intrusive new synonyms pop-up

Question

intrusive new synonyms pop-up

Immediately upon restarting, after updating to macOS 15.4.1 this morning, I now have a new pop-up that either (a) reports 'Nothing found' or (b) presents a list of synonyms, for any editable word I double-click on or adjacent to. I attached screenshots of a test in TextEditor.app and here in the 'Provide more details' box of this support question editor.

The same occurs in every app, including browsers, in which there is editable text.

I have searched all of my third-party utilities I am aware of, and have searched Activity Monitor for processes that appear possibly relevant, finding nothing.

I also went through all Systems Settings I thought might be relevant and found nothing.

What is this pop-up and how can I disable it?

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Apr 18, 2025 7:12 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

mark cfromalbuquerque Author

Level 1

19 points

Apr 20, 2025 4:52 AM in response to etresoft

Thanks. I think the culprit is a new functionality of the ProWritingAid Everywhere app and browser plugins. When I deactivate those, the pop-out stops presenting. I think the related new functionality is called ProWritingAid Word Explorer.

This could be a useful tool, if activated differently, and if the synonyms were offered for the selected word or the word next to the cursor when entering a keyboard shortcut. As is, the synonyms are offered for a word that can be several words distant, which is not helpful.

The web site for Word Explorer looks useful: https://develop.prowritingaid.com/en/Analysis/WordExplorer

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Answer 2

etresoft

Level 9

56,326 points

Apr 18, 2025 7:59 AM in response to mark cfromalbuquerque

That is not any kind of built-in pop-up. You have some 3rd party system modification installed. I understand that you tried to find the cause. Unfortunately, you failed. This is absolutely 3rd party software.

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Answer 3

Apr 18, 2025 7:14 AM in response to mark cfromalbuquerque

I have confirmed this is separate / distinct from the built-in Dictionary.app functionality, which I like because it is not disruptive.

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