View source for Wiktionary

{{pp-semi-indef|small-yes}}
{{short description|Multilingual online dictionary}}
{{selfref|For the English Wiktionary itself, see [[wikt:|en.wiktionary.org]]. For Wikipedia's guideline about Wiktionary, see [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects]].}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2019}}
{{Infobox website
| name = Wiktionary
| logo = WiktionaryEn.svg
| logo_alt = Logo of English Wiktionary, featuring letters from different scripts
| logo_caption = Logo of English Wiktionary
| logo_size = 125px
| screenshot = English Wiktionary 2024.png
| caption = Main Page of the English Wiktionary on December 4, 2024
| collapsible = yes
| url = {{URL|wiktionary.org}}
| commercial = No
| type = [[Dictionary|Online dictionary]]
| language = [[Multilingual]] ({{NUMBEROF|active|wiktionary}} active)<ref name="Sitematrix" />
| registration = Optional
| owner = [[Wikimedia Foundation]]
| author = {{ubl|[[Jimmy Wales]]|[[Wikimedia Foundation|Wikimedia]] community}}
| launch_date = {{Start date and age|2002|12|12}}
| current_status = Active
}}

'''Wiktionary''' ({{IPAc-en|US|ˈ|w|ɪ|k|ʃ|ə|n|ɛr|i|audio=En-us-Wiktionary-3.ogg}} {{respell|WIK|shə|nerr|ee}}, {{IPAc-en|UK|ˈ|w|ɪ|k|ʃ|ən|ər|i|audio=en-uk-Wiktionary.ogg}} {{respell|WIK|shə|nər|ee}}; rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, [[World Wide Web|web]]-based project to create a [[free content]] [[dictionary]] of terms (including [[word]]s, [[phrase]]s, [[proverb]]s, [[linguistic reconstruction]]s, etc.) in a large number of [[natural language]]s and a number of [[Constructed language|artificial language]]s. These entries may contain [[definition]]s, [[image]]s for illustration, [[pronunciation]]s, [[etymology|etymologies]], [[inflection]]s, usage examples, [[quotation]]s, related terms, and [[translation]]s of terms into other languages, among other features. It is [[collaborative editing|collaboratively edited]] by volunteers via a [[wiki]]. [[:wikt:Wiktionary|Its name]] is a [[portmanteau]] of the words ''[[wikt:wiki|wiki]]'' and ''[[wikt:dictionary|dictionary]]''. It is available in {{NUMBEROF|languages|wiktionary}} languages and in [[Basic English|Simple English]]<!--piped like that because "Simple English" is the name of the Wiktionary in question; see [[:wikt:simple:Main Page]]-->. Like its sister project [[Wikipedia]], Wiktionary is run by the [[Wikimedia Foundation]], and is written collaboratively by [[volunteering|volunteers]], dubbed "Wiktionarians". Its [[wiki software]], [[MediaWiki]], allows almost anyone with access to the website to create and edit entries.

Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary's language editions provide definitions and translations of terms from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in [[Thesaurus|thesauri]].

Wiktionary's data is frequently used in various [[natural language processing]] tasks.

== History and development ==
Wiktionary was brought online on December 12, 2002,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wikipedia mailing list archive discussion announcing the opening of the Wiktionary project |date=December 12, 2002 |url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008311.html |access-date=May 3, 2011 |archive-date=June 20, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620100425/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-December/008311.html |url-status=live }}</ref> following a proposal by Daniel Alston and an idea by [[Larry Sanger]], co-founder of Wikipedia.<ref>[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-April/000076.html Wikipedia mailing list archive discussion from Larry Sanger giving the idea on Wiktionary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620072635/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-April/000076.html |date=June 20, 2014 }} – Retrieved May 3, 2011</ref> On March 28, 2004, the first non-[[English language|English]] Wiktionaries were initiated in [[French language|French]] and [[Polish language|Polish]]. Wiktionaries in numerous other languages have since been started. Wiktionary was hosted on a temporary [[domain name]] (wiktionary.wikipedia.org) until May 1, 2004, when it switched to the current domain name.{{efn|Wiktionary's current URL is {{URL|http://www.wiktionary.org/}}}} {{As of|2021|07|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data:Wikipedia_statistics/data.tab}}, Wiktionary features over 30 million articles (and even more entries) across its editions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wiktionary.org/|title=Wiktionary|website=www.wiktionary.org|access-date=October 28, 2021|archive-date=September 13, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080913141733/http://www.wiktionary.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> The largest of the language editions is the English Wiktionary, with over 7.5 million entries, followed by the [[French language|French]] Wiktionary with over 4.7 million and the [[Malagasy language|Malagasy]] Wiktionary with over 3.5 million entries. Forty-three Wiktionary language editions contain over 100,000 entries each.{{efn|Wiktionary total article counts are [[meta:Wiktionary|here.]] Detailed statistics by word type are available here [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Statistics#Detail].}}

