One of the most useful features of Excel is having a dictionary that enables us to check for meaning and spelling. In this article, we will learn about Excel dictionary lookup and the use of the Thesaurus feature in Excel.
How to Lookup in Excel Dictionary: 2 Ways
1. Lookup in Dictionary Using ALT Key
In any worksheet, there can be thousands of words. So, for any word to check its meaning and details, we need to follow these steps.
🔶 Steps:
- First, we need to isolate the word we want to look up in the dictionary.
- Second, we will press Alt on the keyboard and while keeping it pressed, click on the isolated word.
- As a result, this will open a side panel immediately named Research on the right, and in the panel, we will have the dictionary or the information and meaning of the word like the image below.
2. Lookup Thesaurus of Excel Dictionary
The Thesaurus of a word is the words having almost a similar or close meaning to the word. In other words, they can be said as synonyms. Excel also provides us the facility to see the thesaurus of a word. So, the steps to find the thesaurus of any word in Excel are below.
🔶 Steps:
- At first, we need to go to the Review tab in the Ribbon and click on Thesaurus in the Proofing section.
- Next, a side panel on the right will appear called Thesaurus.
- Now in the panel just write the desired word in the search box and press Enter. It’ll show all the possible thesauri like the below image. For example, we have searched for a thesaurus of the word learning.
Things to Remember
- If there are multiple words in any cell, the dictionary will search for the first word only.
- We can select the language or dictionary reference by clicking the option under the search box.
- Finally, the entire demonstration is done in Excel 365. So, the interface may vary for different versions of Excel.
Download Practice Workbook
You can download the practice workbook from here.
Conclusion
This is how we look up and find thesaurus in the Excel dictionary. If you’re still having trouble with any of these methods, let us know in the comments. Our team is ready to answer all of your questions.
