VocabPeek: Daily Word Widget

iOSComing soon

Vocabulary on your Lock Screen

VocabPeek puts one English word on your Lock Screen and Home Screen: the word, how it is pronounced, a short meaning and an example sentence. Every hour or so — you pick how often — it changes to another one. The idea is that vocabulary gets learned in the glances you already make at your phone, without opening an app or setting time aside for it.

Whether that works is a fair question. Can you learn vocabulary from your Lock Screen? looks at what the research says a glance does and does not do, why you forget new English words covers the review schedule that makes them stay, and how many English words you need puts numbers on the goal.

It is not released. There is no App Store listing and no release date. This page describes what is being built, and the details will change before it ships.

The app exists to set the widget up. Open it and the first thing you see is your widget as it looks right now, with the controls under it: what to show, how often the word changes, which level to learn at, and the photo behind the card.

One word at a time, on the Lock Screen in small or large text, and on the Home Screen in three sizes. One set of settings covers every widget, so they never drift apart, and you choose what they show: meaning, pronunciation, part of speech, example sentence, synonyms and level.
You pick the pace: a new word every 30 minutes, every hour, or up to every six hours, and no changes overnight unless you want them.
Buttons on the widget. The medium and large Home Screen widgets have Known, Save and Next. A word marked known never comes back. On the Lock Screen, where widgets have no buttons, a tap opens the word.
Words you have met come back on a spaced schedule until you know them, mixed in with the new ones, so the widget only shows words you are still learning.
A quiz widget asks about a word you have already met — pick its meaning from three — right on the Home Screen.
A speaker button on the widget says the word aloud, in the iPhone’s own voice, without opening the app.

A closer look

01 / 10

Welcome

Setup starts with what the app does, then a short level check.

Words worth learning

The list starts from word lists compiled for learners, graded from A1 to C2, and goes past C2 with words an educated reader is expected to know. Within each level, more common words come first. Rare curiosities and invented words are not in it.

Levels shown as CEFR bands, A1 to C2 and a C2+ above it, each with sample words so you can judge where you are. A short check when you first open the app sets the starting point.
Word sets for different goals: everyday English, academic vocabulary for IELTS and TOEFL, and words that come up in GRE and SAT preparation. These are selections of common words, not official lists — the exams do not publish one.
Meanings in your own language, or English only: Vietnamese, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Korean today. The app’s interface is available in the same languages.
Your own lists and your own words. Collect words into a list and have the widget learn from it. A word the app does not have can be added with your own meaning; if you learn with meanings in another language, iOS can suggest a translation on the device.

Quick review

Two short exercises in the Words tab, for when you do open the app: Match pairs words with their meanings, and Pick the meaning shows one word and four meanings to choose from, then the whole word again, example and all. Neither keeps a score.

What it does not do

No streaks, no games, no chapter map, and no guilt. Reminders are off or up to three a day, your choice, and the app only asks for notification permission if you turn them on. There is no account to create.

A word card to keep

Tap a word and it opens as a card over a landscape photo: the full definition, an example, synonyms, and the word and the sentence read aloud, in an American or British voice. Save it, add it to a list, or share it as an image sized for a story or a square post, or save that image to Photos. The photos behind the cards are a collection of public-domain and CC0 images from Wikimedia Commons; choose one, or several and each new word brings the next.

The app comes in light or dark, with five accent colours, and its interface speaks English, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Traditional Chinese. Progress, lists and settings sync between your devices through your own iCloud account.

Honest limits

Meanings were written with the help of an AI model when the word list was built, from WordNet’s senses, and translations were checked in samples rather than word by word by native speakers. Some will be wrong. Every card has a Report a wrong meaning button, and fixes arrive with app updates.
The word changes on a schedule, not when you unlock. iOS does not tell a widget when the phone is picked up, so no iPhone widget can do that.
Pronunciation uses the voice built into iOS, so it sounds as good as the voice on your iPhone.
English is the only language taught. The other languages are for meanings, not for learning.
iOS 18 or later, iPhone only.

Credits

Word levels and lists come from the CEFR-J Wordlist (compiled by Yukio Tono, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), the Octanove Vocabulary Profile C1/C2, the New Academic Word List by Browne, Culligan and Phillips, Open English WordNet, Google Books Ngram and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The full list of sources and photo credits is in the app, under Settings → Data sources.