Dictionary Tooltip for Firefox

No matter how big of a geek you may claim to be, there are times when you will eventually stumble upon a word that you have no idea what its meaning is. If you’re an avid reader on the net like I am, than you’ll know how important it is to understand every word you come across. A surprisingly useful Firefox addon allows you to easily look up the definition of each and every word you come across so you’ll never have to scratch your head again when you come across a word such as ‘umquhile’ (if you already know the definition, than you can give yourself a pat on the back right about now).

The problem with manually looking up definition for words we don’t understand is quite a hassle. Although the procedure usually requires you to just visit a dictionary site like Dictionary.com and plugin/paste the word in question into the input box, it can break the pace of your reading. Also, many of you are probably too lazy to even do just that. I really understand because I admit I’m one of those people. However, it is possible to change and break away from the habit of letting unknown words slip you by with the Dictionary Tooltip addon in Firefox.

1. You can download the Dictionary Tooltip for Firefox here. Restart your Firefox browser upon completion for the changes to take effect.

2. By default, Dictionary Tooltip activates everytime you double click on a word in Firefox. Once you do so, a small icon will appear beneath the word. To quickly view its definition, simply hover your mouse over the icon and a popup box will immediately pop up. Once you are done reading the definition, simply close the box or click somewhere else with your mouse.

3. Because the popup definition box appears right under your mystery word, you no longer have to navigate away from your reading. This makes everything seem much more seamless. Dictionary Tooltip comes packed with many sources for you to choose from in terms of where you want to have your word looked up in. For example, the default choice is to look up the word in the Thefreedictionary.com website. In reality, you actually can switch that source to another. In the definition popup box, simply select the Show Dictionaries link on the bottom and select your website of choice in the drop-down menu. Immediately, Dictionary Tooltip will go to work and look your word up with the dictionary choice you have just chosen. Heck if you’re still not satisfied, you can even add in your own dictionary source of choice (provided its not in the list). In my opinion, the default dictionary works a wonder.

4. To change the behavior of Dictionary Tooltip, simply visit the addon’s preferences. One of the changes I usually make is to change the double click default behavior. Although double clicking on a word does not immediately show the definition box, it still shows the little blue icon, which I detest. In the preferences, I can choose to remove that icon altogether which allows the definition box to appear immediately. That behavior still might not be desired by some users. Therefore, in the preferences, you can specify that the definition box only appear when you press a certain keyboard combination (Crtl+Shift+’letter of choice). Or you can set it so that only by holding the Ctrl key down while double clicking on a word wo;; the definition show up. Either way, it’s up to you how you configure Dictionary Tooltip to work in your favor but I just hope this gets all of you to start looking up definitions for unknown words from now on.