Wiktionary:Tea room

Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Tea room

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A place to ask for help on finding quotations or other information about particular words. The Tea room is named to accompany the Beer parlour.

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Oldest 100 tagged RFTs

quirinalis
Ilyinichna
linear
Черняк
most
shadowing
belly dance
half
Surinam
series
address
imaginary
catalogue
based
berm
rayon
Aster
nasal cavity
dies Mercurii
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چھہ
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Category:Tea room archives
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over skyerne er himlen altid blå
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Indon
α΄
orignal
don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
speech recognition
hazelly
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Euthemia
otocrane
hagdon
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lipsati
native bread
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rhina
Wesson
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monolid
ကာလယဲ
smeť
search up
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watercressing
green privilege
Chinese landing
one's heart bleeds
phrogging
ၐြဳ
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mukt
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radiendocrinology
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churtle
dunnarf
unprovenienced
diving bell spider
Huddel
cyberdeck
cracker
თავისუფლება
wingnut
focus pocus
BlueAnon
Appendix:Protologisms/Long words/Titin
شطرنج
extinct
joint
dignity
common bamboo
psychoanalysis
psychoanalyze
bishop
halalflation
-tthit
заебать
urini
agita

September 2026

Bulgarian -а: "never stressed" (really?) also is it a suffix or clitic? also about acute vs. grave.

Pinging the Bulgarian work group: (Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Bogorm, Bezimenen, Chernorizets, Kiril kovachev, Loccaall, SimonWikt, SixtyShips, Илья А. Латушкин, Chihunglu83, Psi-Lord, Kaloan-koko): Several issues:

1. All the Bulgarian definite-article clitics say they are "never stressed" in their pronunciation section but I'm positive that's wrong. E.g. the declension table for век (vek) shows a stressed definite article.
2. These clitics are given the POS "suffix" in their respective entries but this seems wrong to me; the same forms are added onto different declensions, which is a classic sign of a clitic. The corresponding attached enclitic definite articles in Icelandic, for example, are universally called clitics even though, like in Bulgarian, they vary for number, gender and case.
3. We need to decide once and for all about acute vs. grave accents. Anatoli and I made the decision years ago to switch to acute accents to harmonize the different Slavic languages, but I see for example some inconsistency currently, as in бот (bot), which has a grave accent in its lemma and some weird diacritic in other forms in the declension table. I know that the grave accent is more common in Bulgarian dictionaries, so if it's decided to switch to this, I won't oppose.

Benwing2 (talk) 01:21, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2 re: "We need to decide once and for all about acute vs. grave accents". Oddly enough, that "weird diacritic" is actually an acute and a grave accent- both on the same letter. I wonder if there's a bug in the inflection template... Chuck Entz (talk) 05:10, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2. I think there was an exception in Bulgarian entries with a grave accent to distinguish from a homograph, some short word, a particle, possibly but searching for it is very difficult.

I won't oppose switching to grave accents either, but it has to be done comprehensively. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:41, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

@Atitarev It's ѝ. @Chuck Entz I think the inflection template is simply not normalizing graves to acutes and treating the word as if a monosyllabic unstressed word. Benwing2 (talk) 06:37, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Bulgarian definite articles are morphemes that don't function as independent words (anymore). Their origin is demonstrative pronouns, but that's ancient history - e.g. жената - "та" is not a valid demonstrative pronoun in Bulgarian. Contrast this with "ли" (yes-no questions), which is an independent, non-affixed, unstressed (clitic) word. I don't know enough to tell whether Bulgarian articles should properly be classified as enclitics. I can do some research using academic grammars to see what they say on that.

Bulgarian articles - both definite and indefinite - can, indeed, be stressed. If we say otherwise, it should be corrected.

We've been using the acute accent to indicate stress in lemmas and declensions. There's a marginal role for the grave when indicating secondary stress, which occurs in certain loanwords and compound nouns, but outside of that its use is likely just an editor mistake. It for sure doesn't make sense on a monosyllabic word like "бот". We've gotten several new contributors over the past few years, and it's probably just a case of learning the in-house convention we have for stress. There was recently a discussion where we re-committed to the acute for (primary) stress.

Chernorizets (talk) 10:08, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

OK sounds good and thanks for responding. Glad to hear the issue with acute/grave is settled. Let me know what the Bulgarian grammars say about suffix vs. clitic when you have a chance to look into it; my sense is they are clitics but I may be wrong ... In fact I asked Google about this question and it gave a long answer saying the Bulgarian article has characteristics of both a suffix and a clitic but it more often classified as a suffix. The discussion ended with the following summary:

The consensus among modern theoretical morphosyntacticians is that the Bulgarian definite article is an inflectional phrasal affix. Syntactically, it acts like a clitic because it scopes over the noun phrase, but morphologically, it has been fully internalized by the grammar to function as an inflectional suffix.

Benwing2 (talk) 18:22, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

"ir de" and friends

(Notifying workgroup: Daniel Carrero, Jberkel, Cpt.Guapo, Munmula, Koavf, Sarilho1, Benwing2, SinaSabet28, Juwan, MedK1, Polomo, Psi-Lord, Emanuele6, Rcnn): We currently have ir de arrasta pra cima and ir de base; Thesaurus:morrer has some others (ir de Americanas, ir de arrasta, ir de comes e bebes, ir de Vasco). Aren't these all WT:SOP? You can attach virtually anything to ir de (no entry) and get an euphemism for dying, where do we draw the line? Trooper57 (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

I would compare this with English expressions like go the way of the dodo, go the way of the dinosaurs, etc. (the original expression was go the way of all flesh). We have an entry for go the way of but also for the common idioms involving this construction. In English you could potentially attach "go the way of" to anything that no longer exists and people will understand you, but the more common continuations still feel like idioms that deserve being mentioned. Benwing2 (talk) 21:57, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

This is my view also: ir de should have an entry as well as the more common derived expressions, especially the ones with more idiomatic/obscure meanings (e.g., "comes and bebes" is more idiomatic than "rainha Elizabeth" IMO). — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 00:28, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Actually, the right way to lemmatize this might be at ir with the intransitive label — "de X" is an adverb. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 01:42, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I realized we "die" listed two times at ir:

• 10. (euphemistic, pronominal) to leave (to die); to depart (to die)
• 18. (reflexive, euphemistic) to pass away; to depart; to die Trooper57 (talk) 02:05, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

They are redundant with each other, but not with ir de; the first is more correct than the second. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 02:29, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I'd say they're all idiomatic, see Thesaurus:die. Just because we have bite the dust AND bite the biscuit doesn't mean bite means "to die" or something. Are you sure you can attach literally any word to ir de? Rcnn (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

This reminds me of "me cago en..." in Spanish lol. Me cago en todo, me cago en Dios, me cago en tu madre, me cago en diez, me cago en la Virgen... Rcnn (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

"me cago en tu madre" might not be idiomatic though because you can use it with anyone you would say "fuck you" to Rcnn (talk) 22:07, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Actually nevermind you're directing the insult at both the other person and their mom, not just their mom Rcnn (talk) 22:10, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

@Rcnn: it was an exageration but kinda?

Minha sanidade esse ano já foi de arrasta pra cima, foi de comes e bebes, foi de Drake & Josh, foi de rainha Elizabeth, foi de encontro com Fátima Bernardes, foi jogar no Vasco, foi de Bom dia & Cia, foi pro show do Aivicii, foi de Wakanda Forever...[1]

You can easily find the formula "ir de + celebrity that just died" too. Trooper57 (talk) 22:09, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

If it's *that* productive you *could* probably make an ir de entry I think Rcnn (talk) 22:12, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

My Portuguese is not so good, but I asked a native Portugal speaker "what does ir de base mean" and she responded: "Ir de base means nothing in Portuguese", so this seems like it's a not-obvious phrase to a European Portuguese speaker. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:19, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

the phrases are idiomatic but only need to include those that are common, per Polomo. the lemma should be at ir, though it is annoying if we can't have anything at ir de, as it would be help searchability. Juwan 🕊️🌈 10:35, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't see why we can't have some sort of soft redirect at ir de pointing to the appropriate sense of ir. Benwing2 (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

A hard redirect would be the only form of redirect appropriate IMO, but that can’t exist... — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 17:34, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Just delete the Spanish entry :^) Trooper57 (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

would this template use be good: {{no entry|pt|{{l|pt|ir}}|-}} ? Juwan 🕊️🌈 18:02, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

tornado fry

It seems that this snack is virtually always called tornado fries plural. (GBooks has no results for "a tornado fry".) So, er, something should be done! ~2026-47609-96 (talk) 07:46, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Should we just turn tornado fries into the main entry and use use {{singular of}} for tornado fry, the same way it's done for French fries? Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 14:51, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

pendant

I've added a technical sort of "counterpart, not necessarily paired" sense with a {{lb|en|linguistics}} specification, which where I've generally run into it. However I actually suspect this could be more widespread too, in also other fields that talk about abstract structural counterparts. Anyone familiar with if, say, philosophy or semiotics also do this?

This usage is presumably also calqued from French and/or German where pendant / Pendant is 'counterpart' is more general, & I see this most of all from German linguists writing in English, still also occasional native speakers, but I'm not venturing out to add that claim to the entry just on my own impression. --Tropylium (talk) 12:01, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Can you add some quotes? I am not familiar with this linguistics usage, but maybe I just haven't been paying attention. Benwing2 (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Usages I have around on short notice (= by fulltext search from literature I have in pdf) don't seem highly optimal as quotes, but I'll list them here for editor consideration:

In terms of the OHG diphthongization Gmc. *ō is often assumed the pendant of Gmc. *ē₂.

– Rauch 1967, The Old High German Diphthongization

Thus, y and w are used for the nonsyllabic pendants of i and u.

– Manaster Ramer 1995, "On Indo-European triune velars and Nostratic front rounded vowels", The Moscow Linguistic Journal

The category of genus verbi has the passive as its marked member. This is expressed by the suffix =oo-, as in iinä saroona 'the horse is tethered', in which sar=oo=na is the first participle of the passive pendant to sar=lʲa-m 'I tie'.

– Simoncsics 1998, "Kamassian", in The Uralic Languages (1st ed.), Routledge

The root kśa- is a pendant of Av. xsā- and must be connected with √kāś- (see Mayrhofer EWAia I: 420f, 456f).

– Lubotsky 2001, "Reflexes of Proto-Indo-European *sk in Indo-Iranian", Incontri Linguistici

The real form reddidī is peculiar in two aspects: 1) vowel reduction (*-e- > -i-) instead of syncope and 2) the pendant red- (the prevocalic variant of re-prefix; thus, not **redidī).

– Nishimura 2011, "Syncope in Latin: A Historical Restatement of Its Conditions", IJDL

Although a detailed semantic study has not yet been undertaken, the overall function of negative verb pairs, apart from the existential tonäš and its negative pendant ďaguš, is connected to epistemic modality.

– Siegl 2012, Materials on Forest Enets, an Indigenous Language of Northern Siberia

In order to avoid confusion between these palatal sibilant affricates and their non-sibilant pendants [cç]/[ɟʝ], the former will be referred to as “alveopalatals” and the latter as “palatal” affricates.
(…)
Moreover, if a language has more than one affricate, it is not necessarily the case that every fricative sibilant has an affricate counterpart, as in Sedang (Table 17b) where in­stead of having /ts/ ~ /tʃ/ symmetrically to /s/ ~ /ʃ/, there is a voicing opposition among palatoalveolars; or as in Yakut (Table 17c) where only the palatoalveolar fricatives have an affricate pendant.

– Berns 2014, "A typological sketch of affricates", Linguistic Typology

As a further comparandum of some interest (kindly brought to my attention by Guus Kroonen), note OHG gingēn ‘desire’, a stative nasal-infixed pendant to Go. ga-geigan ‘gain’ — both generally assumed to derive from a gʰ-extended or reduplicated version of the (i-present form of the) ‘gape’ root (see, e.g., Lehmann 1986: 137, s.v. *ga-geigan).

