Wiktionary:Hall of Fame
These entries have exceptionally many definitions, translations, pronunciations, plurals, alternative forms, etc. (The lists are currently maintained manually; some entries may have been missed. Suggest new categories on the talk page. Each category should list only the top 30 entries max.)
Longest etymological chains
[edit]- Terms which passed (by borrowing) through the greatest number of languages on their way to their destination. (Descent through different temporal stages of a language doesn't count, e.g. a word that passed from PIE into Proto-Italic into Latin into Old French into Middle French, and was borrowed into Middle English and survived into modern English, was only borrowed once: otherwise, this becomes just a list of "languages for which we reconstruct, and which we divide up into, the most ancestors".)
- jaabu (“soap”) (Dhuwal, 8 links): from Makasar, from Malay, from Arabic, from Syriac, from Aramaic, from Ancient Greek, from Latin, from Proto-Germanic
- cukurs (“sugar”) (Latvian, 7 links): from Livonian, from German, from Latin, from Italian, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit
- oka (English, 7 links): from Italian, from French, from Turkish, possibly from Arabic, from Classical Syriac, from Greek, from Latin
- शामन (śāman, “shaman”) (Hindi, 7 links): from English, from German, from Russian, from Evenki, from either Tocharian B or Chinese, ultimately (either way) from Pali, from Sanskrit
- カノン (kanon, “cannon”) (Japanese, 7 links): from Dutch, from Middle French, from Italian, from Latin, from Ancient Greek, from Akkadian, from Sumerian.
- キャノン (kyanon, “cannon”) (Japanese, 7 links): from English, from Old French, from Italian, from Latin, from Ancient Greek, from Akkadian, from Sumerian.
- papirosa (English, 6-7 links): from Russian, from Polish, partly from Spanish, and partly from German, from Latin, from Greek, from Egyptian
- rais and raes (“rice”) (Tok Pisin and Bislama, 6+ links): from English, from [Old] French, from [Old] Italian, from [Byzantine] Greek, from Persian/Iranian, from some Eastern source [compare Sanskrit, from Dravidian or something else]
- cukier (“sugar”) (Polish, 6 links): from German, from Latin, from Italian, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit
- inkivääri (“ginger”) (Finnish, 6 links): from Swedish, from [Middle] Low German, from Latin, from Greek, from Middle Indic, from Dravidian/Tamil
- kanava (“canal”) (Finnish, 6 links) from Russian, from Polish, from Italian (inherited from Latin), from Ancient Greek, from Akkadian, from Sumerian
- sokeri (“sugar”) (Finnish, 6 links): from Swedish, from Low German, from Italian, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit
- shaman (English, 6 links): from German, from Russian, from Evenki, from either Tocharian B or Chinese, ultimately (either way) from Pali, from Sanskrit
- Taigris (“Tigris river”) (Tok Pisin, 6 links): from English, from Latin, from Greek, from Persian, from Elamite, from Sumerian
- オレンジ (orenji, “orange (fruit or color)”) (Japanese, 6 links): from English, from French, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit, from Dravidian
- burnoose (English, 6 links): from French, from Arabic, from Aramaic, from Greek, from Latin, from Gaulish
- indium (English, 5-6 links): from New Latin, from German, from Spanish, from Greek, from [Old] Persian, possibly from the BMAC substrate
- sabre (English, 4-6 links): from French, from German, from Polish, from Hungarian, from perhaps a Turkic language, from perhaps Manchu
Longest words
[edit]- Ancient Greek: λοπαδοτεμαχοσελαχογαλεοκρανιολειψανοδριμυποτριμματοσιλφιοκαραβομελιτοκατακεχυμενοκιχλεπικοσσυφοφαττοπεριστεραλεκτρυονοπτοκεφαλλιοκιγκλοπελειολαγῳοσιραιοβαφητραγανοπτερύγων (171 characters)
- Thai: กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบูรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์ (145 characters)
- German: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (63 characters)
- For the longest words in English, see: Category:Long English words
The above list excludes spellings of sign language terms, the longest of which is in American Sign Language: FlatB@InsideChesthigh-PalmAcross-FlatB@InsideChesthigh-PalmAcross FlatB@InsideTrunkhigh-FlatB@InsideTrunkhigh FlatB@DistalCenterChesthigh-PalmBack-FlatB@NearCenterChesthigh-PalmBack FlatB@DistalCenterTrunkhigh-PalmBack-FlatB@NearCenterTrunkhigh-PalmBack (253 characters).