[[File:Wiktionary growth.png|thumb|left|250px|The use of [[Internet bot|bot]]s to generate large numbers of articles is visible as "growth spurts" in this graph of article counts at the largest eight Wiktionary editions. (Data {{As of|2009|12|lc=on}})]]

Many of the definitions in the project's largest language editions were created by [[Internet bot|bots]] that found creative ways to generate entries or (rarely) automatically imported thousands of entries from previously published dictionaries. Seven of the 18 bots registered at the English Wiktionary in 2007{{efn|1=The [https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=&group=bot&limit=60 user list] at the English Wiktionary identifies accounts that have been given "bot status".}} created 163,000 of the entries there.<ref name="Edit counter">[http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=TheDaveBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p TheDaveBot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011064312/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=TheDaveBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p |date=October 11, 2007 }}, [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=TheCheatBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p TheCheatBot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011064411/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=TheCheatBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p |date=October 11, 2007 }}, [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Websterbot&dbname=enwiktionary_p Websterbot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011064313/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=Websterbot&dbname=enwiktionary_p |date=October 11, 2007 }}, [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=PastBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p PastBot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011064300/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=PastBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p |date=October 11, 2007 }}, [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=NanshuBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p NanshuBot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011064233/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=NanshuBot&dbname=enwiktionary_p |date=October 11, 2007 }}</ref>

Another bot, "[[wikt:User:ThirdPersBot|ThirdPersBot]]", was responsible for the addition of a number of third-person [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugation]]s that would not have received their own entries in standard dictionaries; for instance, it defined "[[wikt:smoulders|smoulders]]" as the "third-person singular simple present form of [[wikt:smoulder|smoulder]]." Of the 1,269,938 definitions the English Wiktionary provides for 996,450 English words, 478,068 are "form of" definitions of this kind.<ref>[https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Statistics/generated&oldid=63135332 Detailed statistics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723054334/https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Statistics/generated&oldid=63135332 |date=July 23, 2021 }} as of July 21, 2021</ref> This means that even without such entries, its coverage of English<!--791,870 definitions are ''not'' "form of"--> is significantly larger than that of major monolingual print dictionaries. ''[[Webster's Dictionary#Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961)|Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary]]'', for instance, has 475,000 entries (with many additional embedded headwords); the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' has 615,000 headwords, but includes [[Middle English]] as well, for which the English Wiktionary has an additional
34,234 gloss definitions. Detailed [[wikt:Wiktionary:Statistics#Detail|statistics]] exist to show how many entries of various kinds exist.

The English Wiktionary does not rely on [[Robot|bots]] to the extent that some other editions do. The [[French language|French]] and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] Wiktionaries, for example, imported large sections of the Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project (FVDP), which provides free content bilingual dictionaries to and from Vietnamese.{{efn|Hồ Ngọc Đức, [http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~duc/Dict/ Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project]. [[:vi:wikt:Wiktionary:Nguồn gốc/FVDP|Details]] at the Vietnamese Wiktionary.}} These imported entries make up virtually all of the Vietnamese edition's contents. Like the English edition, the French Wiktionary has imported approximately 20,000 entries from the [[Han unification|Unihan]] database of [[CJK characters]]. The French Wiktionary grew rapidly in 2006 thanks in a large part to bots copying many entries from old, freely licensed dictionaries, such as the eighth edition of the {{lang|fr|[[Dictionnaire de l'Académie française]]}} (1935, around 35,000 words), and using bots to add words from other Wiktionary editions with French translations. The [[Russian language|Russian]] edition grew by nearly 80,000 entries as "[[:ru:wikt:Участник:LXbot|LXbot]]" added boilerplate entries (with headings, but without definitions) for words in English and [[German language|German]].<ref name="LXbot">{{Cite web|url=http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=LXbot&dbname=ruwiktionary_p|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524015303/http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits?user=LXbot&dbname=ruwiktionary_p|url-status=dead|title=LXbot|archivedate=May 24, 2008}}</ref>

