Comment by linguae

Dictionary.app is one of my favorite macOS programs; I use it regularly, and Dictionary.app is something that I miss whenever I'm not on my Mac.

I'm wondering if there are similar offline dictionaries available for Windows and Linux? I know at one point the Oxford English Dictionary was distributed on CD-ROM, but the CD-ROM version is unfortunately discontinued and access requires an online subscription. I also remember Microsoft Bookshelf from the 1990s, but that's also been long discontinued.

I know that there are plenty of nice dictionaries and other references on the Web, but I like using offline dictionaries for a handful of reasons, chiefly: 1. Having offline access is handy when my Internet connection is down. 2. The latency of doing a lookup on Dictionary.app is much lower than looking up a Web dictionary. 3. Not being bombarded with other media to keep me engaged on the site (I'm looking at you, merriam-webster.com).

I would love to pay a company like Merriam Webster or Oxford University Press for downloadable access to the dictionary database, and I'm willing to pay the same price as the equivalent printed dictionary. However, I understand the business motivation as to why this may not be possible: it would be easy to pirate dictionary databases, and it possibly more lucrative to place the database behind either a subscription paywall or on a website with ads.