Interesting that the New Oxford American Dictionary stopped working for force-click word lookup with the 11.2.1 Big Sur update, but the UK version of the same dictionary DOES work! I've already gone into Dictionary's Preferences and set them to use the New Oxford American Dictionary, but no matter what word I look up, I get no results. Many others are having the same problem. Please help!
MacBook Air
Here is the solution to the problem. I posted it somewhere else, and I'm sorry I didn't post it here, too, since I'm the one who asked the original question! Apparently my Dictionary.app database file for the Oxford English (American) dictionary got corrupted. These instructions, posted by Grant Ireland in Hong Kong, were perfect (except for one minor step he left out). Here they are, with the missing step now included:
I had a major success today by finally finding some instructions for fixing a my broken Dictionary.app. I could not force click to look up a word, and I could not use the US English Oxford dictionary, while all the others worked fine. And my Preference window was missing a pain that showed up on Ruey's computer but not on mine. I had to:
I'd been fighting with this dictionary problem for 2 months! So thank you Grant Ireland! Here was his answer, and it was NOT easy to find on line!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250985510?answerId=251904729022#251904729022
Here is the solution to the problem. I posted it somewhere else, and I'm sorry I didn't post it here, too, since I'm the one who asked the original question! Apparently my Dictionary.app database file for the Oxford English (American) dictionary got corrupted. These instructions, posted by Grant Ireland in Hong Kong, were perfect (except for one minor step he left out). Here they are, with the missing step now included:
I had a major success today by finally finding some instructions for fixing a my broken Dictionary.app. I could not force click to look up a word, and I could not use the US English Oxford dictionary, while all the others worked fine. And my Preference window was missing a pain that showed up on Ruey's computer but not on mine. I had to:
I'd been fighting with this dictionary problem for 2 months! So thank you Grant Ireland! Here was his answer, and it was NOT easy to find on line!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250985510?answerId=251904729022#251904729022
For what it is worth, my Apple Dictionary is set to the following, and finds any correctly spelled word that I request on all releases of Big Sur to include 11.2.3 on Intel or M1 machines:
Whether I use a three-finger tap, or control+command+d for lookups, these work too.
I just called AppleCare for this, and they were unable to find a solution. I "think" the support technician is going to "send" this as a bug, but he said he wasn't sure on how long it would take to fix. He said he's going to let me know. I hope they find a solution, because it's a problem...
I also have those two references checked, but when I search for something (within the app or the lookups), it says "no entries found". As Jeffsyrop mentions, the UK version does work, but I'd like the US version to work.
I have preferred language as English (US), but region is France. However, it's the same on my iMac (Catalina) and the dictionary US is present, as it has been for years. It's only recently that I noticed that the US dictionary was gone (MacBook Air M1).
You're welcome. I think I should have added, by way of explanation, that it's likely that the dictionary database file for Oxford English (American) dictionary was damaged somehow when I set up my new MacBook Air by doing a restore using the Time Machine backup from my old MacBook Pro. Both computers were running the latest OS and it was otherwise a good backup, but that may be when my Oxford English (American) dictionary stopped working. Apparently that person in Hong Kong, Grant Ireland, was the only person in the world who had the solution. I looked and looked for 2 months. I switched out my Dictionary.app with one from my wife's computer and tried setting up my language preferences, but nothing could bring back that one dictionary.
In my System Preferences > Language & Region, the top Preferred language is English (US), and the Region is set to the United States.
Right now, I am in front of an M1 mini with macOS 11.2.3, and the Dictionary application is working perfectly. Cannot explain why yours is not.
And thank you Jeffsyrop for reposting here! Everything worked perfectly.
Dictionary Doesn't Work in Big Sur 11.2.1