– Vine 2016, "Latin gingīva and salīva", in Etymology and the European Lexicon

These changes yielded an inventory by the end of PGmc of i, a, u, all of which had nasalized pendants.

– Stiles 2017, "The phonology of Germanic", Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics vol. 2

Inherited vocabulary is not evenly distributed: Csúcs (2005, 309) found 225 words of pre-Permic origin in Komi that lack Udmurt analogues, but in Udmurt, only 91 such words have no pendants in Komi; it would be edifying to sift these two sets of vocabulary qualitatively, in terms of meaning, form, and cognate distribution outside Permic.

– Abondolo & Valijärvi 2023, Introduction to The Uralic Languages, with special reference to Finnish and Hungarian (2nd ed.), Routledge

The copula em has a negative pendant, abu ‘not’ (71), which also can take the pluralizer -ɘɕ (72).

– Blokland 2023, "Zyrian Komi", in The Uralic Languages (2nd ed.), Routledge

Note that we have all three of the usages I noted on show: 'cognate' (Lubotsky, Vine, Abondolo & Valijärvi), 'allophone' (Manaster Ramer), 'allomorph' (Simoncsics, Nishimura, Siegl, Blokland) and also a fourth I'm not sure how to describe compactly but which I think I've seen the most often of all: of elements sharing some feature within a phonemic or phonetic system (Rauch, Berns, Stiles). --Tropylium (talk) 16:32, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Not sure how I've missed this usage but I see it's common. I think the word used for the fourth usage is analogue (as indeed used in the Abondolo & Valijärvi quote as a synonym for "pendant"). Benwing2 (talk) 17:01, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

Ten-ish attestations from a couple thousand papers, so maybe not that common, but common enough at least for me to have noticed (and to be puzzled) long since already. --Tropylium (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

The two senses at untiring

I can see some (faint) distinction between the two definitions ("inexhaustible, tireless" vs. "resolute, unfailing") but I am not at all convinced by the division of citations. They could probably all go under sense 1, couldn't they? ~2026-47609-96 (talk) 12:25, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I”d need to see actual uses that fit sense 2 but not sense 1 to be convinced that these are genuinely separate senses.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:33, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree. Presumably the non-figurative sense is supposed to be about bodily tiredness and the figurative sense about determination, but the present division of quotations doesn't consistently bear this out. Personally I don't think it's worth making two separate senses. Usually the two things go together, to a greater or lesser extent. I would merge them. Mihia (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Are verb phrases to be marked as verbs?

I was having a discussion with User:Midzero about łykać jak pelikan and whether it should be marked as a verb and wanted to take the discussion to other users.

Verb phrases where the verbal elements can conjugate for person, tense, etc., ought to be marked as verbs for both heads and for purposes of Derived terms, no? Or am I crazy? Vininn126 (talk) 15:05, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I would have thought so. Funny you mention it since I just today spotted a year-old edit that said happy as a pig in shit is "not an adjective"; that edit changed the header to Simile. It has since been changed to Phrase. ~2026-47609-96 (talk) 15:08, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

This seems rather erroneous to me. I'm sure you could even find comparatives! Vininn126 (talk) 15:12, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I also think that's a mistake. These type of entries seem to be mostly classified as adjectives. There are 481 adjectives, but only 21 phrases of the form "[word] as [...]". Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

I mark them as verbs. I reserve the part of speech "phrase" for phrases which are usually morphologically invariant (e.g. adverbial in nature). — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 15:16, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I think I'd be tempted to call those based on their function. To me a phrase ends up being closer to a particle or rather even a whole sentence. Vininn126 (talk) 15:17, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

The English equivalent of quite a few of these is often a "prepositional phrase", e.g. ajan saatossa (“over time”), jossain kohtaa (“at some point”), omin avuin (“on one's own”). — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 15:25, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

These are often debated. We all at least seem to agree that verb phrases ought to be verbs. Vininn126 (talk) 15:26, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I would certainly put something like that in English under a verb heading. I usually reserve "Phrase" for non-constituents, ie, things that can't be construed as PoS phrases because they aren't phrases and aren't free-standing idioms. Which is to say that I reserve the heading 'Phrases' for things that are syntactically not phrases. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

We have several entries in the Category:English phrases that, IMO, are syntactically also phrases: abandon all hope, ye who enter here; absence makes the heart fonder; accidents will happen; a deal is a deal; after me the deluge; after you; a little birdie told me; all cats are beautiful; a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do; ... Some could be assigned the PoS Proverb, but for many I see no alternative.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:54, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I changed absence makes the heart fonder to Proverb because it's an alt form of a proverb. Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

all English entries 'VERB like a NOUN' where the verb can be conjugated are currently categorized as 'Verb'. I count 31. sounds like a plan is categorized as 'Phrase' - FreqWork (talk) 03:53, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Sounds is already conjugated, and not used in any other form. Vininn126 (talk) 09:04, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Of course it is used in other forms. Those forms are more obviously SoP, though. DCDuring (talk) 15:56, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, regarding English grammar, Geoffrey Pullum defines single-word nouns as mere special cases of NPs, and single-word verbs as mere special cases of VPs, according to Pullum 2024. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:27, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

confer (English verb): missing preposition list and usage notes

Hello, confer didn't answer my questions about which prepositions can follow that verb, and their possible connotations.

Since there are no pages for confer upon, confer onto, confer on, etc., isn't it up to the main page to tell us that? The examples in the page show a lot of "confer upon" and some "confer on", but I've no idea if there's a difference, nor if "confer onto" has some subtler meaning...

Thanks if you can shed a light (or upgrade the page). ~2026-48091-72 (talk) 10:48, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

rainbow pronunciation

We have a weird pronunciation at rainbow, marked as "Standard Southern British": /ˈɹɛjmbəw/. The use of linking semivowels is against Wiktionary policy anyway, but even with them removed, /ˈɹɛmbə/ just sounds very odd to me - even if I put on my most exaggerated Queen's English accent, "One has seen a remba". Is this pronunciation correct and worth keeping? Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:09, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

The /j/ and /w/ in this transcription are not linking semivowels (that refers to transcribing a semivowel before a following vowel). Rather, /ɛj/ is a notational variant of /eɪ/ and /əw/ is a notational variant of /əʊ/: thus, the transcription /ˈɹɛjmbəw/ is equivalent to /ˈɹeɪmbəʊ/ ("raimbow"), not /ˈɹɛmbə/ ("remba"). Transcribing the second half of English diphthongs and 'tense' vowels with /j/ and /w/ is a practice popularized although not invented by Geoff Lindsey (who alleges pedagogical benefits in this blog post and has promoted this style of transcription in Youtube videos). Assimilating /n/ to /m/ before /b/ is a predictable phonetic assimilation that is generally optional and not mandatory in compound words; listing it might be beneficial for the sake of explicitness (compare pancake listing an alternative pronunciation with /ŋ/), although I'm a bit skeptical of the benefits.--Urszag (talk) 16:38, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

What Urszag says. I think we should normalize the notation to use the symbols Wiktionary usually uses (in general, I find it unhelpful and misleading if one phoneme in one accent is represented in different entries with different symbols, i.e. as if the entries used different phonemes), and I am sceptical of listing the assimilated variants as phonemic, here or in pancake. - -sche (discuss) 16:46, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:16, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

wincest and Wincest

Both etymologies state that they are influenced by each other. Can anyone confirm which one came first? Frog x Lover (talk) 12:47, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

place

Reception; effect, implying the making room for.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 8:37:

My word hath no place in you.

(taken word for word from MW 1913)

I didn't at first understand the definition, especially not "implying the making [of?] room for". I can readily interpret the KJV usage to be figurative, as in "a place in your heart". (MWOnline has a definition "a particular part of a surface or body: spot", for which we have no corresponding def.) Should we get citations if we want to retain it or is it an obvious metaphor that does not warrant a separate definition? If we don't consider Shakespearean or Joycean hapaxes to be sufficient for inclusion then RexJacobian hapaxes are also insufficient. I have yet to find a dictionary other than MW1913 that has a definition like this, but I don't have access to the OED. DCDuring (talk) 20:53, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I think we should have a reworded (more helpfully worded) general figurative definition to include the Bible quotation along with usages such as "a place in my heart", "there is no place for rudeness", etc. While we're here. I'm not convinced that we need such a specific definition as "A state of mind" (example "I'm in a strange place at the moment"), or even "An area of the body, especially the skin". Some of these definitions could be over-specialisations. Mihia (talk) 18:56, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

kirkification's 2nd definition is inaccurate(?)

The page for kirkification claims two definitions, 1st referring to face-swapping with Charlie Kirk, which I have seen use of, but the 2nd refers to altering a word to include "kirk" in it. While this is practiced in words such as "lowkirkenuinely", I have not seen the word kirkification being used to describe the act. Shall this be removed, or can someone show me an example of this usage? KnightHelmet (talk) 22:19, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

It is for this reason that we have the Wiktionary:Requests for verification process; feel free to submit it for scrutiny. —Fish bowl (talk) 02:02, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Should "oculista" translate from Spanish as ophthalmologist (not optician)?

Currently "oculista" is being translated as "optician". That is normally someone who makes corrective lenses and who in some jurisdictions may act as an optometrist (measure the eye's optics to determine the prescription).

1) Spanish Wiktionary indicates "oculista" is someone who treats medical problems of the eye ("enfermedades de los ojos"). Normally this is an ophthalmologist, isn't it? In fact, Spanish Wikipedia redirects "oculista" to "Oftalmología".

2) English Wiktionary translates "optician" as "óptico/a".

3) A Google Maps search for "oculista" in Bogotá brings up ophthalmologists almost exclusively, with one "optica" that describes itself as medical diagnostic imaging but which appears to do optometry and sell glasses. This may be a bit of commercial slide in meaning, or they may do some ophthalmology (I could check next time I'm in the area).

Conclusion: I think the English translation should be "ophthalmologist". AndroidCanada (talk) 13:03, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

PS: FWIW even Duolingo agrees. It gave me the text "El doctor que se encarga de los problemas de los ojos es el oculista." AndroidCanada (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

I have a Merriam-Webster product (Merriam-Webster Spanish-English Medical Dictionary) whose net effect s.v. oculista supports the idea that oculista usually means an ophthalmologist. It says "oculist. See oftalmólogo." Everyday English doesn't normally use the word oculist anymore, whereas when an ophthalmologist is meant, the word ophthalmologist is the word usually used now. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar idiomatic effect is present in Spanish regarding the word oculista. But my Spanish is not nearly good enough to confirm that point from personal experience. A relevant point regarding the history of medicine (translingually relevant) is that the distinction between an optometrist and an ophthalmologist, which today is sharp, is sharper today than it was 100 and 150 years ago. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

There is some polysemy about English optician. In AmE there is usually a codified distinction between an optometrist and an optician, but apparently not so strongly so in BrE. I edited the def at Spanish oculista to be less polysemically ambiguous in its choice of English words. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:54, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

out of one's league

I have a few issues with and questions about this entry.

First of all, I think the title should actually be "out of someone's league" (at the moment, that page is only a redirect). The reason for this change is that we usually use "one's" to denote a possessive pronoun that refers to the subject of the sentence, and use "someone's" when it refers to other people. In the sentence "She's out of my league", "my" doesn't refer to the subject "she", so therefore we should use "someone's" here.

I'm also not sure if sense 1 is stated correctly when it comes to the "higher or lower level" part. When you say "A is out of B's league", does it just mean that there is a large difference in quality between A and B, or does it specifically mean A is much better than B? I have only ever heard the latter sense.

