Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Wiktionary shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Wiktionary offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Wiktionary at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Wiktionary ? Wrong! If the Wiktionary is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Wiktionary then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Wiktionary ? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Wiktionary and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Wiktionary wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Wiktionary then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Wiktionary site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Wiktionary , or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Wiktionary , then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
{{Infobox Website| name = Wiktionary. | favicon =| logo = | screenshot = | caption =| url = http://www.wiktionary.org/| type =
Online dictionary (over 150)| registration = Optional| owner = [Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia community| launch date =| current status =| revenue =-->Wiktionary (a [portmanteau of
wiki and
dictionary) is a multilingualism, World Wide Web-based project to create a
free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. Unlike standard dictionaries, it is written collaboratively by volunteers using
wiki software, allowing articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the Web site.
Like its sister project Wikipedia, Wiktionary is run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary's language editions provide definitions and translations of words from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in Thesaurus and
lexicons. Additionally, the English Wiktionary now includes
Wikisaurus, a category that serves as a thesaurus, including lists of slang words.See "wikt:Help:Creating a Wikisaurus entry" for information on the structure of Wikisaurus entries. An example of a well-formatted entry would be "wikt:Wikisaurus:insane".
History and development
Wiktionary was brought online on
December 12,
2002 following a proposal by Daniel Alston. On
March 29,
2004 the first non-
English language Wiktionaries were initiated in
French language and
Polish language. Wiktionaries in numerous other languages have since been started. Wiktionary was hosted on a temporary Uniform Resource Locator (wiktionary.wikipedia.org) until May 1,
2004 when it switched to the current full URL. Wiktionary's current URL is www.wiktionary.org. As of November
2006, Wiktionary features over 1.5 million entries across its 171 language editions. The largest of the language editions is the English Wiktionary, with over 400,000 entries. It was surpassed in early 2006 by the French Wiktionary, only to regain the top position in September 2006. Eight Wiktionary language editions now contain over 100,000 entries each.
).
Despite Wiktionary's large number of entries, most of the entries and many of the definitions at the project's largest language editions were created by
Internet 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 WiktionaryThe user list at the English Wiktionary identifies accounts that have been given "bot status". created 163,000 of the entries there. TheDaveBot, TheCheatBot, Websterbot, PastBot, NanshuBot Only 259 entries remain (each containing many definitions) on Wiktionary from the original import by Websterbot from public domain sources; the majority of those imports have been split out to thousands of proper entries manually. Another one of these bots, "ThirdPersBot," was responsible for the addition of a number of
Grammatical person Grammatical conjugations that would not receive their own entries in standard dictionaries; for instance, it defined "smoulders" as the "third-person singular simple present form of smoulder." Excluding these 163,000 entries, the English Wiktionary would have about 137,000 entries, including terms unique to languages other than English, making it smaller than most monolingual print dictionaries. The
Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, has 615,000 headwords, while
Webster's Dictionary#Webster's Third New International of the English Language, Unabridged has 475,000 entries (with many additional embedded headwords). It should be noted, though, that more detailed
wikt:Wiktionary:Statistics#Detail now exist to more clearly distinguish genuine entries from minor (small) entries.
The English Wiktionary, however does not rely on bots to the extent that somewhat smaller editions do. The French language and
Vietnamese language Wiktionaries, for example, imported large sections of the Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project (FVDP), which provides free content bilingual dictionaries to and from Vietnamese.Hồ Ngọc Đức, Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project. wikt:Wiktionary:Nguồn gốc/FVDP at the Vietnamese Wiktionary. These imported entries make up virtually all of the Vietnamese edition's offering. Like the English edition, the French Wiktionary has imported the approximately 20,000 entries in the
Han unification database of CJK characters. The French Wiktionary grew rapidly in 2006 thanks in large part to bots copying many entries from old, freely-licensed dictionaries, such as the eighth edition of the
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 edition grew by nearly 80,000 entries as "LXbot" added boilerplate entries (with headings, but without definitions) for words in English and
German language. LXbot
Most of Wiktionary currently uses a textual logo designed by Brion Vibber, a MediaWiki developer."
wikt:Wiktionary talk:Wiktionary Logo", English Wiktionary, Wikimedia Foundation. Despite frequent discussion of modifying or replacing the logo, a four-phase contest held at the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki from September 2006 to October 2006"m:Wiktionary/logo", Meta-Wiki,
Wikimedia Foundation. did not see as much participation from the Wiktionary community as some community members had hoped. As of June 2007, the French, Vietnamese,
Italian language,
Korean language,
Arabic language,
Sicilian language, and Simple English editions have switched to the contest-chosen logo; the remaining editions use either the textual logo or, in the case of the Galician Wiktionary, :Image:Wiktionary-logo-gl.png bearing the
Galicia (Spain)n coat of arms.
