Like the author, I used to be an avid user of dictionaries. In fact, my interest in them led to me freelance part-time as a lexicographer for a number of years. And, like the author, I find online dictionaries and apps to be a mixed bag.
But the biggest problem with conventional dictionaries, whether paper or digital, is that they cannot tell you what a word means in the specific context in which you encountered it. If you come across the word canonical, to use the OP’s example, and you look it up in a dictionary, the dictionary won’t tell you whether, in the text you’re reading, it means “conforming to a general rule or acceptable procedure,” “of or relating to a member of the clergy,” “of, relating to, or forming a canon,” or something else.
Take the following instance of canonical, from a recent Ezra Klein podcast:
“One of the things I always think when I hear this argument about loneliness is I don’t think we’re online because we’re lonely — I think we’re lonely because we’re online. ... And the loneliness is partially a product there. Sometimes you’re lonely being online with people you know — the canonical kids texting their friends instead of hanging out in person. But I also think that, even for people who are not lonely online, there is something really disastrous about the politics it produces.” [1]
None of the definitions of canonical shown in the OP's screenshots, or in the other dictionaries I checked, matches that usage.
That dovetails with the standard prescriptive vs. descriptive issue, don't you think? The speaker in your podcast example seems to be (mis- ?) using the word to refer to a stereotype, likening an Internet trope to reality, and (thus) implying that the Internet now has the status of a canon. So, it's an inaccurate use, prescriptively; but it's sufficiently related to the prescriptive use that it gives us some insight into the speaker — probable age, reading habits, opinion about the validity of what the speaker reads online, etc. — provided we have some context. It's a pleasing instance of the game of language being played.
Later edit: I guess one point I'm making is that real dictionaries are still of great use and need in the age of LLMs.
I agree that traditional dictionaries are still very useful. I wouldn’t trust today’s LLMs, for example, for information about etymologies, pronunciations, alternate spellings, conjugations and declensions, etc., unless they had access to human-curated lexicographic databases. But for grasping the meanings of words in real-life contexts, LLMs are much better than static dictionaries.
On the prescriptive vs. descriptive issue: As a (former) lexicographer, I think I can say with confidence that it is very difficult to maintain a consistent prescriptive stance when trying to create a general dictionary of a language. You have to have some basis for declaring that a particular usage is wrong. In a few cases, such as hopefully used as a sentential adverb or data as a singular noun, you can find prescriptive grammarians who condemn it or a systematic reason (logic, etymology, etc.) for excluding it. But the vast majority of words in a language acquire and change their meanings through people using them in various ways and situations, without being noticed by prescriptivists and without following clear patterns.
Canonical seems to be such an example. I think I’ve seen that podcast usage before, but I can’t say how old or well established it is. The entry for canonical at the online Oxford English Dictionary does not include it, though that entry has not been updated recently. And the most recent edition of the huge, prescriptivist-friendly Garner’s Modern English Usage says nothing about it. If further investigation revealed that the word has in fact been used in that meaning fairly widely for more than a decade or two, I think the meaning should be included in dictionaries without any marker of incorrectness or inaccuracy.
I don’t know how many dictionaries other than the OED are being regularly updated, though. The market for conventional dictionaries seems to have collapsed.
If anyone is aware of a .dict file to add Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1942) to the MacOS Dictionary app, please post! That would be the holy grail for me.
Like the author, I used to be an avid user of dictionaries. In fact, my interest in them led to me freelance part-time as a lexicographer for a number of years. And, like the author, I find online dictionaries and apps to be a mixed bag.
But the biggest problem with conventional dictionaries, whether paper or digital, is that they cannot tell you what a word means in the specific context in which you encountered it. If you come across the word canonical, to use the OP’s example, and you look it up in a dictionary, the dictionary won’t tell you whether, in the text you’re reading, it means “conforming to a general rule or acceptable procedure,” “of or relating to a member of the clergy,” “of, relating to, or forming a canon,” or something else.
Take the following instance of canonical, from a recent Ezra Klein podcast:
“One of the things I always think when I hear this argument about loneliness is I don’t think we’re online because we’re lonely — I think we’re lonely because we’re online. ... And the loneliness is partially a product there. Sometimes you’re lonely being online with people you know — the canonical kids texting their friends instead of hanging out in person. But I also think that, even for people who are not lonely online, there is something really disastrous about the politics it produces.” [1]
None of the definitions of canonical shown in the OP's screenshots, or in the other dictionaries I checked, matches that usage.
LLMs do much better. Here is what Gemini gave me:
https://g.co/gemini/share/156820176dba
And Claude:
https://claude.ai/share/7fb2aabd-fb29-439c-925a-c2d4b167b35e
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...
That dovetails with the standard prescriptive vs. descriptive issue, don't you think? The speaker in your podcast example seems to be (mis- ?) using the word to refer to a stereotype, likening an Internet trope to reality, and (thus) implying that the Internet now has the status of a canon. So, it's an inaccurate use, prescriptively; but it's sufficiently related to the prescriptive use that it gives us some insight into the speaker — probable age, reading habits, opinion about the validity of what the speaker reads online, etc. — provided we have some context. It's a pleasing instance of the game of language being played.
Later edit: I guess one point I'm making is that real dictionaries are still of great use and need in the age of LLMs.
I agree that traditional dictionaries are still very useful. I wouldn’t trust today’s LLMs, for example, for information about etymologies, pronunciations, alternate spellings, conjugations and declensions, etc., unless they had access to human-curated lexicographic databases. But for grasping the meanings of words in real-life contexts, LLMs are much better than static dictionaries.
On the prescriptive vs. descriptive issue: As a (former) lexicographer, I think I can say with confidence that it is very difficult to maintain a consistent prescriptive stance when trying to create a general dictionary of a language. You have to have some basis for declaring that a particular usage is wrong. In a few cases, such as hopefully used as a sentential adverb or data as a singular noun, you can find prescriptive grammarians who condemn it or a systematic reason (logic, etymology, etc.) for excluding it. But the vast majority of words in a language acquire and change their meanings through people using them in various ways and situations, without being noticed by prescriptivists and without following clear patterns.
Canonical seems to be such an example. I think I’ve seen that podcast usage before, but I can’t say how old or well established it is. The entry for canonical at the online Oxford English Dictionary does not include it, though that entry has not been updated recently. And the most recent edition of the huge, prescriptivist-friendly Garner’s Modern English Usage says nothing about it. If further investigation revealed that the word has in fact been used in that meaning fairly widely for more than a decade or two, I think the meaning should be included in dictionaries without any marker of incorrectness or inaccuracy.
I don’t know how many dictionaries other than the OED are being regularly updated, though. The market for conventional dictionaries seems to have collapsed.
The online version of Webster's 1828 is pretty good (third-party project because the work is in the public domain):
https://webstersdictionary1828.com/
To go the better route, here's a HN post about adding Webster's 1913 to the macOS dictionary app (the dictionary is very good):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29733648
If anyone is aware of a .dict file to add Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1942) to the MacOS Dictionary app, please post! That would be the holy grail for me.
Real post title is “Dictionaries”, but that’s so devoid of information that a bit of editorialisation to make it more descriptive seemed appropriate.