As of July 2021, the English Wiktionary has over 791,870 [[Gloss (annotation)|gloss]] definitions and over 1,269,938 total definitions (including different forms) for English entries alone, with a total of over 9,928,056 definitions across all languages.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Statistics&oldid=66261764|title=Wiktionary:Statistics|date=March 29, 2022|via=Wiktionary|access-date=March 6, 2023|archive-date=March 6, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230306042852/https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Statistics&oldid=66261764|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Logos===
{{Only primary sources|section |date=February 2024}}
Wiktionary has historically lacked a uniform logo across its numerous language editions. Some editions use logos that depict a dictionary entry about the term "Wiktionary", based on the previous English Wiktionary logo, which was designed by Brooke Vibber, a [[MediaWiki]] developer.<ref>"[[wikt:Wiktionary talk:Wiktionary Logo|Wiktionary talk:Wiktionary Logo]]", English Wiktionary, Wikimedia Foundation.</ref> Because a purely textual logo must vary considerably from language to language, a four-phase contest to adopt a uniform logo was held at the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki from September to October 2006.{{efn|name=Wiktionary logo|"[[m:Wiktionary/logo|Wiktionary/logo]]", Meta-Wiki, [[Wikimedia Foundation]].}} Some communities adopted the winning entry by the user known as "[[wikt:User:Smurrayinchester|Smurrayinchester]]", a 3×3 grid of wooden tiles, each bearing a character from a different writing system. However, the poll did not see as much participation from the Wiktionary community as some community members had hoped, and a number of the larger wikis ultimately kept their textual logos.{{efn|name=Wiktionary logo}}

In April 2009, the issue was resurrected with a new contest. This time, a depiction by "AAEngelman" of an open hardbound dictionary won a head-to-head vote against the 2006 logo, but the process to refine and adopt the new logo then stalled.<ref>"[[m:Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting|Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting]]", Meta-Wiki, Wikimedia Foundation.</ref> In the following years, some wikis replaced their textual logos with one of the two newer logos. In 2012, 55 wikis that had been using the English Wiktionary logo received localized versions of the 2006 design by "Smurrayinchester".{{efn|[[mailarchive:translators-l/2012-December/002193.html|[Translators-l] 56 Wiktionaries got a localised logo]]}} In July 2016, the English Wiktionary adopted a variant of this logo.<ref>[[phab:T139255]]</ref> {{As of|2016|07|04}}, 135 wikis, representing 61% of Wiktionary's entries, use a logo based on the 2006 design by "Smurrayinchester", 33 wikis (36%) use a textual logo, and three wikis (3%) use the 2009 design by "AAEngelman".<ref>[[m:Wiktionary/logo#Logo use statistics]].</ref>

== Multi-lingual ==
As of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, there are Wiktionary sites for {{NUMBEROF|languages|wiktionary}} languages of which {{NUMBEROF|active|wiktionary}} are active and {{NUMBEROF|closed|wiktionary}} are closed.<ref name="Sitematrix">[[Wikimedia]]'s [[MediaWiki]] [[:mw:API:Sitematrix|API:Sitematrix]]. Retrieved {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} from [[:c:Data:Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab|Data:Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab]]</ref> The active sites have {{NUMBEROF|articles|totalactive.wiktionary|N}} articles, and the closed sites have {{NUMBEROF|articles|totalclosed.wiktionary|N}} articles.<ref name="Siteinfo">[[Wikimedia]]'s [[MediaWiki]] [[:mw:API:Siteinfo|API:Siteinfo]]. Retrieved {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} from [[:c:Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab|Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab]]</ref> There are {{NUMBEROF|users|totalactive.wiktionary|N}} registered users of which {{NUMBEROF|activeusers|totalactive.wiktionary|N}} are recently active.<ref name="Siteinfo" />

The top ten Wiktionary language projects by mainspace article count:<ref name="Siteinfo" />
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!№!!Language!!Wiki!!Good!!Total!!Edits!!Admins!!Users!!Active users!!Files
{{for nowiki|<!-- Caution: do not remove this linebreak -->
|<nowiki>
|-style="text-align: right;"
| {{{i}}}
| {{Mw lang|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}}}
| [[:wikt:{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}:|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}]]
| {{NUMBEROF|articles|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|pages|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|edits|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|admins|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|users|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|activeusers|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}
| {{NUMBEROF|files|{{Wikipedia rank by size|{{{i}}}|wiktionary}}.wiktionary|N}}</nowiki>|count=10 }}
|}
For a complete list with totals see Wikimedia Statistics:<ref name="Wikimedia Statistics">{{Cite web |title=Wiktionary Statistics |url=http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/wiktionary#Statistics |access-date=11 September 2020 |website=[[WP:Meta|Meta.Wikimedia.org]] |archive-date=September 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200902163837/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary#Statistics |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Critical reception ==
{{Update|inaccurate=yes|section|date=May 2013}}

