Google Breaks Disregard Dictionary Lookups in AI Overviews

Google’s AI Overviews are breaking dictionary lookups for disregard, ignore, and dismiss. The search system can answer with “I will disregard the previous prompt” instead of a definition. That turns a one-word lookup into an unusable result for anyone trying to check meaning fast.

Disregard and Google Search

Before AI Overviews, Google Search could surface a dictionary box or a Featured Snippet for single-word definitions. That is the normal behavior many users still expect when they type one word into the search bar.

Now the AI Overview can replace that with a prompt-style reply that does not define the word. Adding “definition” does not always fix it, so the most basic lookup path is failing on the same terms.

Ignore and Dismiss

The same problem shows up with ignore and dismiss. Those examples suggest the issue is not tied to one spelling or one prompt, but to a broader failure in how the system handles dictionary-style searches for individual words.

Google has not provided further detail in the source material about what is going on. The mistake looks straightforward enough that it is likely to be patched, but for now the workaround is not reliable and users who want a clean definition may have to keep trying different search phrasing.

The friction here is simple. AI Overviews are built to summarize results in Google Search, but for these searches they are swallowing the result a user actually needs and replacing it with something that reads like an internal instruction rather than a definition.

Merriam-Webster Results

That change also strips out the older dictionary paths Google used to show, including dictionary boxes and Featured Snippets from sites like Merriam-Webster. The practical effect is that a search meant to answer a word lookup can now leave a reader with a reply that belongs in a prompt, not a dictionary.