Querying the dict dataengine

[alan moore]

Hello; I am working on my first plasmoid (in Python), so apologies in 
advance if I'm a blockhead.

I'm trying to remake the old kicker dictionary applet.  I have code that 
works by calling the "dict" CLI command, but naturally I want to switch 
that to working with a data engine.  I'm a bit hazy on how to 
communicate with the dict dataEngine and get what I want from it; 
specifically:

  - How do I tell it what server/dictionary to use?  I saw there is a 
setServer() function in the code, but it's private.

  - More importantly, how do I connect to it and get back a definition? 
  I've played with the engine in engine explorer, and I understand the 
structure that's supposed to be coming back, but when I try it in my 
code I just get back an empty dictionary.  My code is simply:

     self.dict_engine = self.dataEngine("dict")
     mydef = self.dict_engine.query(QString(word))
     print(mydef)

I also tried using connectSource(), then assigning mydef in dataUpdated. 
  I noticed in that case that I first got an empty dictionary, then a 
few moments later the actual data I was looking for.

Where am I going wrong here?  Thanks in advance.