Critical reception
Critical reception of Wiktionary has been mixed. Jill Lepore wrote in the article "Noah’s Ark" for
The New Yorker, (November 6, 2006)The full article is not available on-line. {{cite news| author = Jill Lepore | title = Noah's Ark
| url = http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/06/061106fa_fact_lepore
| format = Abstract | publisher = The New Yorker
| date = 6 November 2006 | accessdate = 2007-04-21
-->
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 can cobble one together ourselves?
Wiktionary isn’t so much republican or democratic as Maoist. And it’s only as good as the copyright-expired books from which it pilfers. If you look up the word "Webster" in the
Wiktionary, you will be redirected to this handy tip:
Noah Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1911 (published by Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA) is a public domain dictionary, as is a 1913 edition, that can be used to empower
Wiktionary with more definitions.
Pfui. But, hey, at least they got his first name right.
Keir Graff’s review for
Booklist was more neutral:
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.
References in other publications are fleeting and part of larger discussions of Wikipedia, not progressing beyond a definition, although David Brooks in
The Telegraph described it as
wild and woolly.David Brooks, "Online, interactive encyclopedia not just for geeks anymore, because everyone seems to need it now, more than ever!"
The Telegraph (August 4, 2004) (
wiktionary:wooly is defined as "confused" and "unrestrained.") One of the impediments to independent coverage of Wiktionary is the continuing confusion that it is merely an extension of Wikipedia.In this citation, the author refers to Wiktionary as part of the Wikipedia site: {{cite news| author = Adapted from an article by Naomi DeTullio
| title = Wikis for Librarians
| url = http://www.netls.org/NewContent/NewsAndPictures/NEWSLETTERS/NEWS2006/142final.pdf
| format = PDF newsletter | work = NETLS News #142 | publisher = Northeast Texas Library System
| page = 15 | date = 2006 (1st Quarter) | accessdate = 2007-04-21
-->
In 2005,
PC Magazine rated Wiktionary as one of the Internet's "Top 101 Web Sites," although little information was given about the site.
Wiktionary statistics
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px solid #aaaaaa; border-collapse: collapse; white-space: nowrap; text-align: left" class="sortable"|+
Ten largest Wiktionary language editions List of Wiktionary editions, ranked by article count. Accessed
June 25,
2007.]|
English language| en|
532611| 661224| 2990719| 57| 45444| 5| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:18|- style="text-align: right;"| 2| French language|
French language| fr|
464175| 507697| 2514317| 15| 4235| 15| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:44|- style="text-align: right;"| 3|
Vietnamese language| Vietnamese language| vi|
225014| 230651| 704913| 3| 1014| 16| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:45|- style="text-align: right;"| 4|
Turkish language|
Turkish language| tr|
163611| 178301| 304926| 6| 2158| 86| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:33|- style="text-align: right;"| 5| Greek language|
Greek language| el|
153744| 167455| 435360| 5| 360| 23| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:21|- style="text-align: right;"| 6| Russian language| Russian language| ru|
127320| 156052| 462554| 3| 869| 148| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:23|- style="text-align: right;"| 7|
Ido language|
Ido language| io|
119288| 158014| 543480| 1| 107| 3| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:47|- style="text-align: right;"| 8| Chinese language| Chinese language| zh|
113891| 131771| 477072| 6| 2905| 195| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:32|- style="text-align: right;"| 9| Polish language| Polish language| pl|
77292| 110446| 516929| 16| 1695| 72| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:33|- style="text-align: right;"| 10| Italian language| Italian language| it|
63936| 73773| 378379| 15| 1960| 50| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:35|}
See also
- OmegaWiki, a translating multilingual dictionary based on an extension of MediaWiki.
References
External links
- Wiktionary front page
- Wiktionary's Multilingual Statistics
- Wikimedia's page on Wiktionary (including list of all existing Wiktionaries)
- Pages about Wiktionary in Meta.
- The Wiktionary Widget for the Mac OS X Dashboard (software) which pulls up Wiktionary articles.
{{Infobox Website| name = Wiktionary. | favicon =| logo = | screenshot = | caption =| url = http://www.wiktionary.org/| type =
Online dictionary (over 150)| registration = Optional| owner = [Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia community| launch date =| current status =| revenue =-->Wiktionary (a [portmanteau of
wiki and
dictionary) is a multilingualism, World Wide Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. Unlike standard dictionaries, it is written collaboratively by volunteers using wiki software, allowing articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the Web site.
