Hello. I have the dictionary item (applet?) on my panel in xfce4 -- so xfce4-dict. I use Ubuntu:

It used to work fine. But now it doesn't. It just says, "Could not connect to server." I searched the internet to see if I could find a solution, but only found the following: http://www.labhc.com/ubuntu-xfce4-di...ect-to-server/

My situation is the same. I can connect to the internet still, but for some reason the dictionary does not work. I tried reinstalling via Synaptic all the programs that I figure may be connected with xfce4-dict (dict-gcide, dict-moby-thesaurus, xfce4-dict, wamerican, wbritish). Doing this indicated that it was restarting the dict server. However, this made no difference.

The preferences indicate the following:
server: dict.org
server port: 2628
dictionary: * (use all)

Okay, I changed the server from "dict.org" to "localhost", and it works. So, I can no longer see wordnet definitions or other online stuff with it, but I can use the two installed dictionaries offline that I have. So, that's good for now. If anyone has a suggestion as to how I can get it to once again connect with the server "dict.org", do please share. It would be nice to have that option.

Okay, I just tried replacing "localhost" with "dict.org" and it now does work. So, it's solved. Still now sure why it wasn't working before though.