diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
index ade51ca63..af5282553 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
@@ -27,7 +27,10 @@ class DownloadHandlers:
         self._handlers: Dict[str, Any] = {}  # stores instanced handlers for schemes
         self._notconfigured: Dict[str, str] = {}  # remembers failed handlers
         handlers: Dict[str, Union[str, Callable]] = without_none_values(
-            crawler.settings.getwithbase("DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS")
+            cast(
+                Dict[str, Union[str, Callable]],
+                crawler.settings.getwithbase("DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS"),
+            )
         )
         for scheme, clspath in handlers.items():
             self._schemes[scheme] = clspath
diff --git a/scrapy/core/http2/protocol.py b/scrapy/core/http2/protocol.py
index 8898b8118..063835b17 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/http2/protocol.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/http2/protocol.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import itertools
 import logging
 from collections import deque
 from ipaddress import IPv4Address, IPv6Address
-from typing import Dict, List, Optional, Union
+from typing import Any, Dict, List, Optional, Union
 
 from h2.config import H2Configuration
 from h2.connection import H2Connection
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ class H2ClientProtocol(Protocol, TimeoutMixin):
 
         # Some meta data of this connection
         # initialized when connection is successfully made
-        self.metadata: Dict = {
+        self.metadata: Dict[str, Any] = {
             # Peer certificate instance
             "certificate": None,
             # Address of the server we are connected to which
diff --git a/scrapy/core/http2/stream.py b/scrapy/core/http2/stream.py
index 224691078..7c70e86db 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/http2/stream.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/http2/stream.py
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ class Stream:
 
         # Metadata of an HTTP/2 connection stream
         # initialized when stream is instantiated
-        self.metadata: Dict = {
+        self.metadata: Dict[str, Any] = {
             "request_content_length": (
                 0 if self._request.body is None else len(self._request.body)
             ),
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ class Stream:
         # Private variable used to build the response
         # this response is then converted to appropriate Response class
         # passed to the response deferred callback
-        self._response: Dict = {
+        self._response: Dict[str, Any] = {
             # Data received frame by frame from the server is appended
             # and passed to the response Deferred when completely received.
             "body": BytesIO(),
diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
index 3c2bb5593..de8a288f6 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
@@ -694,7 +694,9 @@ class FeedExporter:
         self.slots = slots
 
     def _load_components(self, setting_prefix: str) -> Dict[str, Any]:
-        conf = without_none_values(self.settings.getwithbase(setting_prefix))
+        conf = without_none_values(
+            cast(Dict[str, str], self.settings.getwithbase(setting_prefix))
+        )
         d = {}
         for k, v in conf.items():
             try:
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py b/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
index 191b3cef4..dfb1dca89 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ class Request(object_ref):
         method: str = "GET",
         headers: Union[Mapping[AnyStr, Any], Iterable[Tuple[AnyStr, Any]], None] = None,
         body: Optional[Union[bytes, str]] = None,
-        cookies: Optional[Union[dict, List[dict]]] = None,
+        cookies: Optional[Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]]] = None,
         meta: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
         encoding: str = "utf-8",
         priority: int = 0,
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ class Request(object_ref):
         self.callback: Optional[Callable] = callback
         self.errback: Optional[Callable] = errback
 
-        self.cookies: Union[dict, List[dict]] = cookies or {}
+        self.cookies: Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]] = cookies or {}
         self.headers: Headers = Headers(headers or {}, encoding=encoding)
         self.dont_filter: bool = dont_filter
 
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/form.py b/scrapy/http/request/form.py
index 3206d79cd..ea98ed795 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/form.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/form.py
@@ -7,7 +7,17 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 
 from __future__ import annotations
 