Like its sister project Wikipedia, Wiktionary is run by the
Wikimedia Foundation. Because Wiktionary is not limited by print space considerations, most of Wiktionary's language editions provide definitions and translations of words from many languages, and some editions offer additional information typically found in
Thesaurus and
lexicons. Additionally, the English Wiktionary now includes
Wikisaurus, a category that serves as a thesaurus, including lists of
slang words.See "
wikt:Help:Creating a Wikisaurus entry" for information on the structure of Wikisaurus entries. An example of a well-formatted entry would be "wikt:Wikisaurus:insane".
History and development
Wiktionary was brought online on December 12, 2002 following a proposal by Daniel Alston. On March 29,
2004 the first non-
English language Wiktionaries were initiated in French language and Polish language. Wiktionaries in numerous other languages have since been started. Wiktionary was hosted on a temporary Uniform Resource Locator (wiktionary.wikipedia.org) until
May 1, 2004 when it switched to the current full URL. Wiktionary's current URL is www.wiktionary.org. As of November
2006, Wiktionary features over 1.5 million entries across its 171 language editions. The largest of the language editions is the English Wiktionary, with over 400,000 entries. It was surpassed in early 2006 by the French Wiktionary, only to regain the top position in September 2006. Eight Wiktionary language editions now contain over 100,000 entries each.
).
Despite Wiktionary's large number of entries, most of the entries and many of the definitions at the project's largest language editions were created by Internet 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 WiktionaryThe user list at the English Wiktionary identifies accounts that have been given "bot status". created 163,000 of the entries there. TheDaveBot, TheCheatBot, Websterbot, PastBot, NanshuBot Only 259 entries remain (each containing many definitions) on Wiktionary from the original import by Websterbot from public domain sources; the majority of those imports have been split out to thousands of proper entries manually. Another one of these bots, "ThirdPersBot," was responsible for the addition of a number of Grammatical person Grammatical conjugations that would not receive their own entries in standard dictionaries; for instance, it defined "smoulders" as the "third-person singular simple present form of smoulder." Excluding these 163,000 entries, the English Wiktionary would have about 137,000 entries, including terms unique to languages other than English, making it smaller than most monolingual print dictionaries. The
Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, has 615,000 headwords, while
Webster's Dictionary#Webster's Third New International of the English Language, Unabridged has 475,000 entries (with many additional embedded headwords). It should be noted, though, that more detailed
wikt:Wiktionary:Statistics#Detail now exist to more clearly distinguish genuine entries from minor (small) entries.
The English Wiktionary, however does not rely on bots to the extent that somewhat smaller editions do. The French language and Vietnamese language Wiktionaries, for example, imported large sections of the Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project (FVDP), which provides free content bilingual dictionaries to and from Vietnamese.Hồ Ngọc Đức, Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project. wikt:Wiktionary:Nguồn gốc/FVDP at the Vietnamese Wiktionary. These imported entries make up virtually all of the Vietnamese edition's offering. Like the English edition, the French Wiktionary has imported the approximately 20,000 entries in the Han unification database of CJK characters. The French Wiktionary grew rapidly in 2006 thanks in large part to bots copying many entries from old, freely-licensed dictionaries, such as the eighth edition of the
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 edition grew by nearly 80,000 entries as "LXbot" added boilerplate entries (with headings, but without definitions) for words in English and German language. LXbot
Most of Wiktionary currently uses a textual logo designed by Brion Vibber, a MediaWiki developer."wikt:Wiktionary talk:Wiktionary Logo", English Wiktionary, Wikimedia Foundation. Despite frequent discussion of modifying or replacing the logo, a four-phase contest held at the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki from
September 2006 to
October 2006"m:Wiktionary/logo", Meta-Wiki,
Wikimedia Foundation. did not see as much participation from the Wiktionary community as some community members had hoped. As of June 2007, the French, Vietnamese,
Italian language, Korean language,
Arabic language, Sicilian language, and Simple English editions have switched to the contest-chosen logo; the remaining editions use either the textual logo or, in the case of the Galician Wiktionary, :Image:Wiktionary-logo-gl.png bearing the Galicia (Spain)n coat of arms.
Critical reception
Critical reception of Wiktionary has been mixed. Jill Lepore wrote in the article "Noah’s Ark" for
The New Yorker, (November 6, 2006)The full article is not available on-line. {{cite news| author = Jill Lepore | title = Noah's Ark
| url = http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/06/061106fa_fact_lepore
| format = Abstract | publisher = The New Yorker
| date = 6 November 2006 | accessdate = 2007-04-21
-->
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 can cobble one together ourselves?
Wiktionary isn’t so much republican or democratic as Maoist. And it’s only as good as the copyright-expired books from which it pilfers. If you look up the word "Webster" in the
Wiktionary, you will be redirected to this handy tip:
Noah Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1911 (published by Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA) is a public domain dictionary, as is a 1913 edition, that can be used to empower
Wiktionary with more definitions.
