LookUp Dictionary: Learn Daily

I love this app! I love words and dictionaries. I own lots of dictionary apps. I teach English to non-English speakers, ESL. Contrary to another reviewer or two, I find this to be a unique, browsable, and helpful vocabulary builder. It's NOT a simple dictionary, a reference, that's not the best purpose - it's something to sit and spend time with. I wouldn't recommend it solely to use as a dictionary for quick look ups. I don't need such interesting distraction, I would stay in the app, get lost in words, and not get back to my work. Also contrary to another reviewer, they are NOT words common to daily ordinary American English speakers. You may have at least heard many words, studied them for testing, and even gleaned the meanings from context. There will be words you've heard many times and may even use but you never looked them up yourself, those words you can use and describe with examples but cannot cite a definition. So it's very interesting. You get visual imagery, etymology, grammar and related words. And links to more comprehensive definitions, a wiki. The presentation of each word is colorful and appealing without cartoonish sensibilities. By simply visually browsing you can learn, hone, or refresh your vocabulary without the tedium of drilling, memorizing, or winding thru long repetitious dictionary definitions.

I very much like this app, makes learning words more enjoyable, and I enjoy the colorful illustrations. I wish there was a built-in thesaurus, though, so I can see antonyms in addition to synonyms, which also unfortunately are not included with all words. I contacted the developer to see if he has any plans to add a thesaurus, and he replied back within a day to say that he’s definitely looking into the possibility of adding antonyms to LookUp, although it’s not on the immediate roadmap.

Let me start by saying that I have no problem paying for a dictionary app; new words fascinate me and Lookup looked like a ‘fun’ dictionary. And the reality is that this application is actually very pretty- the night mode is stylish and word of the day drawings actually motivate me to open it frequently, which is something a dictionary app has never compeled me to do. But it’s greatly deterred by the fact that so many of the real, English words I’ve looked up are hit with a ‘no results’ find. In fact, it seemed that any word beyond a high school-level vocabulary could not be found. The reality is that a dictionary app is primarily used to define words we may find in our day-to-day lives and just aren’t familiar with, and there are plenty of free dictionary apps with things such as built-in thesauruses or far more information/uses behind the word that you are searching than this app can offer. The only true thing that Lookup has going for it are it’s looks, and that unfortunately doesn’t justify its price tag.

I love this app and it always makes me happy when I open it up. It has all the meat and potatoes you want from a dictionary app: easy to use, complete and thorough, excellent origin details and Wikipedia info and a full thesaurus. It's also very easy on the eyes with a beautiful minimalistic design that is fun and clever without being garish. Every time I come here to look up a word, I end up perusing. Couldn't recommend more.

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You can't set a time for the daily word of the day notification. This is absolutely ridiculous. Look Up sends me the notification in the middle of the night, meaning it gets buried with all the other notifications that I get overnight. Allow me to choose a time and I'll reconsider this app. It might be a fun app to browse words in every once-in-a-while, but currently isn't very useful as a daily vocabulary builder.