Talk:amazon

Adjective questionability

It is my belief that there is no such adjective form of the word amazon. As in the quote given in this entry, to say one has an "amazon physique" is simply combining two separate nouns to make a description, as opposed to using the legitimate adjective form amazonian. There is also no mention of the word amazon being an adjective on dictionary.com or in the Oxford English Dictionary; so therefore, in light of all this, I feel the adjective section in this entry should be removed as erroneous. 194.73.217.242 17:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I have tagged the sense with {{rfd-sense}} this means that, if no verification for this entry can be found within a month or so, it will be deleted. Incidentally we do not look to other dictionaries to determine whether words <edit>exist</edit> or not, though we try to mark, using {{warn|neologism}}, those that few others have. Yours Conrad.Irwin 17:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Very well. Incidentally, if one does not look to other lexicographical sources to determine and verify the authenticity of these entries, internet users from around the world could invent a myriad of convincing but illegitimate words and successfully present them as authentic. 194.73.217.242 18:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You sound like the kind of person that we need to help us with our policies :). At the moment our criteria for inclusion are reasonably simple but do provide us with a way to maintain a reasonable reliability and coverage without drowning under the swathe of nonce words or protologisms. One of the main reasons that we do not rely on other dictionaries is because although they can only update once in a while, Wiktionary can be updated within minutes. We do consult other dictionaries, not to do so would be extremely arrogant, but we do not rely on them, as that would (IMO) force us to concede that we were second-rate. Conrad.Irwin 18:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with 194.73.217.242 that the adjective is Amazonian (strictly with a capital), but even the OED mentions one use of "Amazon-dress" (almost adjectival usage from 1711), and Google books have many examples of "amazon body", (though only two for "amazon physique"). There is widespread usage of Amazon basin, Amazon forest, etc. Do these not count as adjectival usage? Dbfirs 20:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not reckon so. As I said before, I think it is the combination of two nouns to create a description. For example, the word car in car driver is not an adjective, it remains a noun, even though it describes the kind of vehicles being driven. Another example can be found in the sentence "She has a supermodel figure". Supermodel is not an adjective, it is a noun combined with a second noun (figure) to describe the person in question's physicality. 194.73.217.242 00:02, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Can we move this discussion to the rest of the "Request for verification" process here. Conrad.Irwin 00:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for verification - kept

Kept. See archived discussion of June 2008. 18:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)