Pfui. But, hey, at least they got his first name right.
Keir Graff’s review for
Booklist was more neutral:
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.
References in other publications are fleeting and part of larger discussions of Wikipedia, not progressing beyond a definition, although David Brooks in
The Telegraph described it as
wild and woolly.David Brooks, "Online, interactive encyclopedia not just for geeks anymore, because everyone seems to need it now, more than ever!"
The Telegraph (August 4, 2004) (
wiktionary:wooly is defined as "confused" and "unrestrained.") One of the impediments to independent coverage of Wiktionary is the continuing confusion that it is merely an extension of Wikipedia.In this citation, the author refers to Wiktionary as part of the Wikipedia site: {{cite news| author = Adapted from an article by Naomi DeTullio
| title = Wikis for Librarians
| url = http://www.netls.org/NewContent/NewsAndPictures/NEWSLETTERS/NEWS2006/142final.pdf
| format = PDF newsletter | work = NETLS News #142 | publisher = Northeast Texas Library System
| page = 15 | date = 2006 (1st Quarter) | accessdate = 2007-04-21
-->
In 2005,
PC Magazine rated Wiktionary as one of the Internet's "Top 101 Web Sites," although little information was given about the site.
Wiktionary statistics
{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px solid #aaaaaa; border-collapse: collapse; white-space: nowrap; text-align: left" class="sortable"|+
Ten largest Wiktionary language editions List of Wiktionary editions, ranked by article count. Accessed June 25, 2007.]|
English language| en|
532611| 661224| 2990719| 57| 45444| 5| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:18|- style="text-align: right;"| 2| French language| French language| fr|
464175| 507697| 2514317| 15| 4235| 15| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:44|- style="text-align: right;"| 3| Vietnamese language| Vietnamese language| vi|
225014| 230651| 704913| 3| 1014| 16| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:45|- style="text-align: right;"| 4| Turkish language|
Turkish language| tr|
163611| 178301| 304926| 6| 2158| 86| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:33|- style="text-align: right;"| 5|
Greek language|
Greek language| el|
153744| 167455| 435360| 5| 360| 23| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:21|- style="text-align: right;"| 6|
Russian language| Russian language| ru|
127320| 156052| 462554| 3| 869| 148| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:30:23|- style="text-align: right;"| 7|
Ido language| Ido language| io|
119288| 158014| 543480| 1| 107| 3| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:47|- style="text-align: right;"| 8|
Chinese language| Chinese language| zh|
113891| 131771| 477072| 6| 2905| 195| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:32|- style="text-align: right;"| 9| Polish language| Polish language| pl|
77292| 110446| 516929| 16| 1695| 72| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:33|- style="text-align: right;"| 10|
Italian language|
Italian language| it|
63936| 73773| 378379| 15| 1960| 50| style="font-size: 70%;" | 2007-09-18 00:31:35|}
See also
- OmegaWiki, a translating multilingual dictionary based on an extension of MediaWiki.
References
External links
- Wiktionary front page
- Wiktionary's Multilingual Statistics
- Wikimedia's page on Wiktionary (including list of all existing Wiktionaries)
- Pages about Wiktionary in Meta.
- The Wiktionary Widget for the Mac OS X Dashboard (software) which pulls up Wiktionary articles.
Wiktionary:Main Page - Wiktionary
Designed as the lexical companion to Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia project, Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary and now includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrase ...
Help:Contents - Wiktionary
Link Description; Introduction to this project: Brief explanation of the project, and links to introductory help pages. Frequently asked questions: Frequently asked questions that ...
Wiktionary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages.
Main Page - Simple English Wiktionary
Welcome to Wiktionary in Simple English, an online dictionary that uses simple words so it is easier to understand. We have 4,352 entries. To find a word, type it into the "search ...
Wiktionary
Summary Wiktionary is a collaborative online project designed to produce a free multilingual dictionary in every language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, quotations ...
Wiktionary
中文 自由的多语言词典 116 000+ 条词条 Ελληνικά Το Ελεύθερο Λεξικό
Wiktionary - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
Ard-ghuillag - Wiktionary
This is the Manx Wiktionary: it aims to describe all words of all languages, with definitions and descriptions in Manx only. For example, see bird (an English word).
Wiktionary logos - Wikimedia Commons
Portuguese Wiktionary 20,000th entry logo (he was not used because he was not the chosen one for the community)
Wiktionary:Huvudsida - Wiktionary
Vad är Wiktionary? Wiktionary är ett projekt, öppet för alla att delta i, med målsättningen att skapa en fri ordbok för alla ord i alla språk, med förklaringar ...
