Product note / September 2026
The passage comes first.
Why contextual meaning starts with a usage, not a detached definition.
A dictionary entry is a useful beginning. It tells you which senses a word can have. A passage asks a narrower question: which of those readings fits here?
Start where the question arose.
When someone pauses on a word while reading, they should not have to leave the sentence behind. The surrounding clause may tell them who is speaking, what is being compared, or which kind of claim is being made.
Consider “That is a strong argument.” Strong might describe the support behind a claim, the force of its delivery, or how persuasive it felt to a particular audience. Those are different evaluations. A short definition alone cannot settle which one the writer intended.
Let the alternatives do some work.
A contextual tool should show the candidate readings and explain the basis for choosing among them. If the passage does not provide enough information, keeping two readings open is more useful than pretending there is only one.
SUPERB’s current deterministic resolver is a lexical baseline. It can rank candidate senses, but those scores are not calibrated probabilities of intent. That distinction belongs in the interface, beside the result.
Keep the discovery attached.
The reader keeps word exploration inside the passage. Reference lets you supply a passage directly. Both work with the same principle: context is part of the question, not an optional decoration.