Don't know what the word means? Just ask Cortana

As Microsoft and the Cortana team continue to refine the powerful AI and assistant, more features are slowly popping up online. A new one noticed by numerous people in our audience is definitions, powered by Oxford Dictionaries.

Load up Cortana and directly ask her 'What does _____ mean?' alternatively, 'What is the meaning of ____?' and the personal assistant from 500 years in the future pulls up a nice little card, complete with the word category and multiple definitions while exclaiming "I've found the meaning of…".

Additionally, there is on occasion a 'See more' link near the bottom, which then opens up the corresponding page on the Oxford site. Some definitions also come up under Bing's dictionary as well so your results may vary.

Although not a groundbreaking feature, using Cortana to ask quickly what a word means is certainly easier than hunting for that app, launching it, typing in a word and doing the lookup. This tool should also be particularly useful for those learning English as a second language, and we presume this word-lookup feature expands to other languages in the future.

Is looking up words a useful feature for you? How do you think Microsoft could make it better?

Thanks, Yahia M. and Aakash S., for the tips!

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.