Lexigo

Lexigo is an instant, in-browser dictionary for Firefox. Whenever you come across an unfamiliar word online, simply double-click it to see its definitions, pronunciation, and an option to learn more, without having to leave the page.

Installation

Get Lexigo on Firefox Add-ons

Alternatively, build it from source (Development) and load the packaged zip, or run straight from this repository (GitHub) with npm run dev.

Features

• Instant lookups: double-click any word to get a popup with up to five definitions, grouped by part of speech, with example sentences where available.
• Pronunciation: phonetic transcription plus a speaker icon that plays a recorded pronunciation, falling back to your browser's text-to-speech when no recording exists.
• Nested lookups: double-click a word inside a popup to look that up too.
• Trigger key: optionally require holding Ctrl, Alt, or Shift (Command on macOS) while double-clicking, so popups only appear when you want them.
• Word history: optionally store every word you look up, view the count in the options page, and export it as CSV.
• Learn more: every popup links to a full web search for the word.
• Dark mode: the popup and options page follow your system color scheme.

Usage

1. Double-click a word on any page (holding your configured trigger key, if set).
2. Click the speaker icon to hear the word, or "Learn more »" for a full search.
3. Click anywhere outside the popup, or its × button, to dismiss it.

Settings live under the extension's options page (Add-ons Manager → Lexigo → Preferences): language, trigger key, and word history (including CSV download and clearing).

How it works

Definitions come from the free Dictionary API, with a DuckDuckGo fallback for words it doesn't know. Lookups are sent only to those services and only when you trigger them; the extension collects no data (word history is stored locally in your browser and never leaves it).

Development

Prerequisites: Node.js and Firefox.

npm install        # install dev tooling (ESLint, Prettier, web-ext)
npm run dev        # launch Firefox with the extension, auto-reloading on save
npm run build      # package the extension into web-ext-artifacts/

Quality checks:

npm run lint       # ESLint with auto-fix (lint:check to only report)
npm run format     # Prettier write (format:check to only report)
npm run lint:ext   # addons-linter, the same validation AMO runs on submission

Credits

Original work by meetDeveloper (GitHub Repository).

License

GPLv3 license. See LICENSE file for details.