Oxford American Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary of English (not to be confused with the venerable Oxford English Dictionary). They are high quality dictionaries. They are basically the same except that the pronunciation for the latter is in IPA which I'm more used to.

When I need to look up a word, I create a new note from control center, type in the word, double tap to bring up the contextual menu and then the dictionary.

It pretty much checks all the boxes. For distraction-free reading, turn off "Content from Apple" in the Siri settings to avoid those obnoxious Siri knowledge panels.

[jahewson]

You can also use spotlight search from the home screen and type "define: whatever" and the first result will be from the iOS dictionary.

[glacials]

Not sure if I’m missing something about this method, but in many apps you can long-press the word directly to get the context menu with “Look Up”, without having to type the word into a note.

[bearmode]

The use case here is to look up a word whilst reading a book, not to look up words that are already on your phone screen. If you see a word you don't recognise, you write it into a note and it gives you the definition instantly

[thirdsun]

Pro-tip: Now you could also use iOS' camera app to recognize the text, select it and look it up. I'm not sure if it's faster than the note route but the option is there.

[MatthiasPortzel]

I agree, the solution is the Apple-native feature: highlighting a word and selecting “Look Up.”

[dfee]

Awesome. Did not know I could disable that content. Also, dropped a few dictionaries I had enabled (Russian? Spanish? German?) - hopefully the swipe-to-text will improve accuracy now, too.

[gumby]

Also in the Mac since the original OS X beta…iirc it was in the NeXT too.

[interpol_p]

This was the feature that sold me on Mac OS X in 2003 or so. Having an operating system where I could get the dictionary definition of any word in any input field, or web browser, or piece of UI just by mousing-over it and hitting ctrl+command+D

I was a Windows user at the time and the _consistency_ of this dictionary lookup throughout the UI just blew me away

[trinix912]

It's great and it has the same dictionaries as the macOS Dictionary app. I hope they add support for more languages in the future.

[etoulas]

It’s a shame that it doesn’t remember the words you look up.

This, combined with a spaced repetition feature would be fantastic to have on board.

I always wondered if there is a private API/event to listen for to capture the lookups and store them for later.

[neop1x]

And there is also a Do not disturb toggle in both iOS and Android so it is not necessary to go completely offline.