# How in the world do you look up a word in the dictionary?



## ireadbooks (Jan 11, 2011)

On my Kindle 3g, I can simply type in a word, the bar pops up at the bottom of the screen, and then I scroll over to "dictionary."

I can't for the life of me figure out how to find a word in the Fire's dictionary. I know how to find a word in a book while reading, but what if I just want to find a word in the dictionary?

The only option I found was Search, but it brings up every instance of the word _in the entire dictionary._

For example, I wanted to look up "ani." I went to search and it brought up every word that conatained those three letters, including words that were part of definitions for _other_ words (Spanish, animals, organized, etc.).

Am I missing something?


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## omnibus34 (May 25, 2011)

You're not missing anything.  It's kind of sad, that that's the way it works.


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## ireadbooks (Jan 11, 2011)

omnibus34 said:


> You're not missing anything. It's kind of sad, that that's the way it works.


You've got to be kidding me 

I just assumed I'd overlooked something. One more reason why my Kindle trumps the Fire for reading.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

There's an app for that!


You'll want to get a dictionary app and keep it in your favorites.

Here are two good ones:

 
Dictionary.com (requires you be online)


Miriam-Webster (does not require you be online).

Betsy


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

But I think you have to be online to use those...


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Nope...they work offline...using the Miriam Webster now on the Fire with WiFi off...

Take it back, Dictionary.com requires online, sorry, but M-W does not.  I have the iPad version of Dictionary.com and it does not require internet... 

Betsy


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## ireadbooks (Jan 11, 2011)

Muchas gracias, Betsy. I'd rather use M-W anyway.

Off to download...


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

That's great, thanks for the info!


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## Bob327 (Nov 17, 2011)

My Fire like the rest of them is rather low on the amount of internal memory .....

SO I just now downloaded Dictionary.Com ... 

It just seems to me (and I sure do not know for sure ) but it has to be a much smaller (requires less memory) then any off line dictionary like M-W ..

Or am I worrying too much about the lack of memory on my Fire..

Bob G.


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## prstlk (Dec 29, 2009)

On my Fire all I have to do is touch my finger or stylus on the word and my dictionary pops up with the definition.

I have not downloaded any dictionary to my fire.  I thought it came on it.  Could it be that it was something that was on my Kindle 2 and because I synced them it copied over?  

Not sure but give it a try.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

prstlk said:


> On my Fire all I have to do is touch my finger or stylus on the word and my dictionary pops up with the definition.
> 
> I have not downloaded any dictionary to my fire. I thought it came on it. Could it be that it was something that was on my Kindle 2 and because I synced them it copied over?
> 
> Not sure but give it a try.


Yep. That works for me too -- do a sort of 'long press' -- and I've not loaded any separate dictionaries. Then just tap elsewhere on the page and the pop up goes away.

Now, if it's not a word in the book you're reading, I think that's where you might have to have a separate dictionary to search in. . . . .


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

That's the OP's question, is there a "search" function for a word on the Fire as there is on the K3...



ireadbooks said:


> On my Kindle 3g, I can simply type in a word, the bar pops up at the bottom of the screen, and then I scroll over to "dictionary."
> 
> I can't for the life of me figure out how to find a word in the Fire's dictionary. *I know how to find a word in a book while reading, but what if I just want to find a word in the dictionary?*
> 
> The only option I found was Search, but it brings up every instance of the word _in the entire dictionary._


Or, as in the Touch, the search box lets one search the book, Wikipedia or the Dictionary for a word typed in the search box.

Betsy


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## ireadbooks (Jan 11, 2011)

prstlk said:


> On my Fire all I have to do is touch my finger or stylus on the word and my dictionary pops up with the definition.
> 
> I have not downloaded any dictionary to my fire. I thought it came on it. Could it be that it was something that was on my Kindle 2 and because I synced them it copied over?
> 
> Not sure but give it a try.


I think you misunderstood me. 
Yes, it works that way for me also. The problem is that I can't look up a word unless it's inside of a book. Like when you're reading and you have to look up a word in a traditional dictionary...there's no way to do that on the Fire.

You can't look up a free standind word, like browse/flip through the dictionary; it only comes up if you hover over the word.


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

This is an older thread, but I just wanted to mention that I found a better free dictionary app (at least for me) than the previously mentioned ones. It's "The Free Dictionary by Farlex". Turns out you can download the dictionary part and use it in Offline mode. When online, it has a lot of other stuff on its home screen (articles, games, word of the day, etc.) and you can customize what components you see.



(edited to fix the app name and add link)


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