Wiktionary:Namespace

See also Help:Namespaces on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki.

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

This page lists namespaces of the English Wiktionary and how they are used.

Overview

Wiktionary namespaces
Subject namespaces		Talk namespaces
0	(Main/Article)	Talk	1
2	User	User talk	3
4	Wiktionary	Wiktionary talk	5
6	File	File talk	7
8	MediaWiki	MediaWiki talk	9
10	Template	Template talk	11
12	Help	Help talk	13
14	Category	Category talk	15
90	Thread	Thread talk	91
92	Summary	Summary talk	93
100	Appendix	Appendix talk	101
106	Rhymes	Rhymes talk	107
108	Transwiki	Transwiki talk	109
110	Thesaurus	Thesaurus talk	111
114	Citations	Citations talk	115
116	Sign gloss	Sign gloss talk	117
118	Reconstruction	Reconstruction talk	119
710	TimedText	TimedText talk	711
828	Module	Module talk	829
Virtual namespaces
-1	Special
-2	Media

A variety of namespaces are currently set in the English Wiktionary, which is powered by the MediaWiki software. Each namespace may hold an indefinite number of pages and serves a different purpose in organizing them.

Each namespace is identified by its own name or by a number, except one which does not have a particular name, being defined as "main" or "entry" in some places. Except for "main", the namespace of a page is always present in the beginning of its title, followed by a colon. Therefore, if a page called Appendix:Example exists, it is in the Appendix namespace and may be linked as Appendix:Example.

Subpages

If the title of a page contains a slash (/), it is considered a subpage of another page whose title is equal, but without, the slash and subsequent characters. For instance, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/timeline is a subpage of Wiktionary:Beer parlour. A subpage is expected to be subordinate of the other page.

The only exception are pages in the main namespace, as they are naturally considered independent. For example, "AC/DC" is not the subpage of page "AC" but rather an individual page. Note that "Talk:AC/DC" unexpectedly does not fit in this exception.

List of namespaces

The namespaces "main", User, Wiktionary, File, MediaWiki, Template, Help and Category represent basic functions inherent to all MediaWiki sites. Similar namespaces are found in Wiktionary's sister projects such as Wikipedia.

The namespaces Appendix, Concordance, Index, Rhymes, Transwiki, Wikisaurus (now called Thesaurus) and Citations were introduced on 28 June 2006. Most of them have purposes more directly related to building a dictionary, so they probably would not be found in other projects, but Wiktionaries in other languages may have similar namespaces.

Each of the namespaces explained above is counterpart to one of the talk namespaces: Talk, User talk, Wiktionary talk, File talk, MediaWiki talk, Template talk, Help talk, Category talk, Appendix talk, Concordance talk, Index talk, Rhymes talk, Transwiki talk, Thesaurus talk and Citations talk. They serve as spaces for conversations about the current non-talk page. For instance, users may talk about Wiktionary:Namespace at Wiktionary talk:Namespace. However, there are a few generic discussion rooms which may be preferred in place of discussing on separate talk pages.

