WordLookup displays word definitions on Android
Depending on how you are using your Android phone or tablet, you sometimes may need to look up a word definition.
This can be the case when you are reading an article in your mobile browser of choice, or using one of the other applications on the device.
The problem here is that this is not a straightforward process as on the desktop. On the desktop, you have a couple of options: from browser extensions to programs that run globally.
While you can achieve the same on mobile devices, it is often not as intuitive as it could be.
The free application WordLookup changes this. It runs independent from any application so that you can use it globally on your Android device.
After you have installed it, you can use the share option after you select a word or phrase to display definitions on the screen.
To give you an example. Say you are reading an email in the Gmail application. You stumble upon a word that you want to look up. All that you have to do is long press it to highlight it, select the share icon from the top, and there the WordLookup link.
The definition is then displayed as an overlay on Gmail, so that you do not have to leave the email app to read the definition and then go back to continue reading the email.
This worked well in all applications that I tried, including web browsers, and native apps such as Gmail. As long as text highlighting and sharing is supported, you can use WordLookup in that app.
When you launch the program directly on your device, preferences are displayed to you that you can use to customize it. There are four options here for you to configure:
- Change the popup display length so that the overlay displaying the definitions is displayed for a longer or shorter period of time.
- Define the number of definitions shown on the screen. This is the maximum number, and is set to two by default.
- Toggle Text-to-Speech to read out word pronunciation and definition.
- Do not read definition to only pronounce the word and not the definition.
Closing Words
WordLookup is an unobtrusive application that is compatible with many popular Android applications. The app itself is compatible with all versions of Android from 2.1, and open source on top of all that.
