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Oxford New American Dictionary Not Working

After installing Big Sur (11.6.4) on a 2014 MacBook Pro, the Oxford New American Dictionary (English US) is not working. Every search returns this message: No entries found. I see others have had this problem, and possible solutions have been presented, but none seem to work. Is there a fix for this?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 25, 2022 9:26 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 26, 2022 5:42 AM

Are you running any anti-virus, so-called Mac Cleaner applications, or attempted to install some other dictionary, perhaps in an older incompatible form, to the Dictionary application? Any of these might be an explanation for your Dictionary not working as expected.


Have you also booted into Safe Boot mode, and tried Dictionary there? Did it work correctly in this mode? Reboot normally, and try Dictionary again. Same issue, or fixed?

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 26, 2022 5:42 AM in response to Marty-Marty

Are you running any anti-virus, so-called Mac Cleaner applications, or attempted to install some other dictionary, perhaps in an older incompatible form, to the Dictionary application? Any of these might be an explanation for your Dictionary not working as expected.


Have you also booted into Safe Boot mode, and tried Dictionary there? Did it work correctly in this mode? Reboot normally, and try Dictionary again. Same issue, or fixed?

Feb 25, 2022 12:45 PM in response to Marty-Marty

Do you have the dictionary ordered as I do in the Dictionary Preferences on macOS 11.6.4?



Mine has worked correctly ever since the initial Big Sur installation. You are using the Dictionary application's search box interface instead of Automator's Get Definition of Word [ New Oxford American Dictionary ], or the Safari URI dict://word approach?

Oxford New American Dictionary Not Working

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