Critical reception of Wiktionary has been mixed. In 2006, [[Jill Lepore]] wrote in the article "Noah's Ark" for ''[[The New Yorker]],''{{efn|The full article is not available on-line.{{sfn|Lepore|2006}}}}

<blockquote>There's no show of hands at ''Wiktionary''. There's not even an editorial staff. "Be your own lexicographer!", might be ''Wiktionary's'' motto. Who needs experts? Why pay good money for a dictionary written by lexicographers when we could cobble one together ourselves?

''Wiktionary'' isn't so much [[Republican Party (United States)|republican]] or [[Democratic Party (United States)|democratic]] as [[Maoism|Maoist]]. And it's only as good as the [[Public domain#Expiration of copyright|copyright-expired]] books from which it pilfers.</blockquote>

[[Keir Graff]]'s review for ''[[Booklist]]'' was less critical:

<blockquote>Is there a place for Wiktionary? Undoubtedly. The industry and enthusiasm of its many creators are proof that there's a market. And it's wonderful to have another strong source to use when searching the odd terms that pop up in today's fast-changing world and the online environment. But as with so many Web sources (including this column), it's best used by sophisticated users in conjunction with more reputable sources.{{Citation needed|date=November 2010}}</blockquote>

References in other publications are fleeting and part of larger discussions of Wikipedia, not progressing beyond a definition, although David Brooks in ''[[The Telegraph (Nashua)|The Nashua Telegraph]]'' described it as "wild and woolly".<ref>David Brooks, "Online, interactive encyclopedia not just for geeks anymore, because everyone seems to need it now, more than ever!" ''The Nashua Telegraph'' (August 4, 2004)</ref> One of the impediments to independent coverage of Wiktionary is the continuing confusion that it is merely an extension of Wikipedia.{{efn|In this citation, the author refers to Wiktionary as part of the Wikipedia site: {{Cite news |last=Adapted from an article by Naomi DeTullio |date=2006 |title=Wikis for Librarians |page=15 |work=NETLS News #142 |publisher=Northeast Texas Library System |format=PDF newsletter |url=http://www.netls.org/NewContent/NewsAndPictures/NEWSLETTERS/NEWS2006/142final.pdf |access-date=April 21, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070605203652/http://www.netls.org/NewContent/NewsAndPictures/NEWSLETTERS/NEWS2006/142final.pdf |archive-date=June 5, 2007}}
}}

The measure of correctness of the inflections for a subset of the Polish words in the English Wiktionary showed that this grammatical data is very stable (a study showed that only 131 out of 4,748 Polish words have had their inflection data corrected).{{sfn|Kurmas|2010}}

{{As of|2016}}, Wiktionary has seen growing use in [[Academy|academia]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Sascha|Müller-Spitzer|2016|page=348}}</ref>

==Wiktionary data in natural language processing==
Wiktionary has [[semi-structured data]].{{sfn|Meyer|Gurevych|2012|p=140}} Wiktionary [[Lexicography|lexicographic]] data can be converted to [[Machine-readable data|machine-readable format]] in order to be used in [[natural language processing]] tasks.{{sfn|Zesch|Müller|Gurevych|2008|p=4|loc=Figure 1}}{{sfn|Meyer|Gurevych|2010|p=40}}{{sfn|Krizhanovsky, Transformation|2010|p=1}}

Wiktionary's [[data mining]] is a complex task. There are the following difficulties:{{sfn|Hellmann|Auer|2013|p=302|loc=p. 16 in PDF}}
* (1) the constant and frequent changes to data and schemata
* (2) the heterogeneity in Wiktionary language edition schemata{{efn|E.g. compare the entry structure and formatting rules in [[wikt:Wiktionary:Entry layout explained|English Wiktionary]] and [[wikt:ru:Викисловарь:Правила оформления статей|Russian Wiktionary]].}} and
* (3) the human-centric natur