Wiktionary:Feedback

This page is for collecting feedback from Wiktionary readers. It should be cleaned out on a three-month basis, as new comments are constantly being added. Feel free to reply to and discuss comments here, though bear in mind that the people who leave the feedback may never come back to read replies. By convention, the feedback is not archived.

Links: Wiki Javascript (for adding to your WMF Wiki.)

Frequently asked questions

Do you have general questions about the Wiktionary? See Help:FAQ.

• Q. X isn’t a real word! Why do you have an entry for it?
• A. Like most dictionaries, Wiktionary describes and records how people use languages, and does not try to prescribe what is supposedly right or wrong. In some cases, labels are added to warn people that certain usages may be regarded as, for example, derogatory to some people or regarded by some people as proscribed (generally recommended not to be used). If you really feel that an entry should not in Wiktionary, discuss the matter with other editors at Wiktionary:Tea room. Alternatively, if you have done a search at websites such as Google Books and the Internet Archive and cannot find uses of the term, you can request for the entry to be verified at Wiktionary:Requests for verification (see that page for instructions).

• Q. Why don’t you provide audio files giving the pronunciations of all entries?
• A. The recording of audio files requires volunteer editors who have the right equipment and software, and who know how to upload these files to the Wikimedia Commons. All this is somewhat time-consuming, and it seems that at the moment we simply don’t have editors who are able to do this for us regularly. We suggest that you learn how to read the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions of pronunciations. For English entries, you can visit Appendix:English pronunciation, which you can also reach by clicking on the “(key)” link next to the word IPA on entry pages.

• Q. How do I propose that a Wiktionary for another language be started?
• A. See incubator:Help:Manual.

For questions about the Word of the Day, see Wiktionary:Word of the day/FAQ.

November 2025

Wiktionary:Shughni_transliteration

Hello, I would like to request an update to the current transliteration system used for the Shughni language. The transliteration in this module does not match the system used on the Shughni Wikipedia Incubator. For consistency across Wikimedia projects, could you please change the transliteration to the one used at Wp/sgh?

Thank you very much! ~2025-33870-50 (talk) 05:08, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

I suggest that you repost this at "Wiktionary:Beer parlour" for discussion. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:01, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Community_Portal

thank you very much for this treasure of the human race

Wernicke

Please get visual editing here too, like Wikipedia.

December 2025

Malagasy Wiktionary mostly bot generated?

Among the largest languages in Wiktionary, next to English, Chinese etc. is also Malagasy. How!?

Comparison:
English: 5000 active users (77 admins) => 8.6M pages
German: 400 active users (12 admins) => 1.2M pages
Malagasy: 77 active users (2 admins) => 5.8M pages!

Appearently, most of these 6M pages are bot generated by auto-translating English & French entries. If you click on "Pejy kisendra" (Random page), there's a 70% chance you get a page looking more or less like this (in Malagasy, of course):

Spanish - Verb form
rumiaban
third-person plural imperfect indicative of the verb rumiar
This page was translated from the English Wiktionary page rumiaban.

or

French - Verb form
désémigrassiez
second-person plural imperfect subjunctive of the verb désémigrer
This page was translated from the French Wiktionary page désémigrassiez.

BTW, similar thing happened to Malagasy Wikipedia. Someone took a database with location data for (my estimate) 70.000 towns worldwide and template-generated a stub article for each. Now, if you click on "Takelaka kisendra" (Random Article) you have a 70% chance to get precise geographic coordinates for a town you've never heard of in your life. Like Caraúbas (5°47′33″S 37°33′24″W / 5.792500°S 37.556670°W).

~2025-38344-46 (talk) 15:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

@~2025-38344-46: Yes, this is well-known. A combination of one very dedicated hobbyist (User:Jagwar) who is the admin and runs the bot, and a lack of others interested or knowledgeable in the language. This has been discussed 5 years ago on Requests_for_comment/Large-scale_errors_at_Malagasy_Wiktionary on Wikimedia Meta-wiki.Wikimedia Meta-wiki Vuccala (talk) 01:05, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

likame

The lemma says:

For the development of the sequence /k.h/ into either /k/ or /x/, compare Michel (“Michael”).

But the lemma Michel does not describe the development of /kh/ at all. It only demonstrates that the Middle English word had various pronunciations based on where the word came from (Old English, French or Latin).

Is the link target wrong?

~2025-39216-62 (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Hazarasp, you wrote the lemma text so maybe you could explain a bit?

~2025-40045-71 (talk) 19:32, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The Middle English entry at Michel was created some time ago and doesn't necessarily represent my current thinking. In writing the text at likame, my assumption was that either Old English Michael had a spelling pronunciation of sorts where ⟨ch⟩ was taken to represent two consonants or that syncope occurred in the alternative form Michahel, creating a sequence [k.h], which then evolved into either /k/ or /x/ like with likame. However, I'll soften the language somewhat since there are several weaknesses with this assumption (for instance, forms with /x/ seem to be more widespread for Michel than with likame). Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 02:46, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Main_Page

Please change the name of "Serbo-Croatian" and split it into "Serbian" and "Croatian." These are agreed upon to be two separate languages, and in fact, so many words are different that almost every single dictionary entry under Serbo-Croatian has a different word that is "chiefly" used in Serbia or "chiefly" used in Croatia. This is because they are obviously two different languages! Use logic please! Just change it. ~2025-40031-55 (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

• We've had multiple discussions about this on en.wikt. See Wiktionary:Serbo-Croatian entry guidelines Vealhurl (talk) 22:46, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

συνίημι

Please edit table subtitle for the Aorist to indicate this is Koine. I would make the proposed edit but I don't know how.

appearance settings

At least when i'm not logged in, the apparance settings don't stick and get reset every few days. It'd be nice if they stuck, or failing that, if they stayed set much longer than they do, or at the very least, if the color defaulted to "automatic". DancesWithPeons (talk) 00:22, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

extenuate: Quotations mangled

I'm trying to figure out why the quotations which were added correctly by humans got replaced with incorrect OCR versions at some point. For example, back in 2012 User:CopperKettle added a well selected quote from Shakespeare's Ado which said:

1599, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4 Scene 1

CLAUDIO. I know what you would say: if I have known her,

You'll say she did embrace me as a husband,

And so extenuate the forehand sin: No, Leonato,

I never tempted her with word too large;

But, as a brother to his sister, show'd

Bashful sincerity and comely love.

But the current version is a travesty, replacing "W" with "VV" and adding other distractions:

1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

I knovv vvhat you vvould ſay: if I haue knovvne her, / You vvill ſay, ſhe did imbrace me as a husband, / And ſo extenuate the forehand ſinne: No, Leonato, / I never tempted her vvith vvord too large; / But as a brother to his ſiſter, ſhevved / Baſhful ſinceritie, and comelie loue.

No human would have made such mistakes, so I assume it was a rogue bot. It would be good to identify it and revert all of its edits.

Hackerb9 (talk) 07:57, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

@Hackerb9: Strange as it may seem, that's the way they were spelled in the original editions. Back then, "u" and "v" were interchangeable, and double-u was literally spelled with two "u"s. The "long s", "ſ", was still in use. Modern editions replace them with the modern equivalents and it's debatable whether these quotes should be so authentic that modern readers have trouble deciphering them- but they're quite accurate. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:57, 29 December 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Main_Page

Unlike on Wikpedia, the "hide" button on the Main Menu resets each time the page is refreshed. This is very annoying as it shifts the actually useful part of the sidebar down and forces me to scroll or re-hide the menu each time. Please save this setting via browser cookie. Thank you. ~2025-41070-53 (talk) 20:44, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

agreed

please allow to hide menu and tools ~2026-13223-94 (talk) 04:47, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

i love wiktionary

this is amazing!!! i love wiktionary (i normally edit on wp)

January 2026

suggestion: page lead

compared to wikipedia, i don't think wiktionary is accessible/intuitive enough. it should have a lead section like wikipedia, which would, e.g., include the word, the ipa pronunciation (and possibly pronunciation spelling), the (short) definition(s), and the etymology/history of its usage. repeat these things in another paragraph if there are homonyms of the word (i.e. identically-spelled words with a different pronunciations and/or etymologies) LGaps (talk) 20:07, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this request, since what you suggested seems consistent with what we already do. See WT:EL for more on how entries are laid out. Can you give an example of an entry that you find inaccessible/unintuitive? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:35, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

seemingly every entry there is: e.g. book, chair, key, etc. i'm proposing an introductory lead section at the top that would summarize the page (since this is the English wiktionary, with an English focus), something like so:

{Word} (pronunciation: {pronunciation}) is a {language} {word class}. It primarily means {definition}. It originates from {etymology}.

an example using book:

Book (IPA: /bʊk/) is an English noun. It primarily means, "a collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc.". It originates from the Old English bōc.

It is also an English verb. It primarily means, "to reserve (something) for future use". It originates from the Old English bōcian.

this is imperfectly phrased, but you get the point. LGaps (talk) 17:50, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that I do. You're suggesting that we take our definition entries and then summarize them? Definitions are already pretty short and I think readable if you are looking to find a specific piece of information. Repeating a definition multiple times seems like more clutter to me. Maybe you can make an example in your user space? If you made User:LGaps/sandbox and showed us an entry that you would like to see formatted in this manner that may make it more clear, but I think this is a non-starter. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:54, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I don’t think you’re familiar with how a dictionary is structured. What you’re proposing is the structure used in an encyclopedia, which is why Wikipedia uses it. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 19:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@LGaps: I see where you're coming from, but I agree with the other editors above that it would lead to a lot of repetition. Also, I think it's a big assumption that it's possible to identify a single "primary meaning" for every term, without being inaccurate. What, for example, is the primary meaning of bark—the outer covering of a tree, or the sound a dog makes? What about a word like cover or set which has multiple parts of speech? — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

suicide

Hello, "suicide" (verb) seems to be merely an american usage in english " (Dictionary of Americanisms, 2nd ed. enlarged Par John Russell Bartlett · 1877 p.679) — This unsigned comment was added by Bigmcarony (talk • contribs).

Thanks. I'll add this to the talk page and it could be added to the entry. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:03, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@Bigmcaronyand @Koavf as a speaker of a non-American dialect of English, I would dispute that suicide as a verb is "merely American". I'm only one data point, but equally I don't think a book from the 19th century can be used to say this about 21st century English. Arafsymudwr (talk) 10:50, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Good to know. As an ignorant American, I learn something new every day. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:52, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary app like that of Wikipedia

Wikipedia app is great, would like to see one for Wiktionary as well.

Currently using Aard2, but it requires downloading heavy offline databases separately, which is also outdated (not live).

~2026-28538-7 (talk) 09:25, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

Why/how would that be better than using Firefox? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:38, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

To be fair, I want to ask the same question about the Wikipedia app. In fact, I think there’s more reason for a Wiktionary app if anything, because it seems to me like a dictionary is more the kind of thing you want offline access to. But it’s up to the WMF to make anything of the sort; not us.

Although... didn’t there use to be an unofficial app that pulled from Wiktionary? I bet it still exists. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 03:56, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

podwarszawski

The syllables are incorrectly specified! Abraham (talk) 09:52, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

@Vininn126:, as creator of {{pl-pr}} —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:15, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

Simple fix. @Abraham @Koavf Vininn126 (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC)

coder needed

Temporary accounts cannot hide the Tools and Main menu sidebars permanently. This results in annoying unneeded excess scrolling. Please delete these sidebars. ~2026-40610-8 (talk) 09:45, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary_talk:Preferences_for_users_without_an_account

How do we get rid off the useless main menu that hides the ToC? ~2026-42980-3 (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

Nowe Miasteczko

The syllables are incorrectly specified! Abraham (talk) 15:39, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

@BigDom — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 03:57, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Done. BigDom 09:03, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

αγχώνομαι

Well, since you ask about the appearance of Wiktionary, I think it should embrace good typography, like a serif font and paragraph justification.

I just did some digging and realized that you neither enforce straight quotes nor curly quotes, which is a much better compromise than Wikipedia's, although I do prefer curly quotes. I also think you should use typographically correct en dashes and hyphens, with the same spirit of laxity towards people who don't (& buttressed by adding appropriate redirects and so on).

But, yeah, the serif font is far more important in practical terms to having a nice‐looking website. And justified text, too (even though wiktionary paragraphs are rarely even long enough to exhibit the justification that would be enabled).

Also, I'm on vector 2022 skin btw and I feel like the language sections need to be separated from each other more. Like, the language heading is actually weighted less than its subsections, even is they are technically slightly smaller, which isn't ideal. There could also be a stronger rule between those sections.

One last thing, which is only vaguely related to appearance: I feel like it's too unergonomic to make cross‐links to specific senses of other words (I think it's a manual, multi‐step process), so editors don't do that, which sometimes gets confusing if the sense is at all ambiguous.

Well... since you also mention usefulness, I'm sure this would be controversial, but here's a further opinion of mine: probably all case variants should be covered on the same page. If I go to boot it should also have Boot and BOOT on there — as different headwords, sure, allowing for those semantic differences — but still on there.

Thanks for your time :) Dingolover6969 (talk) 03:51, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

My feedback is not related to the page I was on when I saw the "If you have time, leave us a note." text, btw. Dingolover6969 (talk) 03:53, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

File:LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ineconomy.wav

This is crap. ~2026-67751-4 (talk) 13:16, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the quality of this editor's recordings is pretty variable. @Vealhurl, consider re-recording this? — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:40, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Next time, tag it with |bad=fuzzy Vealhurl (talk) 22:37, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

February 2026

Appreciation and Word of the Day predictions

Wiktionary is an absolute treasure. From etymologies to IPA pronunciations, the depths and accessibility are unmatched. Thank you for being the almost perfect linguistic resource for me. I would also present my 2026 Word of the Day predictions: Chopinian (1 March 2026), telephone (10 March 2026), mama (21 March 2026), on the spectrum (18 June 2026), Shakespearean (23 April 2026), papa (21 June 2026), Winnie-the-Poohish (14 October 2026), and Beethovenian (16 December 2026) Siu Sha (talk) 10:14, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