NS	Name	Contents
-2	Media:	A rarely-used namespace that provides direct access to files. Compare File:Wiki.png and Media:Wiki.png.
-1	Special:	Specific functions within the MediaWiki software, such as seeing technical details, lists of pages, edits and users, deletion of pages, protection of pages and blocking users. The list of accessible Special pages changes for each user according to their user group, growing longer in this order: from anonymous users, logged-in users, administrators, bureaucrats, to stewards.
0	(none)	Entries with definitions, translations, among other information on terms of all languages. The absence of a prefix and of subpages distinguishes these pages from those in other namespaces. This is commonly known as the "main" namespace or "mainspace".
1	Talk	Discussions about each entry page.
2	User	Personal pages for Wiktionary editors, where users may create just about anything they want, using their user name as title and possibly creating subpages. They are permitted and even encouraged. When a user is not registered, a temporary account code beginning with ~ is the title instead (an IP address until late 2025). Only modify other another's user pages with permission.
3	User talk	Discussions directed to specific users. They are notified whenever someone edits their talk page. Typically, subpages are used only for talk page archives.
4	Wiktionary	Information in context of Wiktionary, including its general operation, policy pages like Wiktionary:Blocking policy, decisions on editing specific languages like Wiktionary:Korean entry guidelines, organization of other namespaces (for instance, which templates or categories to be used for each situation) and also contains generic discussion pages like Wiktionary:Beer parlour and Wiktionary:Requests for deletion. Pages intended for guiding new users should be placed at the Help namespace rather than here.
5	Wiktionary talk	Discussions about each Wiktionary page.
6	File	Strictly speaking, this namespace contains only a handful of uploaded non-free images. However, all files (images, audio clips, etc) uploaded to Wikimedia Commons appear transparently as part of our File namespace.
7	File talk	Archived deletion requests for files can be found here. Discussions started in this namespace are unlikely to receive replies.
8	MediaWiki	Text required by the MediaWiki software. All pages in this namespace are protected by default, so they can only be edited by administrators and interface editors. Crucial user interface changes can inadvertently be made here. These pages often require unusual technical fluency to overcome various programming traps and challenges.
9	MediaWiki talk	Discussion of corresponding MediaWiki software, used for users without protected rights to request or propose changes to the pages.
10	Template	Templates with collections of text that users can define, and repeat on multiple pages by referencing the template name with squiggle brackets. They include inflection templates, cleanup templates, topic tag templates (such as {{label}}), and many others.
11	Template talk	Discussion of corresponding templates.
12	Help	Contains a general resource of help on various subjects, particularly for new users.
13	Help talk	Discussion of corresponding help pages.
14	Category	Automatically generated sets of pages. To know how entries are categorized and how categories are linked, see Help:Category.
15	Category talk	Discussion of corresponding categories.
90	Thread	Stores individual threads in LiquidThreads discussion pages.
91	Thread talk	Discussion of corresponding threads. Unused.
92	Summary	Summaries of discussions in pages using LiquidThreads.
93	Summary talk	Discussion of corresponding summaries. Unused.
100	Appendix	Information suitable for a dictionary, but encyclopedic in nature. That includes lists of terms (for instance, surnames, given names, constellations, slang, etc.), lexical information (for instance, declensions, conjugations, word order, pronunciations, etc.) that would be suitable for various entries together, proto-language forms and certain definitions that according to Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion should be present only in appendices. Particularly, explanations on templates, categories and other aspects of Wiktionary should not be placed in appendices.
101	Appendix talk	Discussions on specific appendices.
106	Rhymes	Lists of words that rhyme, using strict rhyming rules, the English words organized by British formal pronunciation and all languages indexed by the IPA notation.
107	Rhymes talk	Discussions about specific rhyme pages.
108	Transwiki	Pages imported from sister projects that were identified as dictionary definitions. Deprecated.
109	Transwiki talk	Discussion of corresponding entries. Deprecated.
110	Thesaurus	Entries in the thesaurus. See Wiktionary:Thesaurus.
111	Thesaurus talk	Discussion of corresponding thesaurus entries.
114	Citations	Quotations. Based on the idea of usage as criteria for inclusion, the citation pages can display durably archived usage over time. From the usage documented on these citations pages the definitions on the main entries are verified, clarified and updated, or perhaps additional definitions can be derived. See Wiktionary:Citations.
115	Citations talk	Discussion of corresponding citations. Deprecated due to low usage.
116	Sign gloss	Experimental. See Wiktionary:Sign language entry guidelines for background info.
117	Sign gloss talk	Discussion of corresponding entries. Unused.
118	Reconstruction	Entries of reconstructed languages, mostly referenced in etymologies.
119	Reconstruction talk	Discussion of the corresponding entries.
828	Module	Similar to the template namespace, though usually stores code or groups of text which are more generally used as part of templates. More details can be found at Wiktionary:Scribunto.
829	Module talk	Discussion of corresponding modules.

Former namespaces

The gaps in namespace numbering correspond to namespaces that were removed from Wiktionary. These are:

• Concordance: (102) and Concordance talk: (103)
  • This namespace held listings of words from particular references, for example, the Bible. This was intended as a way to find and fill gaps in our coverage, but it never really took off.
  • Some concordances still exist in the Appendix (see Category:Concordances) and some users' subpages.
  • Removal discussed at RFDO, see Wiktionary talk:Concordances
• Index: (104) and Index talk: (105)
  • This namespace was intended to hold bot-generated alphabetical indexes of the entries in every language, but the indexes were rarely consulted or updated in practice.
  • Largely superseded by lemma categories.
  • Removal voted on: Wiktionary:Votes/2021-07/Deleting the Index
• WT: (112) and WT talk: (113)
  • Replaced by aliasing the "WT:" prefix to the Wiktionary: namespace

Aliases

There are the aliases defined for namespaces, all of which are case-insensitive:

Alias	Target name	Target id
WT:	Wiktionary:	4
Image:	File:	6
Image talk:	File talk:	7
T:	Template:	10
CAT:	Category:	14
AP:	Appendix:	100
WS:	Thesaurus:	110
Wikisaurus:	Thesaurus:	110
Wikisaurus talk:	Thesaurus talk:	111
RC:	Reconstruction:	118
MOD:	Module:	828

Pseudo-namespaces

Pseudo namespaces are sets of pages that use the colon to set them off from other pages but without the full namespace support of MediaWiki software. All of the current pseudo namespaces are not in the main namespace so they are effectively sub-namespaces. Current pseudo namespaces include:

• Category:<LANGCODE> – Topic categories
• Category:Thesaurus: – Thesaurus topic categories (optionally followed by language code).
• Template:list – List templates (followed by language code), for use in "See also" sections.
• Template:table – Table templates (followed by language code), for use in "See also" sections.
• Template:R – Reference templates (optionally followed by language code), see Category:Reference templates by language).
• Template:RQ – Templates for quoting prominent works of literature (optionally followed by language code), see Category:Quotation templates by language).
• Template:U: – Usage note templates (optionally followed by language code).
• WT:T: – Shortcuts to "Wiktionary talk:" pages that need to be linked to particularly often.

Interwiki links

See also Help:Interwiki linking on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki.

See also: Special:Interwiki

Any wiki link prefaced by one of the keywords (seen in the notes above) link to external Wikimedia sites, as indicated. Each external site has its own set of namespaces which can also be included in the link. In addition, wikis in different languages exist.