@MatthiasOdisio I apologize for my confusion, but it was actually my own network setup that was peculiar and prevented me from seeing the redirect in my browser. It is in fact normal and supposed to happen if using a browser.
Based on the paclet manager developer's advice, if you could evaluate in a notebook
PacletUninstall["WordData_Definitions"];
TracePrint[PacletInstall["WordData_Definitions"], _URLSaveAsynchronous]
and send it to support, along with the .paclet file that got downloaded to your Temporary directory, that should help them investigate further.