Select a word in any app and press
At this hour the bay lies flat and serene, and the passeggiata has begun: whole families walk the seafront arm in arm, stopping for a gelato or a word with the neighbours.
Find a table at one of the bars by the harbour, order a spritz and watch the town go by. Nobody will hurry you, and dinner here rarely starts before nine.
Look up
Browsers, PDFs, e-mail, code editors: the card opens right under the word, and
Over 150,000 English words and phrases from Open English WordNet are built in, so no connection is needed.
Senses are grouped by part of speech, with example sentences and similar and opposite words a click away.
About 67,000 Italian words from Wikizionario, and an online dictionary for the words neither has.
Translate
Select a word, a phrase or a whole passage and press
From English and Italian to Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
WinDict tells the language from its words, and you can pick or swap them on the card.
Up to 500 characters at once, or type the text into a box when it can't be selected.
Above Start
Windows keeps Start and Search above every other window. Installed with its setup, WinDict can show the card on top of them too, so you can look up a word without leaving the Start menu.
How it works
Written in Rust against the native Windows APIs, WinDict feels like part of Windows and costs next to nothing while it waits.
Pin a definition and it stays on top of everything, wherever you drag it, while new lookups open cards of their own.
The speaker button says the word out loud in its own language, with the voices Windows already has.
Each part of speech lists similar words and opposites. Click one to open it in the same card, then go back.
With nothing selected, the shortcut opens a box to type into, with suggestions from the offline dictionary as you type.
Inflected forms are looked up by their base word, so “ran” shows “run”. Misspelled? The card asks what you meant.
The card follows Windows' light or dark mode and accent color, on Mica-like acrylic, like the rest of the system.
From 80% to 200%, with Ctrl+plus, Ctrl+minus or Ctrl and the mouse wheel. The size is remembered.
Once a day WinDict checks for a new version. When there is one, the tray icon shows a dot and the update is one click away.
Both can be changed in the settings. Everything else works from the keyboard too.
The selected word's definition, or a box to type one into.
The selected text's translation, or a box to type text into.
Get started
From the latest release on GitHub, or with WinGet:
winget install BosioPietro.WinDictIt installs WinDict for everyone on the PC and adds it to Start. A short introduction shows you around.
WinDict waits in the notification area, by the clock. Click its icon for the settings.
Yes. WinDict is free and open source under the MIT license, with no ads, accounts or tracking.
WinDict isn't commercially signed, so the first time SmartScreen may ask for confirmation. Choose “More info”, then “Run anyway”.
English definitions are built in and work without a connection. Italian works offline once its dictionary is downloaded. Translations, and words the built-in dictionaries don't have, need the internet.
Only what you ask for: the word, when it's looked up online, and the text, when it's translated. WinDict also checks GitHub for a new version once a day. Both the online dictionary, which translations need, and the update check can be turned off in the settings.
Definitions in English and Italian, translations between 22 languages, and the app itself in English and Italian.
Windows 10 and 11. Older versions might work, but they aren't tested.
No. There's a single executable that runs from anywhere. Installing it with the setup adds it to Start and lets the card show above the Start menu.
WinDict is free, open source, and about 4 MB of memory while it waits.
WinDict Look up and translate any word on Windows, right where you read it.
© 2026 Bosio Pietro. WinDict is free and open source.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft. WinDict isn't made or endorsed by Microsoft.