Finally, the definition of sense 2 and its usex don't describe the same meaning. The definition says "out of one's depth", while the usex ("These questions are out of my league") seems to illustrate a meaning like "too difficult for someone", which is not quite the same. The quotation however ("Most U.S. authors trying to depict European sophistication seem indefinably out of their league") fits the definition of "out of one's depth". Note that this usage is actually of the form "out of one's league" since the possessive pronoun "their" refers to the subject "most U.S. authors".

All in all, I would split this entry into two, with four senses in total. The following is only a rough sketch; the senses still need to be fleshed out.

out of someone's league

1. Much better than someone.
2. Too difficult for someone.
3. Too expensive for someone.

out of one's league

1. Out of one's breath.

Do you agree with this analysis? Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 13:47, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Regarding "one's" versus "someone's": in Wiktionary's lemmatizing, the distinction is usually meant to be that of "one's own" versus "someone else's". For terms where either situation can be true (for example, "out of my league" or "out of his league"; "I curbed my enthusiasm" or "I curbed his enthusiasm", it more or less doesn't/can't matter which one is used ("one's" versus "someone's"). For some terms, only one of the situations can apply, so it matters for those. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:04, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I would prefer "someone's" when both options are possible, and I also believe that this is the current practice on Wiktionary. I also want to point out that the case of "out of (some)one's league" is somewhat special. The possessive pronoun can refer to both oneself and others, but there is no single sense (out of the four senses I listed) in which both options are possible. Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 16:19, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Agreed regarding "I would prefer 'someone's' when both options are possible, and I also believe that this is the current practice on Wiktionary." I didn't get time yet to ponder the other points but plan to revisit. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:06, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

ᛚᚨᚷᚢᚦᛖᚹᚨ

(Notifying workgroup: Benwing2, Mnemosientje, The Editor's Apprentice, Hazarasp, Caoimhin ceallach, Exarchus, Mellohi!, Victar, Leasnam): Following the precedent of ᚲᚨᛒᚨ I have added a second Proto-West Germanic runic entry. Since this is probably controversial I'm posting about it here. The identification of the name as specifically WGmc follows Mikael Schulte (2026); see reference in the entry itself. Mårtensås ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ AMA 14:01, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Shouldn't Proto-West Germanic by definition be entirely unattested? Otherwise it's not really a "proto" language. ~2026-49814-54 (talk) 03:43, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

That's not what "proto" means. Proto-Romance exists, but it's more commonly known as Latin. BirchTainer (talk) 05:30, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

@BirchTainer: It depends on how strictly you define it: a proto-language is an artificial construct produced using the comparative method, so it doesn't, in the strictest sense, exist. Also, one doesn't generally reconstruct a proto-language when there's already an attested language to work with. That said, there are a few cases where usage turns up that matches a proto-language closely enough that it's easier to treat it as the same.

As for Proto-Romance: "Latin" is a very broad concept. There's quite a lot of difference between the Latin of the Praeneste fibula and the Forum inscription, Classical Latin, the Latin of the Vulgate Bible translation, the Latin of the Middle Ages, and the varieties of Latin used in various contexts today. Even with all that variation, there's very little attestation of the language that you arrive at when you reconstruct the ancestor of all the Romance languages. That's mostly because the people who spoke that way either couldn't read or write, or used very different language when they did write. Part of it, though, is because different changes happened at different times in different areas, and went through different intermediate forms. A proto-language sort of averages those things out and presents the version that makes the most sense based on the variation known in the modern descendants.

Not that I disagree with your main point, which is that the absolute, black-and-white distinction between attested "real" languages and proto-languages doesn't make sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:58, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Schulte (2026) argues against -a /*-az/ that ‘an incomplete (corrupt) runographic representation’ would be unmotivated (p. 186), that is unless it represented a regular change in Proto-West-Germanic, but Negau B seems to show *teiva in the pre-Christian era (ostensibly with Grimm’s law, except that the Etruscan alphabet already lost Δ and is generally thought to have no voice contrast), which he does not discuss although it could add further support for a much stronger argument. Not to disagree with your edit, yet this goes to show – ex silentio – that the problem is overall too controversial (unless I'm missing something). ~2026-54918-34 (talk) 04:52, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

lessers

However, there's no nominal meaning in lesser.

BTW, this situation should be avoided by the system, right? JMGN (talk) 18:08, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

I can't quite figure out whether "lesser" is an old or questionable spelling of "lessor". The only other possibility for "lessers" that I found with a quick search is a reference some species of bird being "outnumbered by the lessers" (being abbreviated from the full name). For the singular noun of course we have e.g. "the lesser of two evils". I think our policy may be not to include these separately as nouns. Mihia (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

In the plural, I would understand "lessers" as ~"people that a person sees as being lower in social rank or value": he looked down with contempt on google books:"his lessers", looked up resentfully at google books:"his betters" (cf. google books:"your betters"), and chafed among google books:"his equals". It seems to be much rarer in the singular, although I can find, online, things like "Dennis expresses his indignation that Arthur would treat him as his lesser." We have the corresponding entry better#Noun. - -sche (discuss) 18:59, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

 Done Added lesser#Noun with plural citation. Very much like inferior#Noun. ~2026-48830-67 (talk) 12:00, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Usage regarding the French definite article and some country names

(Notifying workgroup: PUC, Jberkel, Nicodene, AG202, Benwing2, Andrew Sheedy, Saumache): The French Wikipedia pages w:fr:Chypre (pays), w:fr:Cuba, w:fr:Haïti, w:fr:Madagascar, w:fr:Malte, and w:fr:Maurice (pays) show the French country names being used without the French definite article in front of it, even when a preposition does not precede the country name. This page on the European Union's website, which is about Cyprus and is in French, avoids using the definite article in front of Chypre as well, and the page's counterpart for Malta likewise avoids using the definite article in front of Malte.

However, the English Wiktionary has no usage notes on the entries for these French country names that say the definite article is not used before these country names. How can we make sure if these country names are indeed not preceded by the definite article in French? If that is the case, how can we check if the latter part of the usage notes in the entry for Israël likewise apply to the French country names listed above? Intolerable situation (talk) 06:51, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

@Intolerable situation

As a general rule, any island that either fits being tiny, remote or not an island state, but not always, doesn't take the article and uses à (not en):

• en Afghanistan, au Venezuela
• à Haïti, à Vanuatu, à Malte, à Aruba, à Ikaria

but

• en Islande, en Indonésie

islands starting with île take à + the article

• aux Îles Cooks and à l'Île Maurice (but also en Île Maurice, compare en Île de France)

Israël is different since it follows name rules, we don't use articles before people's names.

Saumache (talk) 08:02, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay. So, should usage notes according to the above regarding the definite article and prepositions be added to the entries for the French proper nouns Chypre, Cuba, Haïti, Madagascar, Malte, and Maurice? Intolerable situation (talk) 08:31, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

We go through Category:fr:Islands page by page and/or update à. Saumache (talk) 08:39, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay. Also, since Haïti does not refer to a whole island and refers to a country, its entry should have its own usage note even if the entry à is updated. Intolerable situation (talk) 09:28, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

@Intolerable situation: I can't find the discussion now, but I've talked before about we should have articles in the headword line for countries in French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. as country lists made in French, made by the French government, French Wikipedia, the Quebec government, the UN, the EU, the ILO, and more, all include the article in their lists. As such, I've started adding them myself by default, for the countries that have them. That way, the countries that don't have them stand out. For prepositions, I find it much easier to have simple usage examples like fr.wikt does (see: Afghanistan), and leaving usage notes to the prepositions themselves like at à or dans, or at notable "exceptions" like Barbade.

@Saumache: Re: Israël, I found an absolutely fascinating research article that covers how French addresses place names, titled "Le locatif des toponymes en français (vagabondage linguistico-géographique)" (2019), which addresses it and Oman (which also doesn't use an article) as exceptions. However, the explanation it gives for Israël on page 26 is that it has more to do with longstanding traditions of translating the Bible. Other names designating a people more than a specific defined region, like Moab, Aram, etc., were translated without using an article and that extended to Israël, and as the modern state only came into place in 1948, that article-less practice has continued since then, even though we use en for its preposition, since it still can be used to refer to a "people".

The same paper on page 31 explains that the existing paradigm really came into place in the 20th century, and that beforehand, the paradigm used to be en for European countries, giving en Portugal, while non-European countries would use à, giving à la Chine. It makes me wonder whether that should be noted in our entries, but we tend to not mention historical developments when it's not an ancestor language :-/ CC:@-sche AG202 (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

If the information about the earlier paradigm is correct (we spot-check various European vs non-European place names and verify that they mostly adhere to the proposed pattern, and/or we find other references confirming it), I think it can and should be noted. We have various pronunciation-section notes about "Early Modern" and other pre-1900s English pronunciations, and usage notes like dead#Usage notes and become#Usage_notes. If we need to put basically the same note on a lot of entries, we could templatize it (compare e.g. Template:U:en:-ese). - -sche (discuss) 20:54, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• s:fr:Essai sur les mœurs/Chapitre 1 "à la Chine"
• s:fr:Description de la Chine (La Haye)/De la Province de Chan tong "à la Corée"

Saumache (talk) 23:07, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

take off

An example at "take off":

If you take off for Thanksgiving you must work Christmas and vice versa.

As far as I can gather from the position of the example, it is supposed to mean "If you take time off work for Thanksgiving ...". I have not heard of such an intransitive usage in British English. Can anyone confirm that this makes sense in AmE? Mihia (talk) 18:24, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

It's real, though it's hard to find citations where an alternative interpretation as "depart, leave" is completely impossible (it's often possible, even if contextually less likely, that that sense could be meant instead). For example, Evelyn Husband, High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband (1996), page 131, "On the twenty-third, the crew took off for Christmas and wouldn't have to be back to work until January 2" is probably this sense, but take off ("depart, leave") is used in much the same way — you could (structurally) very similarly say "After all work at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was finished, the workers took off for Christmas", meaning they "left" that jobsite/city/state, not just temporarily taking a break from working there; in many cases, it seems like only context (like: that in this case they were taking and later returned from a break, rather than making a permanent departure) can make one interpretation or the other more likely. Michael Gray Baughan's 2013 Stephen King biography has another example where the surrounding text conveys that "take a break from work", not "depart, leave", is meant: "Stephen King typically writes at least 1,500 words a day, six or seven days a week. Early in his career, he truthfully boasted that he only took off for Christmas and his birthday, but eventually that just became a stock answer to a question asked too often. He likes to work on something new in the morning[...]". (Both those texts are by and about Americans.) Dictionary.com has this sense as "Withhold service, as in I'm taking off from work today because of the funeral . [First half of 1900s]". Merriam-Webster notices that it can be used about more than just work, which is correct: if you are known for protesting outside city hall every day, you could say "I'm taking tomorrow off", meaning that you are taking a break from that activity. (Our entry does seem to cover this, if you view protesting as your responsibility, but maybe we could add "or usual / customary activity".) - -sche (discuss) 19:29, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

OK thanks, I split the senses and labelled the intransitive one as US. Mihia (talk) 20:13, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

greater

Is there any sense to the present arrangement of this article, whereby "comparative form of great" is listed alone in one "Adjective" section, while other uses that seem obviously derived from, or stemming from, the same meaning, "comparative form of great", are in a separate section? Mihia (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't buy it. A single adj POS section with a sense–subsense structure (i.e., # [comparative, = more great] and then ##, ##, ##) would be a more accurate way to enter the info. The notion that that's not the real-world phenomenon (which the entry aims to describe) is tenuous. If anyone can defend the existing treatment convincingly, I would be interested in hearing the argument. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:42, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

OK, I've combined it into one section. Mihia (talk) 12:08, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

Dozens of red-links at Maryanne

Are these worth having: all the variant combinations of Anna, Marie, etc. with spaces between them? You can put any two names together. ~2026-48830-67 (talk) 11:58, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

being-for-itself

Three senses of metaphysics: a red flag? ~2026-48830-67 (talk) 13:31, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

The third sense is just a statement about whatever the term is referring to, not a definition. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:43, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

User:Fish bowl deleting citation when we don't have 3

Please see revision history at ratchet: [2]. FB deleted a citation because it was from a place that seemed racist. Now we have only one citation. This is destroying legitimate evidence and would hurt the term's chances if raised at WT:RFV. Can someone make a formal decision and hopefully revert please. ~2026-48830-67 (talk) 14:12, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

That word does not need such a blatantly racist cite, and Fish bowl explained in the edit summary why it's not a good quote. They've also replaced it with another cite, so this is a moot discussion. AG202 (talk) 14:36, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

I've opined in other discussions that if we actually need a racist cite in order to meet ATTEST, it can be put on the citations page; in this case, it is not necessary because other cites can be found and indeed, as AG says, one has now been added. - -sche (discuss) 16:20, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

high touch

The first def seems to be missing an important detail - Of a customer or client: dealing with or interacting with a human being who is an employee of a company (or something to that effect). It might even go further still, namely, in a high-touch process, each interaction with a customer/client takes up a significant amount of employee time.