Most anagrams
[edit]- TSA (English, 27)
- parse (English, 27)
- stare (English, 27)
- scare (English, 24)
- least (English, 21)
- phrase (English, 20)
Most borrowings of the same word into the same language
[edit]Direct repeat borrowings
[edit]- Cases where one language repeatedly borrowed the same word from another language.
- Vietnamese borrowed Chinese 卷 (“to roll; a roll”) 8 times: as cuốn, as cuộn, as cuợn, as quận, as quấn, as quyển, as quyền, and as quyến.
- English borrowed Narragansett mishcùp (plural mishcùppaûog) 4 times: as mishcup, as scup, as paugie, and as scuppaug (all names for the porgy, Stenotomus chrysops).
Other repeated acquisitions (including through inheritance)
[edit]Latin macula made its way into Portuguese at least 7 times:
- mancha (“stain, mark, spot”) is a regular Portuguese descendant,
- mágoa (“grief, sorrow”) is another regular descendant,
- and malha (“stain in animal fur”) is a third regular descendant,
- while mangra (“mildew”) came (possibly via Spanish) from a reduced Vulgar Latin form macla;
- meanwhile, malha (“mail”) arrived via French,
- mácula (“stain, blemish”) was borrowed directly from Latin,
- and maquis was borrowed via French from Corsican.
- Furthermore, macla (“crystal twinning”), which comes from French macle, is of unclear origin; it may derive from macula (“spot”), or it may derive from mascula (“mesh”).
Latin macula also made its way into English at least 5 times:
- macula (“a spot on skin, the eye, a planet or a moon”) was borrowed directly,
- macule (“blur or double impression in printing”) (and variant form mackle) came via French macule,
- mail (“chainmail”) passed through Old French maille (losing the 'c'),
- macchia (“Mediterranean scrubland”) came via Corsican (losing the 'l')
- and maquis (“(French) resistance movement”) came via the same Corsican route but with an added detour through French.
- Furthermore, macle (“crystal, twin crystal”), which comes from French macle, is of unclear origin; it may derive from macula (“spot”), or it may derive from mascula (“mesh”).
Most descendants
[edit]- widely borrowed words
- Proto-Indo-European *ḱorkeh₂ ("gravel, boulder"; in descendants: "sugar") (260 descendants, of which 174 are instances of borrowing)
- Proto-Germanic *saipǭ (“soap”) (201 descendants, mostly through borrowing)
- Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-la (the source of "tea"; 168 descendants, mostly instances of borrowing)
- widely inherited, inherited by a large number of child languages
- Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres (191 descendants, mostly instances of inheritance)
- Proto-Bantu *màjíjɪ̀ (94 descendants, mostly instances of inheritance)
- Latin *metipsimus (68 descendants, mostly instances of inheritance)
Most etymology sections a.k.a. most homographs
[edit]- Terms of more than one character
- da (Yoruba, 20)
- here (Middle English, 15)
- won (Middle English, 15)
- zꜣ (Egyptian, 15)
- wane (Middle English, 14)
- 고비 (gobi) (Korean, 14)
- 上下 (Japanese, 13)
- 지대 (jidae) (Korean, 13)
- 정식 (jeongsik) (Korean, 13)
- wan (Middle English, 13)
- chỉ (Vietnamese, 13)
- bi (Yoruba, 13)
- -er (English, 12)
- her (Middle English, 12)
- tau (Tokelau, 12)
- sin (Yoruba, 12)
- 𑜁𑜧 (khaw) (Ahom, 11)
- 幾許 (Japanese, 11)
- 사화 (sahwa) (Korean, 11)
- ta (Yoruba, 11)
- yọ (Yoruba, 11)