-from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Iterable, List, Optional, Tuple, Union, cast
+from typing import (
+    TYPE_CHECKING,
+    Any,
+    Dict,
+    Iterable,
+    List,
+    Optional,
+    Tuple,
+    Union,
+    cast,
+)
 from urllib.parse import urlencode, urljoin, urlsplit, urlunsplit
 
 from lxml.html import FormElement  # nosec
@@ -26,8 +36,9 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from typing_extensions import Self
 
 
-FormdataKVType = Tuple[str, Union[str, Iterable[str]]]
-FormdataType = Optional[Union[dict, List[FormdataKVType]]]
+FormdataVType = Union[str, Iterable[str]]
+FormdataKVType = Tuple[str, FormdataVType]
+FormdataType = Optional[Union[Dict[str, FormdataVType], List[FormdataKVType]]]
 
 
 class FormRequest(Request):
@@ -62,7 +73,7 @@ class FormRequest(Request):
         formid: Optional[str] = None,
         formnumber: int = 0,
         formdata: FormdataType = None,
-        clickdata: Optional[dict] = None,
+        clickdata: Optional[Dict[str, Union[str, int]]] = None,
         dont_click: bool = False,
         formxpath: Optional[str] = None,
         formcss: Optional[str] = None,
@@ -156,7 +167,7 @@ def _get_inputs(
     form: FormElement,
     formdata: FormdataType,
     dont_click: bool,
-    clickdata: Optional[dict],
+    clickdata: Optional[Dict[str, Union[str, int]]],
 ) -> List[FormdataKVType]:
     """Return a list of key-value pairs for the inputs found in the given form."""
     try:
@@ -186,10 +197,8 @@ def _get_inputs(
         if clickable and clickable[0] not in formdata and not clickable[0] is None:
             values.append(clickable)
 
-    if isinstance(formdata, dict):
-        formdata = formdata.items()  # type: ignore[assignment]
-
-    values.extend((k, v) for k, v in formdata if v is not None)
+    formdata_items = formdata.items() if isinstance(formdata, dict) else formdata
+    values.extend((k, v) for k, v in formdata_items if v is not None)
     return values
 
 
@@ -216,7 +225,7 @@ def _select_value(
 
 
 def _get_clickable(
-    clickdata: Optional[dict], form: FormElement
+    clickdata: Optional[Dict[str, Union[str, int]]], form: FormElement
 ) -> Optional[Tuple[str, str]]:
     """
     Returns the clickable element specified in clickdata,
@@ -243,6 +252,7 @@ def _get_clickable(
     # because that uniquely identifies the element
     nr = clickdata.get("nr", None)
     if nr is not None:
+        assert isinstance(nr, int)
         try:
             el = list(form.inputs)[nr]
         except IndexError:
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/json_request.py b/scrapy/http/request/json_request.py
index 1dd9e6c87..405c0b9d0 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/json_request.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/json_request.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 import copy
 import json
 import warnings
-from typing import Any, Optional, Tuple
+from typing import Any, Dict, Optional, Tuple
 
 from scrapy.http.request import Request
 
@@ -17,15 +17,15 @@ class JsonRequest(Request):
     attributes: Tuple[str, ...] = Request.attributes + ("dumps_kwargs",)
 
     def __init__(
-        self, *args: Any, dumps_kwargs: Optional[dict] = None, **kwargs: Any
+        self, *args: Any, dumps_kwargs: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None, **kwargs: Any
     ) -> None:
         dumps_kwargs = copy.deepcopy(dumps_kwargs) if dumps_kwargs is not None else {}
         dumps_kwargs.setdefault("sort_keys", True)
-        self._dumps_kwargs = dumps_kwargs
+        self._dumps_kwargs: Dict[str, Any] = dumps_kwargs
 
         body_passed = kwargs.get("body", None) is not None
-        data = kwargs.pop("data", None)
-        data_passed = data is not None
+        data: Any = kwargs.pop("data", None)
+        data_passed: bool = data is not None
 
         if body_passed and data_passed:
             warnings.warn("Both body and data passed. data will be ignored")
@@ -41,13 +41,13 @@ class JsonRequest(Request):
         )
 
