Wednesday, 27 September 2023

why wiktionary is so good

There are lots of online dictionaries:

Jay Doubleyou: why the urban dictionary is so good

Jay Doubleyou: bab.la online dictionary

Jay Doubleyou: translate with reverso context

And words have lots of different meanings, use, origins, interest...

Jay Doubleyou: what is the english word of the year?

Jay Doubleyou: the meaning and use of the word 'woman' is changing

Jay Doubleyou: how many meanings are there to 'love'?

Jay Doubleyou: the african origins of 'ok'

Jay Doubleyou: what is 'woke'?

Jay Doubleyou: how new words are born

A very solid dictionary for all of this is Wiktionary:

Wiktionary (in English)

Wiktionary (German)

How much should you trust Wiktionary:

Being an administrator on Wiktionary, my answer may be slightly biased.

1) Wiktionary is a multilingual dictionary and each Wiktionary site attempts to translate words from all known languages into one single language (e.g., en.wikt for all languages into English). This is one advantage over OED or Webster.

2) Wiktionary (or volunteers who work on the website) strives to be descriptive. However, because we are all biased in one way or another, sometimes prescriptive information gets included in the dictionary. Unfortunately, because it is editable by every man and their dog on the Internet, sometimes these flaws get overlooked.

3) One may consider Wiktionary as a bridge between Urban Dictionary and more authoritative dictionaries like Oxford. As long as a term passes the CFI, it may be included provided references are given for the term. This is often at the discretion of administrators such as myself and if a term is disputed, it gets put on RFD or RFV to be checked and dealt with accordingly. There are also issues such as the offensiveness of certain terms, which are often dealt with on Tea room. This IS one of the best things about Wiktionary. Everything is open for discussion.

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