While reading a webpage on Google Chrome, there are many times when I need to find more information about a particular word or phrase by Googling. You know that I can do by going to the address bar and typing the respective word or phrase and hitting Enter. But do you know that there is an alternative way to quickly do that in an easy way?
Quickly look up words or phrases on the computer using Google Chrome
Here is how to search for words or phrases on your favorites search engines using the desktop version of Chrome:
- Once you are on the web page, select that word or phrase.
- “Right-click” on that selected text.
- In the context menu that appears, click Search Google for “…” If you have selected Bing as your search engine, it will display as Search Bing for “…”
- A new tab will open with the search results for your selected text.
You can also search for images by right-clicking the image and clicking Search Google for image. You can set your search engine in Settings > Search engine used in the address bar.
Quickly look up words or phrases on Android using Google Chrome
Looking up more information on the words or phrases in Android can be done in two ways:
Touch to Search
This is the most intuitive way for quickly getting information about something on Google.
- On the webpage you are reading, “tap” or “double-tap” or “long-tap” on the word for what you want more information for. Once you do this, you can see a panel at the bottom of the page with the word you selected. You can adjust the start and end text markers to adjust the text selection.
- “Tap” or “swipe-up” the panel to expand the search results. You can tap the “expand” icon at the top-right of the panel to open the search results in a new tab.
But there is a downside—this only works if you have set Google as your Search engine in Settings.
Pro tip: You can use this same tap option for quickly performing actions such as to Open a webpage, Call a phone number, Email, and so on. Also, if you tap only a part of the web URL or phone number or email address and so on, Android does the complete selection for you and quickly suggests the respective action.
Web search
This method works irrespective of whatever search engine you have set in your Chrome. The steps are pretty similar to the above method.
- Double-tap or long-tap the word and adjust the selection.
- In the context menu that appears, tap Web search. Your search results will open in a new tab.
In Android, you can also search for images by long-tapping the image and selecting Search Google for image from the pop-up.