     @property
-    def dumps_kwargs(self) -> dict:
+    def dumps_kwargs(self) -> Dict[str, Any]:
         return self._dumps_kwargs
 
     def replace(self, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> Request:
         body_passed = kwargs.get("body", None) is not None
-        data = kwargs.pop("data", None)
-        data_passed = data is not None
+        data: Any = kwargs.pop("data", None)
+        data_passed: bool = data is not None
 
         if body_passed and data_passed:
             warnings.warn("Both body and data passed. data will be ignored")
@@ -56,6 +56,6 @@ class JsonRequest(Request):
 
         return super().replace(*args, **kwargs)
 
-    def _dumps(self, data: dict) -> str:
+    def _dumps(self, data: Any) -> str:
         """Convert to JSON"""
         return json.dumps(data, **self._dumps_kwargs)
diff --git a/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py b/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
index d73dfce4b..14618e5e7 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
@@ -181,7 +181,7 @@ class Response(object_ref):
         method: str = "GET",
         headers: Union[Mapping[AnyStr, Any], Iterable[Tuple[AnyStr, Any]], None] = None,
         body: Optional[Union[bytes, str]] = None,
-        cookies: Optional[Union[dict, List[dict]]] = None,
+        cookies: Optional[Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]]] = None,
         meta: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
         encoding: Optional[str] = "utf-8",
         priority: int = 0,
@@ -234,7 +234,7 @@ class Response(object_ref):
         method: str = "GET",
         headers: Union[Mapping[AnyStr, Any], Iterable[Tuple[AnyStr, Any]], None] = None,
         body: Optional[Union[bytes, str]] = None,
-        cookies: Optional[Union[dict, List[dict]]] = None,
+        cookies: Optional[Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]]] = None,
         meta: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
         encoding: Optional[str] = "utf-8",
         priority: int = 0,
diff --git a/scrapy/http/response/text.py b/scrapy/http/response/text.py
index 522ffc0d5..a83279ac8 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/response/text.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/response/text.py
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ class TextResponse(Response):
         method: str = "GET",
         headers: Union[Mapping[AnyStr, Any], Iterable[Tuple[AnyStr, Any]], None] = None,
         body: Optional[Union[bytes, str]] = None,
-        cookies: Optional[Union[dict, List[dict]]] = None,
+        cookies: Optional[Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]]] = None,
         meta: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
         encoding: Optional[str] = None,
         priority: int = 0,
@@ -236,7 +236,7 @@ class TextResponse(Response):
         method: str = "GET",
         headers: Union[Mapping[AnyStr, Any], Iterable[Tuple[AnyStr, Any]], None] = None,
         body: Optional[Union[bytes, str]] = None,
-        cookies: Optional[Union[dict, List[dict]]] = None,
+        cookies: Optional[Union[Dict[str, str], List[Dict[str, str]]]] = None,
         meta: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
         encoding: Optional[str] = None,
         priority: int = 0,
diff --git a/scrapy/item.py b/scrapy/item.py
index 2daea64cc..3f93809e7 100644
--- a/scrapy/item.py
+++ b/scrapy/item.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from typing_extensions import Self
 
 
-class Field(dict):
+class Field(Dict[str, Any]):
     """Container of field metadata"""
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/logformatter.py b/scrapy/logformatter.py
index d720b2f38..42a03b560 100644
--- a/scrapy/logformatter.py
+++ b/scrapy/logformatter.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 
 import logging
 import os
-from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Dict, Optional, Union
+from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Dict, Optional, Tuple, TypedDict, Union
 
 from twisted.python.failure import Failure
 
@@ -26,6 +26,12 @@ DOWNLOADERRORMSG_SHORT = "Error downloading %(request)s"
 DOWNLOADERRORMSG_LONG = "Error downloading %(request)s: %(errmsg)s"
 
 
+class LogFormatterResult(TypedDict):
+    level: int
+    msg: str
+    args: Union[Dict[str, Any], Tuple[Any, ...]]
+
+
 class LogFormatter:
     """Class for generating log messages for different actions.
 
