trackpad
I like the force click feature to look up the definition of a word but I can't enable it on my system. Apple documentation and the Force Click Not Working on Macbook post say the Force Click feature should be enabled through the dropdown menu from:
System Preferences > Trackpad > Look up data & detectors > Force Click with one finger dropdown menu
On my macOS Catalina system the force click drop down menu isn't there. How do I add it back?
Yep!
You double-tap and lift off to select the word. Then double-tap the selected word and start dragging immediately keeping your finger down. It's actually kind of tricky to get to work without dragging the word but once you get it a couple of times it gets easier.
Here's an explanation on how to do it also from macworld.com, same as above:
To select text (and this works in nearly any program that involves text) on a word-by-word basis, do a double-click-and-hold before you start dragging, instead of a single click. As you move the mouse along now, you’ll see that entire words are added to your selection as soon as the cursor touches their first character. So if you’ve got a fair bit of text to select, but still need precision, this is a pretty quick way to get it done.
Here are my trackpad settings
Have you tried deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist or running defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadThreeFingerTapGesture -bool false?
Best Answer
Like @Redarm mentions in the comments use the Force Click and haptic feedback setting and then the Force Click with one finger setting becomes available as shown in the following screenshot: