Yes, when debugging host name resolution for a specific host, don’t use dig; use “getent hosts <name>”. This will use the normal configured host name resolution path. (Personally I use "getent ahosts <name>" to get both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses.)
I can find no reference to this, nor does nslookup do that on my system. Maybe on Windows, its “nslookup” (which is not the real Unix nslookup) command does this?
In particular, note the following quote: “Unlike dig, nslookup does not use the operating system's local Domain Name System resolver library to perform its queries, and thus may behave differently. Additionally, vendor-provided versions may include output of other sources of name information, such as host files, and Network Information Service. Some behaviors of nslookup may be modified by the contents of resolv.conf.[2]”