You can use LookWAYup with other browser windows or other applications. Try to drag and drop a word from one window on to an open LookWAYup window. Note: you can't drop anything on an IE5 search pane.
Click for a new LookWAYup window

You don't have to doubleclick a word to highlight it. For example if the word is part of a hyperlink this is not possible. Select it with your mouse instead, starting the selection outside the hyperlinked area.

If the definition uses a word that you want to look up, try to doubleclick on this word right in the LookWAYup window. This is called an "exploding dictionary". Note: this doesn't work on some platforms; you may have to drag and drop the word instead.

To use the "Word of the Second" feature, look up this term: "Word Roulette" (exact spelling and capitalization).

You can open a LookWAYup window from your desktop. Drag this link to your desktop: LookWAYup To assign a keystroke to it, right-click on the icon you just created on your desktop, Select "Properties", then "Web Document", and under "Shortcut Keys", type Ctrl-Alt-Up

Even when a word was not found in the dictionary, you can still use the Search feature to find the word on the Web.

Try to drag and drop words on a LookWAYup window from another application, for example your word processor or your e-mail.

Spelling is corrected when the word is reasonably close: The first letter must be right, and the word must be phonetically very similar. If your spelling isn't found, maybe you have the wrong first letter, try changing f/ph; c/k, c/s

The dictionary accepts both U.S. and UK/Canadian spellings.

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LookWAYup makes an effort with accented letters. For instance you can look up "résumé" or "resumé" and it will find "resume".

There is another way to install LookWAYup in your Internet Explorer browser in Windows. This version will show up in the standard buttons bar rather than in the Links bar, and in the right-click menu.

Click here and select "Open this file from its current location". If you have customized your toolbars in the past you may then have to activate it: Select View|Toolbars|Customize... then pick LookWAYup from the list.

If you look up a word in the plural form, for example "memories", search engines will be queried using both the singular and plural form, that is "memories" and "memory".

If you think there is a site that should be listed under "more on this subject", drop us a line at

Free LookWAYup versions are also available for your cell phone or your wireless or Palm device, or for your web site.

LookWAYup understands some two-word phrases, such as "get up". Type the phrase into the search box.

LookWAYup will not work on words that are within pictures or multimedia formats such as Flash® or Acrobat®.

If two words are synonyms, their definition will be the same.

The first sense of the word that is shown is the most likely one. Other word senses are in order of how commonly the sense is used

If you lookup a word in a form that is clearly one part of speech, then only word senses with that part of speech are shown. For example, "work" is most commonly a noun, however if you look up "worked" LookWAYup will change it to "work" but only show its verb senses.

Virtually every noun has a "type of" relationship, except for nine "top-level" nouns. Can you find them?

Note: when there are many related terms, only 40 of them are shown.

"Extended Search" adds synonyms and related terms to the search query. Many search engines can't support this type of complex search.

Interesting Explorations:

 "Homo sapiens"   then "More.." and follow the "Part of" relationships.

 "Modern English"   then "More.." and follow the "Type of" relationships.

 "gene"   then "More.." and follow the "Component of" relationships.

LookWAYup does NOT contain pronouns (he, she), prepositions (of, to), conjunctions (or, but), or articles (the, an).