Also, I rather doubt the existence of three distinct senses. A matter for RFV perhaps? This, that and the other (talk) 07:22, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

The commercial aspect seems to be part of the initial usage context, not essential to its meaning now or even shortly after coinage. It should be possible to have a single definition (skating closer to being SoP) that covered the range of usage. DCDuring (talk) 13:32, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Amen in Arabic wikitionary

Beside other descendent languages , Hebrew אמן sharing the same root should be mentioned ~2026-49064-18 (talk) 18:48, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

*𑀓𑁂𑀭𑀴𑀫𑁆

Should this term be moved into the Reconstruction namespace? Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 12:08, 10 September 2026 (UTC)

At: location at sb's house (Caribbean English)

As in I'm living at my aunt or I'm going at Eugene. Compare the regional He's over to the doctor's. JMGN (talk) 10:03, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Are cites available? DCDuring (talk) 16:16, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

dishes ("dishwashing")

I'm not a native speaker, so my objection may be mistaken. However, I've always interpreted the phrase "do the dishes" as "treat the dishes", "get the dishes ready", and not as "do the dishwashing". So I wonder whether "dishes" can mean "dishwashing" in any other context. For example, would it sound normal to say: "The dishes are my favorite kind of housework"? ~2026-49117-21 (talk) 19:08, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

do the dishes means do the dishwashing (not necessarily drying them). The dishes could mean "doing the dishes", as in "After dinner, my job was the dishes, hers the drying." But it's so much easier and more natural to say "After dinner, I did the dishes, she did the drying." DCDuring (talk) 02:25, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

But with dishwashers, "I'd run the dishwasher, she'd do the pots." Pots does not mean "washing the pots" except in deixis. DCDuring (talk) 02:28, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I would also note that in the context of doing the dishes, the "dishes" include the utensils. If I do the dishes by washing just the plates and bowls, and leave the utensils in the sink, my wife will be quite displeased and will insist that I have not finished doing the dishes. bd2412 T 03:51, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

‘Do the washing-up’ and ‘wash up’ are clearer phrases but I don’t think either of them is ever uttered in America with that meaning. I remember being confused when I first heard someone use the American English sense of ‘wash up’ (he was actually Dutch FWIW) to mean ‘have a wash’. I would never say ‘have a wash’ to mean ‘have a bath/shower’ but only ever to mean ‘wash my hands and/or face’ making it an exact equivalent of the US ‘wash up’. I wonder if ‘have a wash’ has such a restricted meaning Stateside? Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:59, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree that the AmE-vs-BrE differences about these terms are interesting in the sense of (at least) being worthy of awareness. I grew up speaking AmE and using the term dish soap for what Brits often call washing-up liquid. I'd never heard the latter synonym until adulthood (which is partly a reflection of my generational age [GenX]; American kids today can potentially encounter any particular BrE term at primary school and secondary school ages merely through today's norms of internet use and exposure). The (formerly strong, now weaker) geolectal sequestering of those terms (dish soap and washing-up liquid) relies on the underlying fact that Brits usually specifically mean doing the dishes when they say the verb wash up, whereas Americans might mean either "do the dishes" or "wash one's hands" when they say the verb wash up (for example, when and where I grew up, the command to "wash up for dinner" means to get yourself presentable for the table, including washing your hands and also, if necessary, washing your face and arms, and showing up to the table in nonfilthy clothes). I corroborate here that all of the things that DCDuring explained above (regarding idiom) match the usage that is normal in AmE for anyone whose accent is GenAm. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:40, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I haven't heard "have a wash" or "wash up" in the USA in any context, as far as I can remember. BirchTainer (talk) 05:25, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

It means washing them (and, as noted above, also the utensils that are not dishes). You could use it in other phrases ("I looked at the chore wheel and saw that I was responsible for the dishes today"). In a Google search I can see people reassured a partner, "I got the dishes" i.e. I will wash them this time. ~2026-49526-51 (talk) 08:07, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm the same user who originally asked the question. To be sure, I know what "do the dishes" means, my question was just about whether the noun phrase "the dishes" as such really had the sense of "washing up", which we give. However, I think my question has been answered by the user who said that it would be common to say: "My job was the dishes". Special thanks to them :) ~2026-50703-47 (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

tycoon

Sense 3 (“Roblox game involving the use of a base to generate bricks and cash”) has a slangy definition – what on earth are a base and bricks? It seems it really is different from sense 2 (“business simulator”), so can we improve this definition? — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 23:49, 12 September 2026 (UTC)

A base is a headquarters. Bricks are a building material. Roblox is about building things (as far as I can tell): a sort of construction-kit game. ~2026-49526-51 (talk) 08:04, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

What would be the right synonym for a base so those unfamiliar with the game would benefit from the definition?

"A Roblox game in which players use their base of operations to generate bricks and cash." DCDuring (talk) 14:38, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that’s what “brick” means here, though. I have a vague idea of what a tycoon is, and I assure you it's not about construction. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 14:39, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

The Roblox sense probably comes from tycoon game, misunderstood by the very young players. (I have seen the genre roguelike similarly butchered to refer to roguelites.) Here are the construction bricks: [3]. Apparently as the game has developed the term is sometimes used to refer to all kinds of connectable components even if they don't look like brickwork. ~2026-49526-51 (talk) 14:45, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Okay, determinining what a brick is might be essential, so I watched a YouTube video. Watching this and recalling my memories from 10+ years ago, I think this is what's up: the game starts you out inside your own “base” of operations (really not much to it), where you have one machine (a “dropper”) that spawns colorful little cubes (“bricks”), which go onto a conveyor belt and are quickly converted into cash – you don’t actually do anything with the “bricks”. With this cash, you can either add more “droppers” to your “base’s” conveyor belt (or do other things to increase your brick, and therefore cash, production; in the late game, your “base” will have multiple floors and produce types of “bricks” that are more valuable than the standard one), or you can buy fun perks that match the theme of the tycoon game you’re playing – in the case of the video I watched, you could acquire superhero powers and items and go fly around the game world and kill other players.

I think the current definition is simultaneously lacking and excessive. It doesn’t let you really understand what it’s about because it uses excessive slang. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 15:02, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Do bricks ever have any function other than conversion to cash? Maybe in later versions of the game. DCDuring (talk) 23:03, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Maybe, but I would be surprised. The “tycoon” is a generic framework with many, many almost identical games built using it, so they don’t innovate very much. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 00:48, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

@Polomo: I have added quotations to sense 2 of dropper and changed the definition from “One who drops something” to “One who or that which drops something”, unless you think this should be separate sense (if this specifically refers to this type of machine). J3133 (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

kitba

Kitba is totally a backslang of Tagalog bakit as I seen in a nosi section with a link that doesn’t exist, so just let me add It and should be done already! TheOneWhoaddssomething (talk) 02:02, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Are you joking? Malta and the Philippines are very far apart. What is wrong with the existing Arabic ety, given the close links between Maltese and Arabic? ~2026-49526-51 (talk) 17:02, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

less

less as an adjective ("lesser, smaller") is labelled "archaic", and in attributive use it may be, for all I know. However, one of the examples involves "the case where the speed is less", which to my ear is not archaic at all, just faintly loose. Similarly "it's an easier climb because the gradient is less", etc. I suppose we could label it "informal". BUT ... is "less" definitely an adjective in these cases? If so, then "enough" in "the quantity is enough" should be adjectival too, and possibly others? Mihia (talk) 16:59, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

less (2)

Adverb definition:

To a smaller extent or degree.

The grammar book was less than (that is, not at all) helpful.

That this is a positive quality makes it no less a stereotype, and therefore unacceptable.

The definition is substitutable, with permissible change of order, into the second example, i.e. it is a stereotype to no smaller degree, but, as far as I can see, not into the first (the definition is also substitutable into examples for other adverb senses, but that's another problem). Can anyone even come up with a definition for "less" in the first example? Is it even an adverb? Mihia (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

less than has its own entry (but only with the obvious SoP sense, not the ironic "hardly" of the grammar-book example above). ~2026-49526-51 (talk) 17:09, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps we should just leave it to less than then. I notice no more than, only a strange more-than ("Our profits more-than doubled last year"). Does anyone actually hyphenate this? It looks weird to me. Mihia (talk) 17:29, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Looking at this again, I think that less than was probably created only for the unpredictable complement-less usage given in the examples. I suppose that other, standard uses were thought to be SoP. And if we add standard uses to "less than" (other than as "&lit") we would also logically have to create more than, fewer than and possibly a raft of others too, which would not be desirable. Therefore we should probably treat all standard ("predictable") uses of "less than" at less, but I wish I felt more certain about the PoS of the word in some of these. Mihia (talk) 18:36, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

less (3)

Adverb sense:

comparative degree of little

I slept little last night, but even less the night before.

I like him less each time I see him.

All my cares grew less until completely gone.

