Wiktionary:Wikisaurus
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
This is the main project page of Wikisaurus—a Wiktionary subproject and a wiki namespace aiming at creating a thesaurus—a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms.
Please contribute your own Wikisaurus entries, or add to the existing Wikisaurus entries.
Contents |
[edit] Purpose
- See also /purpose
The purpose of Wikisaurus is to serve the role of an electronic thesaurus—a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms in a rather vague and inaccurate sense of the word "synonym". The definition of "synonym" is, quoting Wiktionary, "A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, the word or phrase." For the purpose of thesaurus, the definition needs to be adjusted: the word "very" has to be stricken out from the part "very similar". Many thesauri go much farther than that: they list words whose meaning is close enough to the headword to be interesting for the user, disregarding any precise meaning of the word "synonym". The concept of a dictionary of accurate synonyms is incapable of producing typical entries of 20 vague synonyms. (To remove the confusion, coinage of a new term, such as "similonym", would be helpful, although there already is "near-synonym".)
The purpose of such a thesaurus in general is mainly to help anyone who writes for living or fun—writers, managers, contributors to wikis, bloggers, writers of love letters—to find words when they only recall words with slightly different meaning. In general, anyone to whom the choice of words matters can benefit from a thesaurus, especially one linked to a dictionary providing the definitions.
Added value of Wikisaurus is its Wiktionary integration—it links to and is linked from Wiktionary.
To do: add a link to an external consideration of value and uses of thesauri.
[edit] Models
Candidate model thesauri include Roget's thesaurus, and, say, The Penguin Thesurus. The two follow different design principles.
[edit] Multilingualism
Whether Wikisaurus at en.wiktionary.org should contain entries for other languages than English is currently undecided or disputed. Entries for foreign languages could look like Wikisaurus:příbuzný and Wikisaurus:juoppo. An alternative naming of the entries is "Wikisaurus:cs:příbuzný" and "Wikisaurus:fi:juoppo", modeled on the naming of topic categories.
[edit] Formatting
Formatting seems to be in flux. Specified and discussed at:
- /format
- Help:Creating a Wikisaurus entry - out of date
- {{ws shell}} - A template for copying and pasting into new Wikisaurus entries.
[edit] Layout
See #Formatting
[edit] Templates
Lists of templates:
Template naming:
- Use "ws " prefix. Basis for decision: Grease pit discussion of July 2008. (Past prefixes: "wse-", "wikisaurus-", "saurus-".)
Templates:
| Template | Example | Note | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The second entry is a lazy one. The third one shows no tooltip, but also does not make it clear that one is missing. | |||||
|
To be put around a list of {{ws}} entries. Currently formats the list as a 3-column one. | ||||
|
Entered at the very top of the entry. When without parameter, determines the headword automatically. | ||||
| Example: | The second example only works if the subpage "/def" is there. | ||||
| {{comment-link}} | Deprecated in Wikisaurus. Preferred template: {{ws}} | ||||
| {{Wikisaurus-link}} | Used for linking from WT articles. Whether encouraged is unclear. | ||||
| {{R:Roget 1911|beauty}} | “beauty” in Roget's Thesaurus, T. Y. Crowell Co., 1911. | ||||
| {{ws sense|glad; in a good mood}} | Sense: glad; in a good mood | Used after the third level heading for the part of speech. |
[edit] Status
Since its inception in 2004, the project is in an embryo stage. The formatting is in flux, the entries are few -- 275, so are the contributors. --Dan Polansky 12:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Spelling
The current spelling is Wikisaurus with lowercase 's'. In the past, it must have been WikiSaurus with capital 'S' at some point.
[edit] Title
The current title of the project is "Wikisaurus". Alternatives considered include "Wikithesaurus".
[edit] Logo
The past, currently disabled, logo:
.
This logo
was proposed here in December 2006.
To do: add links to discussions about logo.
[edit] Online thesauri
Public domain
- Searchable 1911 version of Roget's Thesaurus hosted by the University of Chicago
- Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward - public domain
- Public Domain Db's Free Online Thesaurus and Dictionary - searchable copy
- Dictionary at datasegment.com - includes Moby thesaurus in its search results
Libre
- None listed.
Commercial
- http://thesaurus.reference.com
- http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus
- http://www.bartleby.com/62/
- http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
- http://encarta.msn.com/thesaurus__/thesaurus.html
- http://www.fao.org/agrovoc/
- http://www.slangasaur.us
[edit] Recent changes
[edit] Shortcuts
- See also Wiktionary:Shortcut.
- WT:WSI - a Wikisaurus index.
- WT:WS - could be made redirect to this page. Currently redirects to Wiktionary shortcuts.
[edit] Subpages
Project subpages:
- Help:Creating a Wikisaurus entry -- out of date, see /format
- Wiktionary:Thesaurus considerations - Original discussion about the project.
- /purpose - Centre for discussion of the purpose of Wikisaurus
- Has 230 words now. Last substantial change: 11 June 2007. --Daniel Polansky 09:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
- /improvements - Discussion about the direction and overall project.
- /improvements/archive - Its talkpage has a discussion from July 2008.
- /format - Discussion about the formatting and general contents of a Wikisaurus entry.
- /requested entries - A lot of words with candidate lists of synonyms that can be used as a starting point for creation of entries. The size of the page: 700 words. --Dan Polansky 11:34, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
- /templates - a short list, currently worthless
[edit] To do
Things to do:
- /Requested entries - add requested entries
- Requests for cleanup - clean up entries with formatting and other problems
- Appendix:Roget's thesaurus classification - add entries using Roget's thesaurus as a checklist and model
[edit] List of all Wikisaurus words
[edit] Discussions at Beer Parlour
The following list is highly incomplete.
- January-April 2008 : none found.
- WikiSaurus - May 2008 - a proposal of deletion of Wikisaurus
- Thesaurus_flunky - May 2008
- Specific_Universal_Changes_in_Wikisaurus - June 2008
- Yet_Another_Interminable_Discussion_about_Wikisaurus - July 2008
- Category:Wikisaurus - July 2008
- Wikisaurus at cross purposes - July 2008 - including whether all items in WS entries should link to WS or to WT - many participants
- Wikisaurus alteration - Sep 2008 - about the appearance of {{ws}}.
- Moby Project - Sep 2008
- Wikisaurus - non-English entries - Mar 2009
- on using the Wikisaurus - Apr 2009