@@ -64,7 +70,9 @@ class LogFormatter:
                     }
     """
 
-    def crawled(self, request: Request, response: Response, spider: Spider) -> dict:
+    def crawled(
+        self, request: Request, response: Response, spider: Spider
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs a message when the crawler finds a webpage."""
         request_flags = f" {str(request.flags)}" if request.flags else ""
         response_flags = f" {str(response.flags)}" if response.flags else ""
@@ -84,7 +92,7 @@ class LogFormatter:
 
     def scraped(
         self, item: Any, response: Union[Response, Failure], spider: Spider
-    ) -> dict:
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs a message when an item is scraped by a spider."""
         src: Any
         if isinstance(response, Failure):
@@ -102,7 +110,7 @@ class LogFormatter:
 
     def dropped(
         self, item: Any, exception: BaseException, response: Response, spider: Spider
-    ) -> dict:
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs a message when an item is dropped while it is passing through the item pipeline."""
         return {
             "level": logging.WARNING,
@@ -115,7 +123,7 @@ class LogFormatter:
 
     def item_error(
         self, item: Any, exception: BaseException, response: Response, spider: Spider
-    ) -> dict:
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs a message when an item causes an error while it is passing
         through the item pipeline.
 
@@ -135,7 +143,7 @@ class LogFormatter:
         request: Request,
         response: Union[Response, Failure],
         spider: Spider,
-    ) -> dict:
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs an error message from a spider.
 
         .. versionadded:: 2.0
@@ -155,7 +163,7 @@ class LogFormatter:
         request: Request,
         spider: Spider,
         errmsg: Optional[str] = None,
-    ) -> dict:
+    ) -> LogFormatterResult:
         """Logs a download error message from a spider (typically coming from
         the engine).
 
diff --git a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
index d270a72f4..4448b6f4b 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
@@ -411,7 +411,7 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping[_SettingsKeyT, Any]):
         """
         self._assert_mutability()
         if isinstance(values, str):
-            values = cast(dict, json.loads(values))
+            values = cast(Dict[_SettingsKeyT, Any], json.loads(values))
         if values is not None:
             if isinstance(values, BaseSettings):
                 for name, value in values.items():
diff --git a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
index bef041325..7b43f04f2 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/spiders.rst
 from __future__ import annotations
 
 import logging
-from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Iterable, List, Optional, Union, cast
+from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Dict, Iterable, List, Optional, Union, cast
 
 from twisted.internet.defer import Deferred
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from typing_extensions import Concatenate, Self
 
     from scrapy.crawler import Crawler
-    from scrapy.settings import BaseSettings
+    from scrapy.settings import BaseSettings, _SettingsKeyT
     from scrapy.utils.log import SpiderLoggerAdapter
 
     CallbackT = Callable[Concatenate[Response, ...], Any]
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ class Spider(object_ref):
     """
 
     name: str
-    custom_settings: Optional[dict] = None
+    custom_settings: Optional[Dict[_SettingsKeyT, Any]] = None
 
     def __init__(self, name: Optional[str] = None, **kwargs: Any):
         if name is not None:
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/conf.py b/scrapy/utils/conf.py
index 641dfa4a2..c63b69995 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/conf.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/conf.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ from typing import (
     MutableMapping,
     Optional,
     Union,
+    cast,
 )
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning, UsageError
@@ -173,7 +174,7 @@ def feed_process_params_from_cli(
     suitable to be used as the FEEDS setting.
     """
     valid_output_formats: Iterable[str] = without_none_values(
-        settings.getwithbase("FEED_EXPORTERS")
+        cast(Dict[str, str], settings.getwithbase("FEED_EXPORTERS"))
     ).keys()
 