It seems clear that the last example is not of the same nature as the other two. An example of "grew less" in the sense of the first two examples would be "one tomato plant grew less than the other". So what is "less" in the third example? It seems to me that it is possibly an adjective. Anyone agree/disagree? Mihia (talk) 18:53, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

The last example is the only one for which you could directly substitute "fewer" or "smaller". bd2412 T 21:15, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

... which is evidence that it is an adjective. Also, "three is less than four", cf. "three is smaller than four". Also an adjective? Mihia (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

tarefa#Portuguese

Sense 5, "vessel where oil and rose water flow from the fields" (added here)... what does this mean? Is it a portable container that a person harvesting rose petals distills them (and their oils) in? A catchment basin for catching rose water that "flow[s] from the fields" like runoff? A Google Image search for água de rosas "tarefa" turns up nothing, AFAICT. Pinging a few Portuguese speakers, @Juwan, Polomo, Trooper57. - -sche (discuss) 04:35, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: If you follow the Priberam link at the bottom of the entry, it has:

1. Talha, nos lagares, para onde corre o azeite.

My Portuguese isn't that good, but that seems to say that it's a vessel used to catch the oil that comes out of the vat where you press the olives. The word order might have gotten scrambled: "vessel where oil and rose water from the fields flow" might almost make sense, except for the part about rosewater. Knowing a little about the equipment needed for distillation and the volume of rose petals required, it doesn't seem like a good idea to use the same thing you would use for olive oil from a vat. If it's not some kind of mistake in the wording, I can only say that rosewater flowing from the field seems absolutely bizarre- like using a fan to blow money to the bank... Chuck Entz (talk) 05:57, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

the relevant definitions from other dictionaries are: (qualifier labels reformatted)

• "[Lus.] Vaso para onde corre o azeite nos lagares e a água das seiras, separando-se lá um do outro." (Aulete)
• "[(1721) Portugal (regionalismo)] depósito, nos lagares de azeite, onde é recebido o azeite com a água-ruça, depois da prensagem // [(1899) por extensão; Alentejo] qualquer vaso de barro usado para conter água, azeite etc." (Houaiss)
• "[regionalismo] vaso para onde correm o azeite e a água-ruça das seiras; talha" (Infopédia)
• "[Portugal: Alentejo] Talha, nos lagares, para onde corre o azeite." (Priberam)

Juwan 🕊️🌈 08:51, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

the Houaiss definition is the most complete and from there one can write the definition as:

1. (Portugal) vase to collect the oil and amurca (lees) mixture extracted in an olive oil press
2. (by extension, Alentejo) any mud vase to hold water or olive oil

if anyone knows an English equivalent, please add it as well Juwan 🕊️🌈 09:21, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

noting key words to create/update entries: água-ruça, lagar, seira, talha. Juwan 🕊️🌈 09:24, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

 Updated the entry with more detail. Juwan 🕊️🌈 10:35, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Houthi

Is there a reason an entry exists only for the members of the group and not for the group itself (Houthis and Ansar Allah) like Fatah and Hezbollah? Aloysius Jr (talk) 11:32, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

It's because for most native speakers of English (albeit perhaps not all), the word works only in the way that is already entered, which makes it different from Fatah and Hezbollah in how it functions syntactically. A way to explain why is to compare it to some other words that work the same way, such as Romani. The members of the group (the Romanis or Romani; neither plural inflection is wrong) do not have an organization called Romani whose name is singular conceptually and in grammatical number. The members of the group (the Houthis or Houthi; neither plural inflection is wrong) do not have an organization called Houthi whose name is singular conceptually and in grammatical number. And the Commies don't have an organization called Commie, and the Nazis don't have an organization called Nazi. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:12, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

Some sources (1, 2) describe Ansar Allah as an organisation. I'm still not sure if the definition is as strong as Hezbollah or more like an organisation as group of people coöperating. Aloysius Jr (talk) 10:07, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, quite true that Ansar Allah is viewable as an organization much like Hezbollah is. Thus, a thing that is a political party, a movement, a paramilitary revolutionary army, a potential polity, any combination of those. But (for most native speakers of English albeit perhaps not all) the word Houthi does not idiomatically function as a grammatically singular name for it. Idiomatically that word functions only as a demonym. So the crux here is not about whether they have any organization at all (or not) but rather what its name idiomatically is in the English language. The use of the definite article ("the") reflects which grammatical roles the word can idiomatically play. Fatah and Hezbollah are spoken of without the def. art., but the Houthi are not. For ESL speakers, depending on which language is their native one, that detail might not carry much weight mentally and might seem arbitrary, but most E1L speakers have a gut feel for why the def. art. usage difference exists between (1) words that can function grammatically like "Fatah" or "Hezbollah" do in English versus (2) those that cannot because they function idiomatically only in the way that Romani or Houthi do. In syntactic parallel, the Commies once did have a movement-slash-organization (the Communist International), but it isn't called Commie with no "the" (that word isn't used that way in English), albeit for reasons of mere language-specific idiom alone (not of inherent phenomena considered etically). Quercus solaris (talk) 13:47, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

I see, much obliged. Aloysius Jr (talk) 22:55, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

non-native speaker pronunciation of voicehon

I recall we recently removed non-native speaker pronunciations of a(nother) European language; since the person who added this one specifies that they're a non-native speaker, should we also remove it? - -sche (discuss) 15:59, 14 September 2026 (UTC)

I support removing this particular audio file, including because it doesn't even sound like an initial /v/ at all. An IPA transcription should be added. I will do these things soon if I don't forget and if nobody throws a fit to prevent them. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:48, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

 Done. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:41, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I marked myself as a non-native speaker to be safe. Despite being raised speaking three languages, one of them being English, in the household. I have done so due to the lack of criteria for marking oneself as a native speaker with intention of raising the question in the discussion should the need arise.

Initial /v/ devoicing is a recording artefact which I missed due to my voice doing that sometimes as a result of a medical condition and it being late at night. I agree the recording should be remade. I can do so if my situation with learning English qualifies me to add pronunciation samples (please link the policy if such exists). Latenighteditttting (talk) 21:39, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

New word to wikipedia request

Barrel of organ, it’s for my reading class and it most likely has something to do with the nazis since that’s the topic we are reading about and I’m sorry if this is an existing word and I’ll probably not reply back since I don’t have an account so if this is an already added word just delete this post. ~2026-49834-32 (talk) 01:12, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Are you asking about a barrel organ? Quercus solaris (talk) 05:58, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

English consonants

Until 2023, consonant had the following sense and usex:

1. A letter representing the sound of a consonant.

   The 19 unquestionable consonants in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z.

This January 2023 diff changed the usex to 20 consonant letters, adding W. This July 2023 diff changed it from a usex about consonant letters to {{examples}}, and this edit today reduced it to 18, removing R and W on the grounds that semivowels and rhotics are not really "unquestionable".
Which letters are consonants in English? (I think most English speakers would regard R (rah rah rah!) as a consonant.) Should we even be trying to present a comprehensive list, with all the squabbles that brings, or would it be easier to switch the example to something intentionally incomplete and merely illustrative, such as "Consonant letters in English include C, D, F, and G", perhaps also adding a phonological example such as "Consonant sounds in English include /s/, /k/, /d/, /f/, /ɡ/ and /ʒ/"? - -sche (discuss) 16:03, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it depends on whose precise definitions of semivowels and consonants are used. Wiktionary could potentially present a single sense and then show subsenses to the effect of "19 such things when considered in way X" and "16 such things when considered in way Y." I would have to put some time into implementing that, but my gut perceives it up front as the best answer. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:15, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

Today’s editor represents those kind of people who think they have the better argument because they have fiercer wording. Insensitive to the empirical behaviour of language as they are, they memorized /w/ as semivowel, when it could be equally, and more rightly, emphasized as semiconsonant. Phonetically it is a consonant and it is described as a consonant: it has a place of articulation, a manner of articulation, an unvoiced variant (even in English, without the wine–whine merger), and a secondary articulation (labialized). But phenomenologically, in isolation from how the sounds occur in building words, there is the small detail of the “semivowels” being produced without constriction of the speech tract. Behaviorally, there is nothing in support of the claim when regarding English. I suppose the name “semivowel” is carried over from traditional grammar and fitted Italic languages more: there is no additional consonant seen in Spanish huevo against Portuguese ovo, in that sense, though it is not excluded to be a consonant in some contexts, such as the Mapuche borrowing huingán: it is the native word-building habits that decide whether those semis are consonants or vowels in general then—saying English does not have the habit qualifying /w/ as a vowel.

And now “rhotics” is no relevant contradistinction at all—what’s next, /l/ is no consonant because it is a liquid? Fay Freak (talk) 10:24, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I am not sure what the deal is with the caricature you are creating of me here. I was not trying to make any kinds of arguments with "fiercer wording", only attempting to respect nuance. My point of semivowels and rhotics was simply that they are not agreed upon as "unquestionable consonants" in English, particularly when concerning the cases of diphthongs and rhotic vowels, where ⟨w⟩, ⟨y⟩, and ⟨r⟩ frequently behave far more like vowels than consonants. From an orthographic standpoint, there are also loanwords like cwm where the grapheme ⟨w⟩ plays the role of a vowel just as ⟨y⟩ does in many native words, which is precisely why the dictionary.com definition of vowel says and sometimes w and y.

There are not /l/-colored vowels like there are /r/-colored vowels (in fact, an inverse situation exists, there are vowel-colored /l/s), so the point you are making there just seems like a silly strawman. Even though /l/, /m/, and /n/ have syllabic realizations, they are still treated as consonants by phoneticians, just forming a syllable nucleus. The same is not necessarily true for /w/, /j/, and /r/.

For what it's worth, I happen to strongly agree with @-sche's latest changes to the page by changing "consonants" to "consonant letters", and removing "unquestionable" altogether. This avoids the overstating that I too was trying to work around, and in a way that limits the avenues for debate to arise (for the better). ~ oklopfer (💬︎) 15:27, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

You represented their stance, not necessarily regularly being one of them, I worded it carefully. Strangely enough people – they way they mask, as all neurotypicals do – are obsequious to the opinions of other people they reckon to have a sway; this is how whole party lines of actual political parties are created. Like this is nearly education politics, but I won’t give details on recent years’ changes passed in it. And the caricature is found on the internet all the time and begins there nowadays. Recently I read a blog by a famous German blogger who is continuously bombarded by troofers: their line of argument is that it could not have been the planes because their bodies are just aluminum and one can’t break a wall with a beverage can. Tribal argument: Steel wins against aluminum in couch physics, semivowels elevate themselves against consonant rows. Sounds plausible, should we consider it therefore?

I know, you were considerably smarter than that! You just foresaw that someone would think that, that someone somewhere was taught this smart-aleckism leading him to contend that ⟨w⟩ is not unquestionably a consonant in English and ⟨r⟩ is not unquestionably a consonant!

On the other hand, someone might claim things unquestionable which might be questioned and this was supposed to be a usage example. This has so many levels of theory of mind …

R-coloring does not make the quality of /r/ as a consonant sign disappear. Even if you only know non-rhotic accents then the sign represents a historical background. It is a very peripheral understanding of the definition “a letter representing the sound of a consonant” that ⟨r⟩ only represents r-coloring anymore, which is not even the case in all positions. Very peculiar reading, that would not realistically make consonant letter rows including ⟨r⟩ contested. The consonant letters are always emic and not etic here? The usage in the sense of letters concerns the type in the type-token distinction. It’s a type of letter that represents the sound of a consonant. Fay Freak (talk) 17:03, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

turta

List of descendants is in a non-standard format, with categorisation of Romance languages that doesn't seem accurate. Griffon77 (talk) 17:58, 15 September 2026 (UTC)

hyperstate

The definition seemed a little iffy, so I checked Google Books. There seemed to be enough to pass RFV, so I left it alone. Most of the hits were for various concepts in mathematics, science and medicine, but they're all over my head, so I'm bringing it here. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:33, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Current page is useless. Hyper usually means way above and beyond (to the point of harm). If specific cited senses cannot be created then zap it, HE SAID SADLY. ~2026-50217-79 (talk) 03:41, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

The current definition, or something very like it, can probably be cited (e.g. "Nabhani expanded the borders of an ephemeral hyperstate from the Arab (envisaged by nationalists) to the Islamic word, [...]" [4]). Other definitions most probably also exist. Mihia (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

crossover

Sense "Meeting of various characters" is rather hard to exactly understand. Does anyone know what it refers to? I'm thinking it may be a wide-of-the-mark attempt at the idea of something spanning or borrowing elements from two or more fictional universes, which is another sense. However, I could be wrong. Examples would help. Mihia (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Given the "fiction" label, I think it is indeed about the situation in which two or more characters 'cross over' lines between them and appear in the same comic, TV show, etc.

The wording of sense 7, "A piece of fiction that spans or borrows elements from two or more fictional universes", seems to miss the mark in multiple ways, too broad in some places, too narrow in others (though it's possible one definition with improved wording could combine both senses).

"Elements" in a crossover need not belong to two or more [i.e. different] fictional universes per se. Batman, Batwoman, Superman and Supergirl exist in the same DC comics universe, and various comics (etc) depict them together e.g. as part of the same Justice League, but if there is one comic or TV show which focuses mainly on Gotham and Batwoman's adventures (occasionally mentioning something Superman/Supergirl got up to in asides and asterisks), and another which focuses on Supergirl and her adventures, then an episode where the stars of both appear together is a crossover (or a crossover event, or crossover episode, in a way the Batwoman comic where Supergirl is merely mentioned in an aside, unseen, is not a crossover), even though they're not from different universes per se, just different shows/comics that focus on different slices of that universe; similarly, if one show is about Superman, and another is about Supergirl, they could film a crossover. (I think all these are not just hypothetical examples but real shows that aired on w:The CW and situations that happened in the comics.)

Conversely (on the "asides and asterisks" point), IIRC there was an episode of the TV show Supergirl where, though rights owners didn't want to allow their famous Batman character to appear just any and every time Supergirl or others visited Gotham, there was something like a batarang visible and someone asked where he was and the reply was that he was away from the city; in a case like that, "elements" (the batarang, maybe the character's name) from discrete media entities (different shows, comics, etc) are present, but AFAICT such a thing is specifically not considered a Supergirl + Batman "crossover" (because Batman himself is not present, there are merely elements presented to remind viewers that he exists elsewhere in that setting). But I suppose there could be cases where a "crossover" might not involve "characters" from two or more settings, like if there were a short where Bugs Bunny flew towards the Death Star in a TIE fighter or X-Wing, that could probably count as a Bugs Bunny + Star Wars "crossover" (?) even if no Star Wars characters appeared.

Does that mean there are two senses, one for "elements" and one specifically for "characters"? And/or is it that there are pragmatic restrictions on how significant the "elements" and the intent behind their inclusion need to be for something to be a "crossover"? (I don't think an episode of Sherlock or Seinfeld where a child's room had a TIE fighter and a batarang in it would be considered a "Seinfeld/Sherlock + Batman + Star Wars crossover". I am unsure that even an episode where Seinfeld had a dream about someone [unseen] flinging a batarang at him would be considered a "Sherlock + Batman crossover", though I could see someone writing a question-mark headline about it, "Seinfeld / Batman crossover?". I think things have to rise above the level of "show/comic X referencing or paying homage to show Y", to the level of crossing the shows/comics, to be a "crossover".)

I wonder if there are any sentences which would distinguish "a meeting" from "a piece of fiction [in which there is a meeting]", which might help in determining if one wording or the other is better. I see that Wikipedia's definition is "a crossover or cross-over is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, works, or universes into the context of a single story" (rather than "a crossover is a piece of fiction in which there are two or more [...]"). - -sche (discuss) 15:32, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

Another aspect of this is the adjective definition that I added earlier: "Of a fictional character, spanning two or more fictional universes". I essentially copied the wording of the noun definition, in respect of the fictional universes, but actually the specific example that I had in mind is just as you say above, two "slices" of the same fictional universe rather than two separate universes. Also, while I had in mind, in particular, the phrase "crossover character" I wonder whether the "adjectival" sense could be more general, e.g. "crossover episode", and also in fact whether it is a true adjective in such uses or could be considered an attributive noun. Mihia (talk) 18:57, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

On the point about separate senses for "elements" and "characters", that doesn't seem necessary to me. I would think we should be able to combine these. On the point about whether a "crossover" is (or can be) a piece of fiction, there do seem to be examples that substantiate this, e.g. "This book is a crossover between Harry Potter and The Vampire Diaries". Mihia (talk) 19:08, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

... or possibly not, actually. Although a book is a piece of fiction, it wouldn't be a "piece of fiction between X and Y". Perhaps something like "This story is a crossover. It combines elements of X and Y". Mihia (talk) 19:47, 16 September 2026 (UTC)

zzxjoanw

I think this term should be considered a pseudo-loan on the basis of it being a fictious word coined to resemble a word in another language, similarly to Häagen-Dazs. The definition itself literally mentions it as a "fictitious Maori word", a strong indicator that the term was coined as a pseudo-loan from Maōri, even if the term itself isn't composed of any elements from the source language, similarly to Häagen-Dazs. Transducer1 (talk) 02:10, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Except it has nothing to do with actual Maōri, it just uses "Maōri" as a standin for some imaginary language from another part of the planet. Maōri, like other Polynesian languages, has very strong phonotactic constraints and a small set of consonants. You will never find any consonant but h, k, m, n, ng, p, t, r, w and wh (ng and wh represent single sounds) in any native Maōri word, and they're always followed by a vowel. for instance "George" was borrowed as "Hōri", "taxi" as "takihī" and "Saturday" as "Hātarei".Chuck Entz (talk) 06:54, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

It is important that we don't mix up "famous joke words" with "actual words". So: nope. ~2026-50217-79 (talk) 07:07, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

the wheels fell off and friends

Hello: I don't understand why the wheels fell off was created in past tense. (Why not the wheels fall off?) There is a huge number of alt forms which are also past tense (!!). I think this is a problem. My belief is that tense is temporary, but an infinitive/lemma is forever. I would love to hear some opinions from Wikt dorks. Can we move them all to present tense? ~2026-50217-79 (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

In some cases a non-infinitive form, especially of an MWE is much more common than the infinitive form, at least in some sense. Therefore, IMHO, it has to be done case by case, unless and until we have some tool to flawlessly generate and add redirects or alternative form entries automagically or with minimal contributor effort. DCDuring (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

help me understand poormouth#Noun

Defn says "A poor (impoverished) person, or one who claims to be so". This is not a word I am familiar with. I want to confirm that it can mean (i) a person who IS poor, and (ii) a person who IS NOT poor but claims to be (why? like for example a stingy spouse who complains to the husband/wife to save money?). Basically is it correct and should we split sense? Once again this isn't a familiar word to me in Britland, perhaps it's American. ~2026-50217-79 (talk) 07:13, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree that the emphasis is on the mouthing of poverty, not the fact of poverty. Some poor people claim poverty, but some don't. Some non-poor people claim poverty in some situations.

It seems unlikely that one could readily find unambiguous attestation of the 'actually poor' sense, ie, the term wouldn't be used of a factually poor person, unless said person claimed poverty. DCDuring (talk) 13:26, 17 September 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not a linguist, but AIUI one way to explain it is to invoke the concept of valence. The noun poormouth is usually used within the larger construction to cry poormouth, which is a VP (verb phrase). (BTW, many linguists, albeit apparently not all, consider single-word verbs to be a mere subset of VPs; they don't consider those a "different thing" from VPs.) Crying poormouth is something where "what you call it (i.e., which words you use to name it) depends on your viewpoint", for example, are you the one doing it yourself, or are you someone else who is asserting that another person is doing it? Under most normal conditions, no impoverished person ever calls _themself_ a poormouth, because it's a negative-valence term. And when a third party (such as an observer) calls them a poormouth, or asserts that they are crying poormouth, that third party is almost always implying that the person is acting too self-pitying (like "oh woe is me, please feel bad for little old me", etc). The word poormouth also has a verb POS, which the citations (quotations) there attest, although I must say also that it is not commonly heard in speech, even if we can't _quite_ give it a label of "uncommon". Quercus solaris (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

ærostation

Should ærostation be created as an alternative form of aerostation?

How do we handle words using ligatures, generally?

(I looked for Wiktionary:Ligatures before asking!) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:46, 18 September 2026 (UTC)

In general the ligature class of alternative spellings are indeed entered in Wiktionary. Typical examples can be seen for the hemato-/haemato-/hæmato- derived terms. Relevant templates for entering them include {{alternative spelling of}} and {{dated spelling of}}. American spelling went through a phase of (limited, half-ass) spelling reform in the early 19th century, which tended to reduce these digraphs to their single-letter counterparts (i.e, æ → e, œ → e). That aspect of the reform has stuck ever since, along with a few others (e.g., -ize versus -ise). Otherwise the Anglosphere mostly can't be arsed lol. English orthography is kinda ridiculous lol. Quercus solaris (talk)

semordnilap (audio pronunciation)

A bot recently added the audio pronunciation to to the page semordnilap, but in that audio file, the "l" and the "n" have swapped places: /səˈmɔːdlɪnæp/ instead of the expected /səˈmɔːdnɪlæp/. Earlier this year I removed the incorrect audio pronunciation from the page, and now a bot reintroduced it and I had to remove it again. Can someone prevent bots from adding this incorrect audio pronunciation to the page? -- Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 14:22, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Relatedly (i.e., related to the concept of "can we please prevent bots from re-adding such files"), audio files that are flat-out objectively wrong (such as the one in this case) ought to be zapped out of existence, so that if anyone tries to link to them they just get a red link or 404-type error; but implementing that goal is for someone who is good at programming bots, which I unfortunately am not. There have been at least a dozen or so cases in which I have removed a link that was pointing to a flat-out objectively wrong audio-pron file. I did not yet attempt to obliterate the wrong file (in any of those cases) because I forget the wikilawyering process for doing so and have a mental block against learning it (because summary execution is the obvious truly correct answer in such cases but somebody would probably come out of the woodwork claiming that it's wrong). Quercus solaris (talk) 17:32, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

Or tag the file with |bad=Wonderfool can't speak proper ... Zebres rouges (talk) 22:22, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

How do I do that? The discussion page has been blocked from creation, and there is no "bad" template that I could add to the Wikimedia Commons discussion page. -- Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 07:25, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

See this edit —User:Vealhurl (talk 19:56, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

scientific theology

The formatting, capitalization (which I fixed) and the paragraph-length definition all point to LLM-based content. I'm not sure what to do with this. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:49, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I took a run at making it fit our style for entries. It's a career-enhancing take of sociology of science AFAICT. DCDuring (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

אלוהים: Tiberian pronunciation

The pronunciation section says

IPA|he|/ʔɛloˈhim/|[ʔɛloːˈhiːim]|a=Tiberian Hebrew

where I'm fairly sure the final i is just a typo, and it should be [ʔɛloːˈhiːm] - but I'm not 100% sure it isn't some subtlety on a par with a furtive patach. Could someone more confident in ancient Hebrew check this pleaae? Hiztegilari (talk) 17:44, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

@Mnemosientje, Enoshd, is [ iː i m ] an error here; should it be [ iː m ]? - -sche (discuss) 03:00, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

[iːim] matches Geoffrey Khan's reconstruction and doesn't seem to be a typo. @Saschajoon can you expand? —Enosh (talk) 14:13, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank's for the tag @Enoshd. You're right, my description was based on Khan's work. @Hiztegilari, check "The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew I:2:4" for more detailed explanations. :)

In short, when stress falls on a closed syllable, the stressed vowel gains an epenthetic "copy" of that vowel. (/ˈVC/ -> [ˈVː.VC]). Saschajoon (talk) 14:55, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Wow, thanks. That's typologically quite unusual. I've often wished I could get hold of a really good, modern analysis of ancient Hebrew, so I've found the PDF of Khan's work and will enjoy studying it. Hiztegilari (talk) 20:52, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

happy to help and happy learning! Saschajoon (talk) 20:55, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

kimoxi

Kimbundu

I removed {{number box}} from this entry because Module:number list/data/kmb has Kimbundu moxi for "1", but not this. Since Kimbundo is a Bantu language, the obvious guess is that this is just moxi with a noun class prefix, and thus a nonlemma- but I don't know the language, so I can only guess. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

outstand

I mentioned this in March of 2024, and no one noticed: definition 2 of this word seems to include multiple different definitions. Maybe I'm wrong. If not, I think this needs fixing. --Cromwellt|Talk|Contribs 22:12, 19 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree. "surpass in standing" seems different from "stand or remain beyond" and "outstay". Whether the latter two are different between themselves seems to depend on whether "stand or remain beyond" means "outstay" or something more like "outlast", which has a somewhat different connotation. Mihia (talk) 22:07, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Anyway, I split "surpass in standing" from the other two for now. Mihia (talk) 22:19, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

underflow: "the smallest non-zero value"

The "non-zero" qualifier which appeared a few times in this entry was incorrect; the specific number zero isn't relevant to the concept of underflow, and unsigned integer representations normally underflow when falling below zero, not when falling below one, the smallest non-zero value that can be physically stored in those representations.

