Google Chrome Now Lets You Search Words with a Single Tap on Android

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Google Chrome on Android has gained the ability to let you quickly search for a word’s definition with just a single tap on the word without leaving the current tab.

As spotted by Android Police, the feature has started rolling out in Chrome’s stable channel on Android. I was able to access the feature on my device having Chrome version 83.0.4103.106, as you can see in the image below.

chrome contextual search definitions 1

With this neat addition, you can seamlessly search for definitions of words on the web page with minimal efforts. When you tap on a word, a bar will appear to the bottom of the page. You can pull up the bar to see more information.

chrome contextual search definitions 2

However, the scope of the feature remains limited for now. For instance, I tried using the feature on Twitter and it just didn’t respond. The same happened on this website as well.

In case you’re not seeing the feature, you may manually enable it with the help of a Chrome flag named “Contextual Search definitions”. To do so, visit “chrome://flags”, search for “Contextual Search definitions”, enable and restart the browser. The flag enables “touch-activated contextual definitions of words on a page to be presented in the caption of Touch to Search”.

As per the report, the feature doesn’t seem to be limited to Chrome. One of the sources of Android Police claims to have enabled the feature on Brave Browser, which is based on Chromium. Hence, we could be seeing this feature on all Chromium-based browsers on Android.

SOURCE Android Police
comment Comments 2
  • Anonymous says:

    Dude thats a really old feature. You really need to be up to date

    • Subin B says:

      You might have confused this with the long-press gesture, which is relatively old. This one works with a single tap.

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