@Arete_Hime ~ I’d be interested in other dictionary suggestions as well.
@oli2904, @pdao a better formulation would probably be: don’t use the wrong dictionary, and try to cross-reference dictionaries.
For the Chinese mainland cc-cedict gives archaic or false definitions for 擎 (it doesn’t mean raise your hand, it does mean raise something) and the infrequent character 腓 in modern usage only has the medical definition, not the other ones.
I haven’t researched what dictionaries are good. For China I’ve heard these are good:
ABC Chinese–English (Comprehensive) Dictionary
Oxford Chinese Dictionary
现代汉语词典
http://dict.youdao.com/
I’d think you’d have to go to a Chinese - Chinese dictionary to get the most fine-grained understanding of a character.
@Arete_Hime, @oli2904 ~ The dictionary I have been using for the past 15+ years is “Far East Chinese - English Dictionary”. It is a monstrously large paper weight on my desk, but is invaluable for researching characters and meanings. I have never been able to find an e-version of this dictionary. I wish I could. I am still old school. I like paper-bound books (and dictionaries). I only use electronic sources when something pertains to Memrise courses, since they are presented in that fashion.
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I use http://zhongwen.com at times and find that it can be a valuable resource. Sadly, their site has some issues. For example, if I search for 你好, I get two little boxes, like so: ，but clicking on those boxes instead of the characters 你 and 好 still works, so it’s okay 
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No problem