Using the Built-in Thesaurus on Your Mac, iPhone or iPad

Your Mac comes with a built-in Dictionary app that also includes a thesaurus. You can also access it while writing, or on the iPhone and iPad while writing though not in an app.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the Thesaurus on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. 
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Now if you do any kind of writing, whether it is writing a novel, or just an email message, you may want to, occasionally, find different words to use in different situations. A Thesaurus is exactly the tool for that. 
It turns out there is a built-in Thesaurus that comes with your Mac. It's also there in the iPhone and iPad, although a little harder to get to. So the first way to access the Thesaurus on your Mac is to simply use the Dictionary App. I'm going to launch it here with Launchpad but you can easily launch it from the Applications Folder. You can search for it with Spotlight or any other way that you like to launch apps. Now you may think the Dictionary App is a dictionary not a Thesaurus. But it actually has many different types of books in it. You can see here at the top I've got Dictionary and Thesaurus. If you don't see the second one there then go to Dictionary Settings and look through the list here. You check each one that you want to have available to you. By default in the United States you should see the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus. So make sure they are both checked. If you uncheck this one you can see how it disappears there from the list. 
So all you need to do to use the Thesaurus is select it here at the top and then type a word. You'll be looking it up just as if you were using a paper book. You can see the information here. You can even click on any of these to jump around to another entry in the Thesaurus. You can go to the Dictionary for any entry that you have up on the screen. So you can switch back and forth between the two of these. So you could actually look something up with the dictionary and if you decide that's not quite the word you want to use you can then switch to the Thesaurus and then start going through the words there to find the one you want. 
Now there's another way to access the dictionary or thesaurus right from the text that you're writing. So I'm using, as an example Pages, but it could be composing an email message or something in Messages or the Notes App or anything. All you need to do is Control Click, right click, or two-finger click on a trackpad, any word that I want and then choose Look Up. This will, indeed, look up in the dictionary and create this little window here. But as long as you have a Thesaurus chosen as one of the options in the Dictionary App it will also show you that entry there. You can see some quick words that you can use right here or click More in most cases to expand on it. 
Sometimes you'll even find a little handy word took kit at the bottom which will breakdown words in categories to make it even easier to use. 
Now a keyboard shortcut for this is to place your pointer in the word that you want to look up and then do Control Command and then D and it will bring up this window. 
How about on the iPhone or iPad. I'll demonstrate here on the iPhone and it works basically the same on the iPad. Well, there is no app on the iPhone or iPad like there is on the Mac for directly accessing dictionary definitions and thesaurus entries. But there is still the same built-in Dictionary and Thesaurus. So you access this in any app, say Pages, or Mail, or anything. You select the word and then you tap and hold it. Then you look through the menu here at the top to find Look Up. You bring that up and it will take you to the entry here and it will show you a dictionary definition and, for most words, not all, it will show you thesaurus synonyms as well. Now if you don't see this all the time it may be just those words don't have entries. But you can also check in Settings, under General, and then look for Dictionary. Then there make sure that you've got the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus selected. 
Of course on the iPhone, the iPad, and also on the Mac you can get third party Dictionary Apps and use those or just go to websites that provide dictionary and synonym look up as well. So you usually have plenty of other tools at your disposal as well. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “Using the Built-in Thesaurus on Your Mac, iPhone or iPad”

Jaime Saborio

1 year ago

Hi Gary, excellent video, however, that only works for english. I could not find a thesaurus for Spanish nor French. Is there a way to add new thesaurus for other languages to the Dictionary app and do you know where can I find them (I searched everywhere and I could not find any)? Thanks a lot.

Gary Rosenzweig

Jaime: You can add dictionaries, but you'd need to find one in a particular format and I've never really seen a good source for that. Best to use your favorite online thesaurus instead.

Rae L

The Mac Thesaurus was woefully inadequate on my very first search. I looked up "polymath" in the dictionary and found synonym "polyhistor." I looked up "polyhistor" in the dictionary and found synonym "polymath."

However, when I went to Thesaurus, both "polymath" and "polyhistor" came up "not found."

Dave Taenzer

What is the Apple Dictionary in the iPhone -> General -> Dictionary settings (and in the Mac Dictionary settings)?

jel888

Thanks Gary, tried this and saw that mine was auto setup based on the languages I had set up for the Mac (at least I don't recall every setting the dictionary up). @Rae Ln that's because you're accessing the Oxford American English Thesaurus and even online there isn't a "polymath" synonym entry.

Dave: that’s the dictionary used for definition lookups.

grooey

dictionary/thesaurus does not show up when right clicking in pages.... locations; safari etc show up.
How can I add dictionary/
to the options of what shows up?

grooey: Make sure you have a word selected and are Control+clicking on that word.

Badi

Hi Gary, Control+clicking only brings up limited options like substitutions and Transformations. Theres no option for thesaurus on the list. I can only access it at the launchpad. Thanks

Badi: Select a word, then use Look Up like I show in this video.

9 months ago

Hi Gary, My settings may be wrong, in App Library, settings search and everywhere else I’ve looked, (ipad9) I can’t find the dictionary or “spotlight” I can press on a word and get dictionary that way. I rarely use apps that didn’t come on device, so I don’t want to get just any dictionary app off the App Store. (Is the Original Apple dictionary there?) Do ipads not come with dictionary and spotlight? OR can you tell me what my settings should be —.
New to iPad - and not often online.

N: There is no app on the iPad. Rewatch starting at 3:20

Opps sent too soon! You already answered all my questions! Apologies

Comments Closed.

Using the Built-in Thesaurus on Your Mac, iPhone or iPad

Comments: 13 Responses to “Using the Built-in Thesaurus on Your Mac, iPhone or iPad”

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