@Siu Sha: if you would like to nominate terms for WOTD, please put them at "Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations". Thanks. — Sgconlaw (talk) 10:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm glad I could be of assistance. Siu Sha (talk) 14:30, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Kirk

The meaning for fellatio seems to be someone's creative writing attempt backed by Instagram links. The page should be protected. ££££

Feedback

The site is becoming more useless all the time. It should NOT be a world heritage dictionary of all cultures but a way to learn the origin of commonly used words. Many many obscure and obsolete languages clutter the pages recently that I need the scroll through just to find the most common ones. I am soon switching to a more useful and easy to navigate etymology site to do my linguistic research. Please consider a preferences feature to select which languages a search should cover. Gnarlodious (talk) 10:29, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Try Ninjawords if you want to use our definitions without extra faff Vealhurl (talk) 22:49, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks like a good dictionary but doesn't give mainstream etymology. Gnarlodious (talk) 06:03, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

How do I make these languages disappear from my search results?

Betawi

Chickasaw

Kapampangan

Lingala

Nupe

Pali

Pitjantjatjara

Rapa Nui

Volapük

Yosondúa Mixtec Gnarlodious (talk) 03:04, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

sneedhon

Why does this page exist for a word with no cultural basis? Cyberitual (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

@Cyberitual: what do you mean by "cultural basis"? New terms are being coined all the time, and if there is sufficient evidence that they are used by other people, we include them.

Having said that, I've nominated the entry for verification at "Wiktionary:Requests for verification/English#sneedhon" as it looks like there is only one qualifying quotation; at least three are required. — Sgconlaw (talk) 10:47, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Special:PrefixIndex

There should be a counterpart to Special:PrefixIndex that lets you search for articles whose titles end with a given string, as opposed to how Special:PrefixIndex lets you search for articles whose titles start with a given string. It could be named Special:SuffixIndex. – Treetoes023 (talk) 23:23, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

@Treetoes023: I gather that it's too computationally expensive to offer this with the present system. ~2026-13128-75 (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Maybe, but there's no harm in trying it out first. – Treetoes023 (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

@Treetoes023 Prefixes are apparently a part of the MediaWiki architecture, since that's the way namespaces are represented. This would require adding another layer of overhead to populate. There is a tool at Toolforge that does this with data imported from here, but not working directly on the wiki itself. If you don't mind the possibility of things being slightly out of date, it does exactly what you want: https://dixtosa.toolforge.org/ . It's been there for many years, so it may not be maintained anymore- but it still works. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

To do this efficiently, you'd need a database migration in MediaWiki to store and also index the title column, but reversed. Something like ALTER TABLE pages ADD COLUMN reversed_title VARCHAR(...) GENERATED ALWAYS AS (REVERSE(title)) VIRTUAL, ADD INDEX reversed_title (ns, reversed_title); which is both nontrivial and more storage and changes to the underlying software of the wiki. It's not something that can be done without changing the software that runs the wiki. — Naomi Amethyst 23:33, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

gestern

I use Wiktionary daily as a supplement to Duolingo and Babbel, for Arabic, Chinese (simplified), French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Spanish, and Ukrainian. The search window should stay visible so I don't have to scroll back up to the top for my next search. It would be nice if I could set a default language at the top so I only see my target language, or if my target language was the only language expanded. ~2026-13543-13 (talk) 16:00, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Word of the day: aflame

The caption invoking the war in Iran feels in poor taste, but also I don't understand the connection to Pyle. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:01, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: the Pyle mention was added by @Apisite; I don’t know why. I’ve removed it for irrelevance. — Sgconlaw (talk) 10:45, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: Couldn't mentioning the fact about Howard Pyle's birthday be a better choice? Or What else is better? --Apisite (talk) 11:34, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: The story "The Stool of Fortune" in Twilight Land by Howard Pyle has a bonfire involved at one point in its plot. --Apisite (talk) 11:36, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester So you could see why. --Apisite (talk) 11:42, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Apisite: you can’t expect readers to know something as arcane as that without explaining it, and I have to say that’s a very tangential connection to aflame. It’s like featuring shoe on Enid Blyton’s birth anniversary just because she once wrote a story which involved a shoe. In any case, it is inapt to have two largely unrelated comments in a WOTD. I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with noting that the 2026 Iran war started five days ago; it’s a current news event and the WOTD comment is neutral. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:45, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I just think of WOTD as being a relatively light, frivolous thing, and it feels a bit weird to highlight that Iran and Dubai are aflame. Not super bad taste or anything - if you think it's OK, we can leave it - but it feels a bit like having pneumonia as word of the day during peak COVID or something. Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:44, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: we actually did have COVID-19-related entries and themes. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:18, 5 March 2026 (UTC)