Timezone conversion
Timezone conversion stays in the same gesture.
A time selection can open a dedicated conversion tooltip instead of forcing a separate workflow or a different tool.
Read first. Translate later.
Keep the definition inside the page, in the language that owns the word.
Not A Translator injects lightweight tooltips (noun) floating definition boxes that stay close to the selection and can rotate around it to escape edges and overlap. near your selection, keep the original-language definition front and center, and hide a lot of technical work behind a very simple gesture.
In context
The extension is meant to live inside real reading situations.
A desktop Firefox view and a mobile Safari development view help make that concrete.
Why it feels different
Not a translator-first workflow. A reading-first workflow.
The site now makes that philosophy explicit instead of hiding it between technical notes.
Core features
Simple in use, technical in the background.
The visible interaction is tiny. The invisible machinery is not.
Recent improvements
Latest work now reflected on the extension site.
The landing page now describes the current state of the project instead of an older snapshot.
Under the hood
Much more happens than the interface lets on.
The extension is intentionally light in appearance and busy in the background.
Usage
A short gesture, not a study workflow.
The extension tries hard not to interrupt reading.
Platforms
Dictionaries
The companion — a separate app
Experiment: a second extension that adds pictures and word maps.
Experiment is a separate extension you install alongside Not a Translator. Once both are present, Experiment plugs into the very same definition tooltip and adds three things when they make sense: an illustrative picture, a graph of meanings (SenseMap), and a graph of a word's family and origin (RootMap). It is offered as a thank-you to the people who support the project.
A picture, when it helps
For a plant, an animal, an object or a place, Experiment can show an illustrative photo right next to the definition — sourced from open image libraries, never a distraction you did not ask for.
SenseMap — explore meaning
A small, draggable graph around the word: synonyms, antonyms, broader and narrower terms. Tap any node to read its definition, expand it, and keep exploring the semantic neighbourhood.
RootMap — family & origin
A sister graph for the word's family: derived words and relatives grow upward, while the etymons — the older forms it comes from — plunge downward like roots.
How to get it
Experiment is a reward for supporters.
Experiment is published as an unlisted extension: it does not appear in store searches. It is shared directly with people who support the project, so the extra features stay tied to the donations that keep everything free of ads and tracking.
- Support the project through PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.
- Send a short email so we know you contributed.
- You receive the private install link for Experiment.
The grouping terms, in plain words
- Synonym
- a word with almost the same meaning — big / large.
- Antonym
- a word with the opposite meaning — big / small.
- Hypernym
- a broader, umbrella term — dog → animal.
- Hyponym
- a more specific case — animal → dog. Grouped with hypernyms, above.
- Meronym
- a part of something — wheel → car.
- Holonym
- the whole that owns the part — car → wheel. Grouped with meronyms, below.
- Derived word
- built from the same base — friend → friendship, friendly.
- Related word
- same lexical family, not a direct derivation — nation → native.
- Etymon
- an older form the word comes from — friend → Old English frēond.
SenseMap — colours & positions
Around the central word, each family of meaning has a fixed place and its own colour. The palette is a tetrad built from your tooltip colour (violet by default), so the map always matches your chosen theme.
- Synonyms — to the right (your tooltip colour).
- Antonyms — to the left (opposite hue).
- Hypernyms (broader terms) — above.
- Meronyms / holonyms (parts & wholes) — below.
RootMap — colours & positions
RootMap reads vertically, like a tree. The word's family fans out above it; its origins sink below it. Derived and related words follow your tooltip colour, while the etymons keep a fixed earthy beige — the soil the roots reach into.
- Derived words — upper-left.
- Related words — upper-right.
- Etymons (older forms it comes from) — below, in beige.
Both maps use the same engine: drag a node to move its branch, tap the star / tree icon on an open node to expand it, and use the double-arrow to swap between the quick Wiktionary definition and the full dictionary definition.
FAQ
A few things worth saying clearly.
The tooltip toolbar — what each button does
- Reposition (the cross of arrows) — rotates the tooltip around the word (below, left, above, right) to escape a screen edge or an overlap.
- Translate anyway / Show original (the four-leaf clover) — swaps the native-language definition for a translation, and back. The definition always comes first; translation is the fallback.
- Switch dictionary source (the double arrow) — toggles between the two sources for the same word (for example Larousse and Le Robert), when both are available.
- Pronunciation — plays the audio when available. A small face shows the source: a human face for a real recording (Wiktionary, Commons, DWDS), a robot face for a synthetic voice (Google TTS).
- More… (open in a new tab) — opens the source page (or a web search) for the word, when you want to dig further.
- Repair → console (the wrench) — sends this lookup into console mode, the stable side panel used when a page fights inline rendering.
- Remove (circle with a slash) — closes the tooltip. Nothing is left on the page; a refresh (F5) always restores it.
- Image Experiment — shows an illustrative picture (or a small map for a place). Greyed out when nothing suitable is found — better no image than a misleading one.
- SenseMap Experiment — opens the meaning graph. Appears only when the word has usable relations.
- RootMap Experiment — opens the family & origin graph. Appears only when the word has a documented family.