- con (English, 10)
- 𑜁𑜩 (khay) (Ahom, 10)
- ردن (Arabic, 10)
- لعب (Arabic, 10)
- 감수 (gamsu) (Korean, 10)
- brede (Middle English, 10)
- hure (Middle English, 10)
- lo (Norwegian Bokmål, 10)
- 𒋼 (Sumerian, 10)
- bẹ (Yoruba, 10)
- ja (Yoruba, 10)
- re (Yoruba, 10)
- tọ (Yoruba, 10)
- dun (English, 9)
- سر (Urdu, 9)
- کل (Urdu, 9)
- 연기 (yeon'gi) (Korean, 9)
- dag (English, 8)
- es (Old Irish, 8)
- lay (English, 8)
- rout (English, 8)
- ver (Icelandic, 8)
- חרש (Hebrew, 8)
- 食物 (Japanese, 8)
- 달다 (dalda) (Korean, 8)
- calão (Portuguese, 7)
- lease (English, 7)
- mole (English, 7)
- peel (English, 7)
- weer (Dutch, 7)
- چک (Persian, 7)
- ܥܪܒܐ (Classical Syriac, 7)
- ܩܦܠܐ (Classical Syriac, 7)
- ܩܪܝܬܐ (Classical Syriac, 7)
- 수도 (sudo) (Korean, 7)
- 켜다 (kyeoda) (Korean, 7)
- Single characters
- 哈 (Chinese, 18)
- 私 (Japanese, 17)
- a (English, 16)
- 敦 (Chinese, 15)
- 이 (i) (Korean, 14)
- a- (English, 11)
- 靖 (Japanese, 11)
- 頭 (Japanese, 11)
- 장 (jang) (Korean, 11)
- 咪 (Chinese, 10)
- 賁/贲 (Chinese, 10)
- K (Chinese, 10)
- Q (Chinese, 10)
- 平 (Japanese, 10)
- 가 (ga) (Korean, 10)
- 전 (jeon) (Korean, 10)
- 신 (sin) (Korean, 10)
- 상 (sang) (Korean, 10)
- 수 (su) (Korean, 10)
- 요 (yo) (Korean, 10)
- 양 (yang) (Korean, 10)
- 柄 (Japanese, 9)
- 질 (jil) (Korean, 9)
- -a (English, 8)
- 守 (Japanese, 8)
- 尿 (Japanese, 8)
- 幸 (Japanese, 8)
- 전 (jeon) (Korean, 8)
- X (English, 7)
- 匙 (Japanese, 7)
- 母 (Japanese, 7)
- 苧 (Japanese, 7)
- 말 (mal) (Korean, 7)
- स (sa) (Sanskrit, 7)
Most homophones
[edit]- For Japanese and French, only the top 8 per language are listed.
- Chinese has not yet been counted.
- Japanese (35): 庚, 鸛, 公, 爻, 功, 巧, 甲, 交, 行, 劫, 孝, 更, 抗, 効, 幸, 侯, 紅, 香, 候, 校, 貢, 項, 項, 綱, 稿, 蝗, 蝗, 薨, 講, 恋う, 請う, 乞う, 恍, 皎, 斯う
- Japanese (24): 将官, 小官, 小寒, 小感, 少閑, 小閑, 召喚, 召還, 招喚, 昇官, 荘官, 庄官, 哨艦, 峭寒, 消閑, 商館, 娼館, 掌管, 傷寒, 照鑑, 賞鑑, 霄漢, 償還, 檣竿
- Japanese (22): 世紀, 正気, 正規, 生気, 生起, 成規, 西紀, 制規, 性器, 青旗, 凄気, 旌旗, 清気, 清奇, 清規, 清暉, 清輝, 盛期, 腥気, 精気, 精機, 精騎
- Japanese (22): 鍵, けん, 件, 見, 券, 妍, 県, 兼, 剣, 拳, 乾, 険, 嶮, 圏, 間, 腱, 権, 賢, 壎, 塤, 顕, 軒
- Japanese (21): 亥, イ, 井, 胆, 猪, 豬, 堰, 藺, 伊, 夷, 衣, 医, 易, 威, 胃, 帷, 異, 偉, 意, 緯, 彝
- Korean (19-20): (낭 (nang) (used only as a syllable?),) 嚢, 囊, 娘, 廊, 曩, 朗, 榔, 浪, 狼, 琅, 瑯, 硠, 稂, 莨, 蜋, 螂, 郎, 郞, 閬
- Japanese (19): 性徴, 正丁, 正調, 生長, 成長, 成鳥, 声調, 征鳥, 性徴, 青鳥, 政庁, 清帳, 清澄, 清聴, 聖朝, 聖寵, 静聴, 整腸, 整調
- Japanese (19): 火星, 化生, 化成, 化性, 化政, 火成, 火勢, 加勢, 仮声, 仮性, 河清, 苛性, 苛政, 家世, 家声, 家政, 家勢, 歌声, 歌聖
- Japanese (19): 蝶, 金魚蝨, 魚蝨, 丁, 庁, 兆, 町, 疔, 長, 帳, 張, 朝, 牒, 腸, 徴, 調, 寵, 鵰, 趙
- Korean (18): 각 (gak), 刻, 却, 卻, 各, 咯, 埆, 恪, 搉, 擱, 慤, 桷, 殼, 珏, 脚, 覺, 角, 閣
- French (18): alésai, alésé, alésée, alésées, aléser, alésés, alésez, alézé, alézée, alézées, alézés, allésai, allésé, allésée, allésées, alléser, allésés, allésez
- French (15): air, aire, airent, aires, airs, ère, ères, erre, errent, erres, ers, haire, haires, hère, hères
- French (14): dégoutter, dégoûtai, dégoûté, dégoûtée, dégoûtées, dégoûter, dégoûtés, dégoûtez, dégouttai, dégoutté, dégouttée, dégouttées, dégouttés, dégouttez
- French (13): déjeûnai, déjeûné, déjeuner, déjeûner, déjeûners, déjeûnez, déjeusnai, déjeusné, déjeusnée, déjeusnées, déjeusner, déjeusnés, déjeusnez
- French (13): compté, comptée, comptées, comptés, comptez, comté, comtés, conté, contée, contées, conter, contés, contez
- French (12): au, aulx, aux, eau, eaux, haut, hauts, ho, o, ô, oh, os