I figured this probably didn't need discussion, so I corrected it. But using machine translation to check, it looks like the Polish and Malagasy Wiktionary entries for the English word "underflow" have inherited this error. I don't know if it's been propagated anywhere else. Autumnontape (talk) 21:18, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

ˈɔ(l).wis

Is it possible to specify any more specifically where this pronunciation is used? Is it used throughout the US, or in particular regions? (I am familiar with /ˈɔwiz/ with /z/.) - -sche (discuss) 21:42, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

English IPA for jer/yer (Slavic vowels/letters)

I revised and as far as approprite conflated the entries jer and yer, on the former page, since that's the more frequent spelling in English, even though it is less representative of the actual pronunciation (it is based on scholarly Slavic transliteration).

As a non-native speaker with little technical knowledge of English phonetics I'm having trouble with determining the correct IPA transcription. The two preexisting entries had conflicting information:

yer:

• (General American) IPA^(key): /jɝ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /jɜː/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)

jer:

• IPA^(key): /jɛə/, /jɛɹ/
• Homophone: yeah (non-rhotic)

By my ear, it is the latter pronunciation with /ɛ/ that is more likely to be used. Most people who will use this term already know some Slavic language, and, I assume, will probably prefer to use the more "full" quality, more similar to what is found in Slavic langs (e.g. Russian /'jer/). This pronunciation is supported by OED (2nd edition on CD says: jɛr) and, as far as I can hear, two scholars of Slavic languages who you can hear here: H. Andersen, around 2:00, Th. Olander, around 5:00. Olander might be deemed less relevant since he's obviously not a native speaker.

The former pronunciation with /ɜ/ is seemingly supported by a recording, but in fact the recording was originally meant just for yer 'your', and someone later copied it over to yer 'vowel' as well. However, the pronunciation is also supported by the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (JC Wells, 2000): jɜː || jɝː (with length in the latter case, unlike what was found at yer).

So, how to deal with this?

— Phazd (talk|contribs) 22:12, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Geneva as a metonym

One of the listed definitions for Geneva is "(metonymic) The Swiss government." No quotations or references attached. Is this accurate? Geneva is not the capital/seat of government of Switzerland, nor has it ever been to my knowledge. Does anyone have any insight? TheLegendofGanon (talk) 23:30, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I view it as a poor usage, a type of catachresis, although (1) I don't doubt that it is uttered occasionally (and thus exists as a sense, descriptively) and (2) there is the special situation of how Switzerland is constituted, whereby there is no official national capital, although Bern is a de facto national capital, and thus Bern, Zurich, and Geneva might all be portrayed as a metonymic kernel of Switzerland, culturally, without any technical misstep. I checked a bit (half-assedly) for citations for the sense in the GBS corpus, and I didn't find any, but it is implausible that the sense never arises naturally in speech, given accurate knowledge of how human minds normally tend to operate in that regard (i.e., always ready for a bit of catachresis here and there). I wouldn't object to the option of Wiktionary's not even entering the sense at all, but I would also respect the option of entering the sense but getting across (via labels or usage notes) that it is uncommon and informal and probably is often used out of ignorance (e.g., merely wrongly assuming that Geneva is the national capital). Quercus solaris (talk) 02:48, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

PS: I should acknowledge here too that the other metonymic sense of Geneva, referring to the Geneva Conventions, is common and unassailable. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:51, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Citations:love-handled

• 2000 — Melinda Muse, I'm Afraid, You're Afraid: 450 Things to Fear and Why, Hyperion (2000), →ISBN:

  Lipstick is the fastest growing cosmetic procedure […]

Is this really what's in the original text? Aloysius Jr (talk) 11:37, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

 Done. I fixed it per what is verifiable with certainty online. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:56, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Before I had the chance to reply, User:J3133 found the missing words. Thank you both! Aloysius Jr (talk) 20:52, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

near about: regional adv.?

Almost or nearly: She's near about 90. JMGN (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes because it is an alternative spelling of nearabout; the GBS corpus well supports the variant.^{(solid, open)} I'll enter it soon if I don't experience any unanticipated de⁠ars⁠ification about it before something else distracts me. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:00, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

 Done. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:41, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

weed whip

Oxford cites a Texan newspaper ad for weed Whips from 1954 for the sense 1, but I've got many more going back to The Current Local, Page 8, Thursday 4 June 1936, Van Buren, Missouri. From the illustrations in some this refers to what Ames now calls a weed cutter. My laptop isn't working, can someone add the reference, or find something better? Griffon77 (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

homicidal necrophiliac and the other 9 in this set

No actual definition is given for any of these, just that each of them is one of 10 classifications in a certain set. (Some may be SoP too.) ~2026-51296-24 (talk) 13:20, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

merge Etymology 1 and Etymology 2 of Dutch -ie?

(Notifying workgroup: Mnemosientje, Lingo Bingo Dingo, Azertus, Alexis Jazz, DrJos, Stujul): (also @Thadh as a native Dutch speaker) The two etymologies are separated because they have different origins (Latin -ia and -iō) but it appears no longer possible to synchronically distinguish them; -ie is simply an abstract noun-forming suffix. There are separate ID's to distinguish the two etymologies but most of the words in question appear to have been borrowed whole, and the etymologies involving -ie are merely synchronic, with the ID's assigned more or less arbitrarily. I think we should merge them into a single etymology section with a single ID, whose etymology indicates that this suffix originates from a merger of two distinct Latin suffixes. Benwing2 (talk) 04:23, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I believe MarcoSwart is also knowledgeable on complex etymology stuff. — Alexis Jazz (talk) 05:01, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I also think classifying -ie 1 as an alternative form of -ij is a bit iffy, since the two have quite different uses in modern Dutch (the latter having quite an archaic/medieval feeling, the former a more modern use). I would rather say these diverged at some point or were borrowed into the standard language from different dialects. Thadh (talk) 06:37, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

The answer is dependent on the way the English Wiktionary chooses to define "suffix".

1. There is a suffix -ie (related to -erie and historically -ij) that can be shown to have resulted in derivation of new nouns in Dutch.
2. There are cases where Dutch has borrowed both a word and its derived form on -ie from French. For a present-day reader, these appear similar to 1.
3. Then there are cases where Dutch borrowed both a word and its derived form from Latin, French, Spanish, German or English and shorted the derived form with endings like -ia, -io, -ion to -ie. These too appear similar to 1 to the present-day reader.
4. There are also cases where only the derived form is borrowed in a shortened form ending on -ie. These cannot be viewed as being derived in Dutch, but etymologically they are very similar to 2 an 3.

Dutch Wiktionary is in the process of gradually informing readers better about these distinctions, but this requires systematically consulting reliable etymological resources. My impression is that English Wiktionary traditionally prefers a more pragmatical, synchronical approach. From that perspective, fusing both etymologies seems to make perfect sense. MarcoSwart (talk) 09:35, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @MarcoSwart and @Thadh. I'm gonna merge these two etymologies in a day or so, using an id abstract and keeping the existing id diminutive for Etymology 3. Benwing2 (talk) 03:14, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Transliteration Modules

Hello, can someone take a look at my inputs on the transliteration modules I've edited and give me the "okay sign" to publish them formally? I've worked on Bashkir, Chukchi, Koryak, Even, Yukaghir, etc. I would very much appreciate the feedback! Used-sneakers.exe (talk) 05:40, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

@Used-sneakers.exe: Your module for Southern Yukaghir numerals contained quite a number of problems. I would suggest you don't try to edit all these languages at once, and instead focus on one language at a time. You should also take the time to figure out why past editors made the choices they did before trying to change these (re: the transliteration modules). Thadh (talk) 06:40, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Info on abbreviations of Tagalog grammatical terms

It would be nice to know more about where we could find these abbreviations. Are there source(s) that had them, like organized or listed, since these entries have no quotations or a Further reading. This also since I find them technical.

• pnb.
• pnh.
• pnk.
• pnl.
• pnt.
• pnu.
• png.

ᜏᜒᜃᜈᜒᜄᜐᜒᜈᜃ᜕ (talk) 08:39, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

what vowels are used in -ong words, and what mergers, splits, or other factors cause them to be used?

Copied from my talk page, because it seems that at least some entries might need to be revised to present /ɑ/ as existing alongside /ɔ/ not just as a result of the cot-caught merger, but also for another reason (to be identified):

In November 2023 you added the pronunciations /ˌhɔŋˈkɔŋ/, /ɡɔŋ/, /bɔŋ/, and /θɔŋ/ under the label GA, and moved the /-ɑŋ/ versions to a "cot-caught merger" subdialect. Were you adding these /-ɔŋ/ pronunciations based on your own dialect or from the observed speech of others, or were you adding them based on general knowledge of the LOT-CLOTH split? I ask because I'm from New Jersey, I have the LOT-CLOTH split, and have discussed the issue with my father, and we both distinguish between long, song, strong, and wrong, which are /-ɔŋ/, and Hong Kong, gong, bong, and thong, which are /-ɑŋ/. Simplificationalizer (talk) 19:12, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Interesting! Having heard some Americans who pronounce /ɔ/ (in general) pronounce all those words with /ɔ/, and having heard some who only use /ɑ/ (in general) use /ɑ/ in all of those, I took the difference to be due to the thing that usually causes /ɔ/ vs. /ɑ/ difference (cot-caught merger); your comment suggests there could be something more going on, so perhaps I fell into the error I've seen other people fall into when they assume e.g. /ɔɹ/~/ɑɹ/ variation is cot-caught. On the other hand, I note that Merriam-Webster notates both strong and thong as -ȯŋ i.e. /-ɔŋ/ (with the same vowel they use in klȯth, and different from lät), Collins notates both as /ɔŋ/ (like cloth, unlike lot), Dictionary.com notates both as /-ɔŋ, -ɒŋ/ (like /klɔθ, klɒθ/, unlike /lɒt/), the OED notates both as British /-ɒŋ/, U.S. /-ɔŋ, ɑŋ/ (which I read as acknowledging /ɑ/ as the pronunciation a US cot-caught merging speaker would use for both, since that's also how they present caught), and Cambridge notates both as US /-ɑːŋ/ UK /-ɒŋ/ because their US notation is cot-caught merging (they use /ɑː/ even for caught and cloth, as well as cot and lot). As far as I know, GenAm is typically/definitionally lot-cloth splitting and cot-caught distinguishing. And as far as I can tell from those dictionaries and what I've heard, it seems like the usual American pronunciation has /ɔ/ for both strong and thong (or, if fully cot-caught merging like Cambridge, has /ɑ/ for both), so perhaps there's something else going on in your speech (such as a partial cot-caught merger?) causing thong but not strong to have /ɑ/ for you? OTOH, perhaps some of the words (notably, ones deriving from Chinese or onomatopoeia) can have either vowel: I see that for Hong Kong, gong, and bong, Merriam-Webster and Collins list both /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ as American options, though the OED (unusually) lists only /ɔ/ for Hong Kong (whereas, for gong, bong, caught and in general all other words with /ɔ/, they list /ɑ/ as a second option, which I read as acknowledging that cot-caught merging speakers systematically have /ɑ/ wherever distinguishing speakers have /ɔ/). Perhaps we should seek more input in the Tea Room, as to whether anyone else is familiar with a split/difference here or knows what might be the cause of it? - -sche (discuss) 22:34, 29 August 2026 (UTC)

- -sche (discuss) 14:25, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Just FYI, I have the cot-caught split in my speech and I have /ɔŋ/ in all single-syllable words ending in -ong. I have never heard of a split where some of these words go with /ɔ/ and some with /ɑ/, so maybe this is an idiolect of @Simplificationalizer's family or a microlect of the area of New Jersey where their family is from? (I have heard of unusual splits in certain East Coast dialects, e.g. Boston is supposed to have a difference between mass = weight and Mass = clipping of Massachusetts.) FWI multisyllable words with -ong- not in the final syllable are a different beast; e.g. dongle sounds OK with either /ɔ/ or /ɑ/ and monger (as in fishmonger etc.) definitely has /ɑ/ (making it not rhyme with stronger); same with Congo. Benwing2 (talk) 17:33, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

shadowmap, cloudmap

(See Citations:shadowmap.) What are these? A map of shadows and a map of clouds? - -sche (discuss) 14:27, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Citations:shadowmap shows two different usages AFAICT. Quotes 1 and 4 refer to a ray-tracing technique in computer graphics; see shadow mapping. Quotes 2 and 3 are in the context of meteorology; see weather map. Benwing2 (talk) 17:37, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I guess I should say a rendering technique, not a ray-tracing technique, because not all rendering is done with ray-tracing. Benwing2 (talk) 17:40, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Quotes 2 and 3 are an odd mixture of meteorology and computer graphics. A map of clouds in the area around a solar-energy facility is converted into a 3D map of the intensity of the shadows they cast using "ray tracing". It's not clear whether this ray tracing refers to the mathematical modeling of physical rays of the sun and their intensity based on known cloud and sun positions, or to the method of computer graphics that uses imaginary light rays to add a 3D appearance to an image. Perhaps some combination of both. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:04, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: We have shadow map. ~2026-51961-24 (talk) 15:08, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Biennium, triennial, etc.: consecutive years?