     def check_valid_format(output_format: str) -> None:
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/log.py b/scrapy/utils/log.py
index 430a91e95..cbfd170ed 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/log.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/log.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from types import TracebackType
 from typing import (
     TYPE_CHECKING,
     Any,
+    Dict,
     List,
     MutableMapping,
     Optional,
@@ -20,7 +21,8 @@ from twisted.python import log as twisted_log
 from twisted.python.failure import Failure
 
 import scrapy
-from scrapy.settings import Settings
+from scrapy.logformatter import LogFormatterResult
+from scrapy.settings import Settings, _SettingsKeyT
 from scrapy.utils.versions import scrapy_components_versions
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
@@ -86,7 +88,8 @@ DEFAULT_LOGGING = {
 
 
 def configure_logging(
-    settings: Union[Settings, dict, None] = None, install_root_handler: bool = True
+    settings: Union[Settings, Dict[_SettingsKeyT, Any], None] = None,
+    install_root_handler: bool = True,
 ) -> None:
     """
     Initialize logging defaults for Scrapy.
@@ -234,7 +237,9 @@ class LogCounterHandler(logging.Handler):
         self.crawler.stats.inc_value(sname)
 
 
-def logformatter_adapter(logkws: dict) -> Tuple[int, str, dict]:
+def logformatter_adapter(
+    logkws: LogFormatterResult,
+) -> Tuple[int, str, Union[Dict[str, Any], Tuple[Any, ...]]]:
     """
     Helper that takes the dictionary output from the methods in LogFormatter
     and adapts it into a tuple of positional arguments for logger.log calls,
@@ -245,7 +250,7 @@ def logformatter_adapter(logkws: dict) -> Tuple[int, str, dict]:
     message = logkws.get("msg") or ""
     # NOTE: This also handles 'args' being an empty dict, that case doesn't
     # play well in logger.log calls
-    args = logkws if not logkws.get("args") else logkws["args"]
+    args = cast(Dict[str, Any], logkws) if not logkws.get("args") else logkws["args"]
 
     return (level, message, args)
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/python.py b/scrapy/utils/python.py
index 578cde2ac..0a50f4e1e 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/python.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/python.py
@@ -42,6 +42,8 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
     _P = ParamSpec("_P")
 
 _T = TypeVar("_T")
+_KT = TypeVar("_KT")
+_VT = TypeVar("_VT")
 
 
 def flatten(x: Iterable) -> list:
@@ -303,14 +305,16 @@ def equal_attributes(
 
 
 @overload
-def without_none_values(iterable: Mapping) -> dict: ...
+def without_none_values(iterable: Mapping[_KT, _VT]) -> Dict[_KT, _VT]: ...
 
 
 @overload
-def without_none_values(iterable: Iterable) -> Iterable: ...
+def without_none_values(iterable: Iterable[_KT]) -> Iterable[_KT]: ...
 
 
-def without_none_values(iterable: Union[Mapping, Iterable]) -> Union[dict, Iterable]:
+def without_none_values(
+    iterable: Union[Mapping[_KT, _VT], Iterable[_KT]]
+) -> Union[Dict[_KT, _VT], Iterable[_KT]]:
     """Return a copy of ``iterable`` with all ``None`` entries removed.
 
     If ``iterable`` is a mapping, return a dictionary where all pairs that have
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/request.py b/scrapy/utils/request.py
index 5be80ec0f..42a6537a8 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/request.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/request.py
@@ -197,7 +197,7 @@ def referer_str(request: Request) -> Optional[str]:
     return to_unicode(referrer, errors="replace")
 
 
-def request_from_dict(d: dict, *, spider: Optional[Spider] = None) -> Request:
+def request_from_dict(d: Dict[str, Any], *, spider: Optional[Spider] = None) -> Request:
     """Create a :class:`~scrapy.Request` object from a dict.
 
     If a spider is given, it will try to resolve the callbacks looking at the