- French (12): penser, pansé, pansée, pansées, pansés, panser, pansez, pensé, pensée, pensées, pensés, pensez
- French (12): tinter, teinté, teintée, teintées, teinter, teintés, tintez, tinté, tintée, tintées, tintés, tintez
- English (10): Cy, psi, sai, scye, Si, sie, sigh, Sy, xi, Sye
Most senses
[edit]- take (English, 100 senses: 88 verb senses, 12 noun sense)
- set (English, 85 senses)
- go (English, 74 senses: 61 verb and 13 noun senses)
- run (English, 67 senses, including 30 noun senses, 4 adjective senses, 33 verb senses)
- line (English, 40 senses: 36 noun and 12 verb senses)
Most parts of speech
[edit]- a (English): 13: letter, cardinal number, noun, article, preposition, verb, pronoun, 2 different preposition sections, adverb, adjective, symbol, particle, interjection
- a (Irish): 10: 4 different determiner sections, 4 particle sections, preposition, pronoun
- a (Portuguese): 8: letter, noun, article, pronoun, preposition, interjection, verb, contraction
- a (Old Irish): 6 or 7: article, pronoun, conjunction, determiner, particle, particle (2), preposition
- segundo (Portuguese): 6: noun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, verb
Most plurals
[edit]- رَاجِل (rājil) (Arabic, 13)
- جَاهِل (jāhil, “ignorant”) (Arabic, 7) (1 common plural; four masculine plurals; two feminine plurals)
- parashah (English, 7) (different English spellings of three Hebrew pronunciations)
- ذَكَر (ḏakar, “male”) (Arabic, 6)
- Obolus (German, 6)
- rete mirabile (English, 5) (four non-standard Latin plurals)
Most pronunciations
[edit]- phonemic
- 龍眼/龙眼 (lêng-géng) (Hokkien, 14)
- pecan (English, 10–12)
- quahog (English, at least 10 phonemic pronunciations)
- eschew (English, 8)
- pwn (English, 5 phonemic pronunciations)
- phonetic
- háček (English, 10)
Most spellings
[edit](Counting the main/lemma spelling.)
- words
- Old French: iluec (271)
- English: voivode (64)
- Middle English: seien (44)
- Old French: gingembre (43)
- English: kaymakam (39)
- English: ambergris (35)
- English: kinnikinnick (34)
- Middle English: milwell (34)
- Portuguese: babaçu (33)
- English: scion (28)
- English: Kabballah (26)
- Portuguese: ambaíba (26)
- Persian: اسفناج (esfanâj, esfenâj) (26)
- English: djellaba (24)
- English: motherfucker (24)
- English: Sue, Grabbit and Runne (24)
- Portuguese: signo-de-salomão (24)
- Old French: amiral (22)
- English: poppadom (22)
- English: khoomei (21)
- English: Hanukkah (19)
- English: whoop-de-doo (19)
- Armenian: բադրիջան (badriǰan) (18)
- Chinese: 疙瘩 (18)
- English: you (17)
- Asturian: anguaño (17)
- English: knowledge (16)
- English: everything (15)
- English: Portuguese man-of-war (15)
- English: yarmulke (15)
- personal names and related terms
- English: Muhammad (102)
- English: Gaddafi (61)
- English: Farquhar (28)
- English: Husayn (26)
- English: Dostoyevskian (24)
- Portuguese: Gengis Khan (21)
- English: Muammar (14)
- English: Tchaikovsky (11)
Most syllables in one character
[edit]- Japanese: 承 (uketamawari) (6)
- Japanese: 慮 (omonpakari) (5)
- Japanese: 志 (kokorozashi) (5)
- Japanese: 詔 (mikotonori) (5)
- Japanese: 忝 (katajikena) (5)
- Japanese: 忇 (kōrōgaō) (4)
- Chinese:
(招財進寶, single-character version not encoded in Unicode) (zhāocáijìnbǎo, 4 syllables)
Most translations
[edit]Terms which have translations into the greatest number of languages.
