How to save new words with your AI

You hear a word on a podcast. You mean to look it up later. Later never comes.

The fix is to make saving a word as easy as saying it. If you already work with an AI all day, it can do the saving for you. You tell it the word, and the word lands in your notebook.

That is what Lexicon does. This guide shows how to set it up and what to expect.

What you need

• A free Lexicon account at app.getlexicon.org
• An AI app that lets you add an MCP server with an address and a header, such as Claude Code or Cursor

MCP is the standard way AI apps use outside tools. Lexicon is one of those tools.

Apps that only connect through a sign-in screen, like the connectors in the Claude and ChatGPT apps, can't use Lexicon yet. For now you need an app that lets you paste a token.

Step 1: get a token

Sign in, open Settings, and under Account tap New token for iPhone or MCP. Give it a name you will recognize, such as Claude, and copy it right away, because it is only shown once. The token is how your AI proves it may write to your notebook, so treat it like a password. You can revoke it in the same place.

Step 2: connect your AI

In Claude Code, run this once with your token in place of YOUR_TOKEN:

claude mcp add --transport http lexicon https://app.getlexicon.org/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

In Cursor and other apps that take an MCP address, add a server with the address https://app.getlexicon.org/mcp and the header Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN.

Step 3: just ask

Now talk to your AI the way you normally do:

• "Save sanguine to Lexicon."
• "I heard sprezzatura in a talk today. Save it and note where I heard it."
• "Save apricity to Lexicon with its meaning."
• "What words have I saved lately?"
• "Quiz me on my words."

What happens when you save a word

Lexicon looks the word up in a free dictionary and fills in what it finds, usually the meaning and part of speech, and sometimes examples and the origin. The dictionary doesn't know every word. For a rare one like apricity, ask your AI to include the meaning when it saves, or add your own AI provider in Settings and it fills in what the dictionary missed. If the word is already in your notebook, Lexicon gives you the entry you have instead of making a second one.

The word you just saved becomes today's word, so it is waiting on your Today page.

From there it joins your review. When you get a word right it comes back after a day, then after three days, then further apart each time. When you miss one, it comes back in ten minutes.

Why this works better than a list

Word lists often fail for the same reason. Saving takes effort, and nothing brings the word back. Asking your AI removes the first problem because you are already talking to it. Review removes the second, because the words return without you having to remember to study them.

You can read the full setup notes on the support page, including how to send your notebook to Obsidian as Markdown.