(as of April 15, 2016)
- water [2212] - [2506] as of 22:35, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
- woman [789] - [879] as of 03:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
- dog [482]
- fish [399]
- rain [399]
- corpse [381]
- one [346]
- fire [338]
- smoke [331]
- horse [326]
- mouth [322]
- coffee [321]
- eye [308]
- sun [305]
- ear [304]
- iron [300]
- butterfly [300]
- tree [289]
- four [287]
- bear [287]
- father [286]
- I [284]
- house [276]
- language [274]
- man (2) [273]
- bee [273]
- heart [273]
- book [272]
- mountain [270]
- five [268]
Oldest citations
[edit]- sḏꜣ from the Second Dynasty of Egypt, c. 2690 BCE, quoting what may possibly be the oldest known complete sentence in any language
- 𒄠𒋛 from c. 2nd millennium BCE about animals discussing pooping
Honorable mentions
[edit]- citations
- háček (attestation is exceptionally comprehensive)
- ek→ég (continuous attestation begins exceptionally early)
- semantic relations
Anteroom of Silliness
[edit]- Things which are technically correct, but comically phrased, incomplete, etc. Made-up senses and joke entries can go in WT:BJAODN.
Silly definitions
[edit]- Agrilus: "a genus of boring insects"
- abstème: "refusing to communicate with wine in church"
- cope: "to cover a joint or structure with coping", with the usex "I wanted to become a finish carpenter, but I just couldn't cope"
- trampolo: "not the bird"
- vy-: "a Czech prefix"
Literal senses of words that usually mean something else (unrelated)
[edit]- English
- alligator (“one who binds”)
- apply (“resembling apples”)
- beer (“one who exists”)
- bullet (“little bull”)
- bunny (“bun-like”)
- canny (“can-like”)
- demean (“subtract the mean”)
- drawer (“one who draws”)
- flower (“one that flows”)
- irony (“pertaining to iron”)
- liver (“one who lives”)
- luster (“one who lusts”)
- misled (“rained lightly”)
- mister (“a device that makes or sprays mist”)
- mother (“one who catches moths”)
- number (“more numb”)
- outer (“one who outs (someone or something)”)
- peer (“one who pees”)
- periodic (“relating to the highest oxidation state of iodine”)
- prayer (“one who prays”)
- pretender (“to tender in advance”)
- remember (“to reconstitute, re-member”)
- sewer (“one who sews”)
- shower (“one who shows”)
- singer (“one who singes”)
- teenage (“brushwood”)
- tired (“having tires”)
- undies (“comes back to life”)
- unionize (“to deionize”), unionized (“not ionized”)
- watched (“wearing a watch”)
Silly spellings
[edit]- a very un-English-looking English word: kthxbye
- a very Klingon-looking non-Klingon word: Q'anjob'al
- surprisingly not the result of keyboard mashing: gjyq
- something which is the result of keyboard-mashing, across two scripts: くぁwせdrftgyふじこlp
- Who needs vowel sounds? Not one Bella Coola speaker, because xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ (“he had had in his possession a bunchberry plant”) [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ].
- an ancient word (attested ~2280 years ago) that looks like an emoji: 𑀇𑀥 ("here")
- a Luxembourgish word with 5 e's in a row: zweeeeëg
Words created in error
[edit]Other silliness
[edit]- one time, Wiktionary held a formal WT:VOTE on which kind of ice cream was best; the result (subject to some dispute!) was either "natural strawberry" or "no consensus"
- another time, one admin requested verification of a category, so another admin cited it (the page, originally tagged RFC, later ended up on RFM)
- Category:English terms derived from E (not to be confused with English terms derived from the consumption of E, like thizz); see also Category:U nouns?
- methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylalanylprolylthreonylphenylalanylthreonylglutaminylprolylleucylglutaminylserylvalylvalylvalylleucylglutamylglycyl...histidylisoleucylarginylserylisoleucine (the full chemical name of titin, which is 189,819 characters long and takes over an hour to pronounce)