Does it always last for a period of consecutive years? JMGN (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes; I can't think of any exceptions to that. But I wouldn't necessarily try to insert the adjective "consecutive" into the definitions, because it might be needless to say from various sane viewpoints. For example, as I write this comment, the def s.v. biennium is "A period of two years, particularly for purposes involving intercalation or fiscal calculations." To insert words to make it "two consecutive years" or "two years together" would be rejected by many people as unnecessary. Not least because "a period of" implies contiguity of the time span. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Portuguese: estar de acordo, de acordo, de acordo com

Should all of these be lemmatized separately? Notifying the ones who participated in a similar discussion some time ago: @Juwan, MedK1, Emanuele6, Trooper57 — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 23:24, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

for me, these quality to be different lemmas. supported also by lemming Priberam. Juwan 🕊️🌈 00:20, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

correcting, the latter two do qualify. Juwan 🕊️🌈 01:25, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

I think estar de acordo and de acordo should stay merged, although it's lacking an adverbial sense. And why is Agreed! in italics? Trooper57 (talk) 00:58, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I think so too. Estar can instead be any of various copulative verbs: ficar de acordo, continuar de acordo. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 01:00, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Can't the de acordo of de acordo com also occur without com to mean something like "accordingly"?

• Enquanto que no Hattrick a padronização dita o tom operacional devido à necessidade de atuar em diversos mercados simultaneamente sem deter dos recursos apropriados para se adaptar de acordo e extrair o máximo de resultado possível, no caso do Cartola as atenções estão voltadas e adaptadas para apenas um mercado, sem atualmente nem ao menos existir a intenção de internacionalização do jogo por parte da gestão da empresa.^[5]

Emanuele6 (talk 21:58, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Levantine Arabic "one ... at a time"

The Levantine Arabic expression corresponding to English's "one X at a time" is literally "every X in its X", e.g. كل يوم بيومو (kill yōm b(i) yawmo, “one day at a time”, literally “every day in its day”). But as a title this would look something like كل ... بـ...ـو (kill ... b(i) ...-o) which is completely unfindable except as maybe a descendant of كل (kill) and بـ (b(i)). I can't imagine it goes under Appendix:Snowclones, either, since it seems the snowclones we've currently got are all kind of quippy, more so than this. Thoughts? Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 01:52, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Ended up creating كل ... بـ...ـو (kill ... b(i) ...-o), perhaps to be moved to a better place. (The pagetitle without the 'hyphens' (kashida/tatweel marks) is even uglier than the link looks.) Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 07:19, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Hello, wouldn't it be better to add it to كل's page, or even if you want it to be its own page, wouldn't it be better to add a link on كل's page under "derived expressions" that leads to it? This page doesn't even show up as a suggestion to me when I type it on the search bar.

For what it's worth, the French page for ne...que also uses the three dots only that there are no spaces between the words. ICanHelpYou (talk) 17:47, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Gulf Arabic سرسح

Hello, I've just created a page for the Gulf Arabic verb سرسح. The problem is that I don't know how to correctly write the definition. As it is written right now it says "to be cold and refreshing", but this verb means "to be cold and to refresh (someone)". Is this transitive use of "refresh" correct in English? The verb is partly stative with the meaning "to be cold" but it's also transitive with the meaning "to refresh (someone)". These two ideas are inherent and interconnected, and adding "coldly" as an adverb seems wrong. ICanHelpYou (talk) 13:31, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "refresh" is perfectly fine as a transitive verb. If this verb has two usages, one as an intransitive stative verb meaning "to be cold", and another as a transitive causative verb meaning "to refresh (someone)", you should enter them on separate lines as separate definitions. If however it only has one meaning as a transitive verb that means approximately "to cool and refresh (someone)", you should say something like what I just wrote, or maybe write something similar to "to refresh (someone) (by cooling)". Benwing2 (talk) 03:10, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! I don't think this is exactly the right wording for it but it's much better than what I wrote. ICanHelpYou (talk) 05:45, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

oxygenarian

This entry should be created. It has an entry in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and another site:

• www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/octogenarian
• www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oxygenarian

Oh wait, in Merriam-Webster that says "octogenarian" not "oxygenarian". Maybe "oxygenarian" is derived from "octogenarian". So I guess there was good reason for deleting oxygenarian in the past. Urban Dictionary says oxygenarian means "n. Older person especially one who requires supplementary oxygen to survive." I looked for this word used in other places on the web and don't get that same meaning. --~2026-46649-83 (talk) 13:53, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Philosopher needed at diaphaneity

A new sense is needed for diaphaneity as described at Talk:diaphaneity § In philosophy. I think it's going to require a more perspicacious philosopher than I to write it. Searches revealed no existing discussion of this term on English Wikipedia in article space. Daask (talk) 23:49, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Closely related terms endorse and endorsement

endorse could be defined as "To provide an endorsement.", while endorsement could be defined as "the state or event of endorsing, or a record thereof". They have several distinct and notable senses, but these broad definitions could probably include all of them. How should these broad definitions be included in the entries? Options:

1. Include them as the primary sense, and make all other sense subsenses.
2. Include that as a distinct sense, knowing that they overlap with other senses.
3. Omit them, being sure to include all senses in both Wiktionary entries. This is the least future-proof. There may be other senses we're missing already or in the future that may get added to one page and not the other. It also leads to significant duplicate content.
4. Pick one of them to be the "primary" entry containing all senses, while using the generic definition for the other one. This option seems difficult in this case, leading to convoluted definitions regardless of which entry is chosen as primary.

Thoughts? Daask (talk) 23:54, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

behoove or behove

At the moment, behove is the main page while behoove is the variant, but I believe there's a strong case for making the main page behoove:

1. The pronunciation /bɪˈhoʊv/ is a spelling-pronunciation, the spelling "behove" was originally intended to represent /bɪˈhuːv/ (compare the spellings of move and prove). The spelling behoove eliminates the spelling-pronunciation risk.

2. According to Google Ngrams, the spelling "behoove" overtook "behove" in the United States in the 1850s (for comparison, that's only a few decades after the spelling "show" overtook "shew"), and in the UK, "behoove" overtook "behove" in the year 2010 (with the gap slowly widening since then). There are no major English-speaking regions where "behove" is still the dominant spelling. ~2026-49814-54 (talk) 03:26, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Support. Be bold. Daask (talk) 14:19, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Support. Leasnam (talk) 09:23, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

bídin hóyééʼ

The gloss for this Navajo term is "to be in short supply, scare, lacking". I am not sure how "scare" is here with "in short supply" and "lacking". Is it a typo of "scarce"? Intolerable situation (talk) 12:38, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Looks like a typo of scarce. ~2026-49814-54 (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

statesider

A new editor is seemingly pushing this term on a variety of pages for terms meaning "someone from the United States". It's definitely not the primary term for this sense, but is it even normal? It comes across as informal to me. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 17:37, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I personally haven't heard it. Vininn126 (talk) 19:20, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Looking through the user's contribs, I see four kinds of things: 1) The (cut-and-paste) move of the entry statesider to Statesider, which (in respect of its latter two, perhaps more common, senses) is possibly wrong, although Ngrams does suggest Statesider recently overtook statesider; this should be looked into. 2) The addition of a bunch of content to the entry, including making the new "American" definition sense 1; is that the most common sense? Also, I notice that the label on the word has been changed multiple times, starting as "literary" (wrong), now "chiefly British"; how common is it? Even in Britain I doubt it's the main form; do we hit it with an "uncommon"? "Informal"? 3) Adding the term to the lists of synonyms that exist in myriad entries: probably the main thing that needs to be done there is centralize the synonyms so we don't have that list duplicated in a bunch of places falling out of sync. 4) Adding the term as a translation to several entries, which I have undone as those entries had sufficient and better (more common and usual) translations already. - -sche (discuss) 16:32, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

I just dug into the relevant statistics. There are about 3,000 uses in Commonwealth countries, mostly Britain and Australia, with a smaller number in Canada. Usage in the U.S. territories is much higher, at around 9,000. Both of those figures are approximate, based on what the AI I am using can access.

So, here's the question I leave to others to answer: Which is the primary sense? The term is used vastly more frequently in one sense in a tiny population of people (the population of U.S. territories), but everywhere else in the world (including in the United States proper) it is used in a different sense.

There is a similar question about labelling the term uncommon. That seems accurate to me. However, imagine how confusing it will be if you label the Commonwealth usage uncommon because it is spread over a larger population and then don't label the U.S. territories usage as uncommon because it is used frequently by a tiny population. For the vast majority of the English-speaking world, Statesider means any so-called U.S. American and both uses are uncommon.

BTW, Statesider is sometimes used in a literary (evocative, artistic) sense in the Commonwealth. I removed that when I realized that it's not the only way. Here, for example, in the International Film Magazine, "When the final credits roll on Chalet Girl it’s something of a surprise to discover that this isn’t a Working Title production. After all, the requisite elements are all here: a star-crossed romance between a scruffy Brit and a sophisticated Statesider; chocolate-box scenery; a nauseating helping of saccharine sentiment; and a conciliatory ending to warm the cockles."

And here's why Statesider should appear as a translation for terms like États-Unien and estadunidense: A translator would want to be made aware of Statesider because, just like those terms in those languages, Statesider is already used and understood as a natural language substitute for American in vast parts of the English-speaking world. Leaving it out leaves them blind to the very world they may be looking for. Nowhere in the world is U.S. American or United Statesian in use as natural language. Chachagouache (talk) 09:58, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Please don't be using AI, and for a good comparison you need to compare. I recommend comparing all terms in Google Ngrams. Vininn126 (talk) 10:05, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Why not use AI? Anything by Google is heavily skewed to U.S. texts. Chachagouache (talk) 10:10, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche just removed the following quotation from the adverbial use of stateside, stating "the quotation (since it uses the term only once) must be using either one part of speech or the other, it can't be under both..."

--

2018, Dustin Weeks, “In Hawaii, the 48 contiguous US states are referred to as the "Mainland." Is this phrase ever used in Alaska, or is it always the "Lower 48"?”, in Quora‎[3]:

One more: "Stateside". I had especially heard Korean War vets or Vietnam vets use the phrase - as if Alaska were an overseas army base. Haven't heard it in years, though....

--

To my eye, the quote applies to all uses of the term, since the quote is a sentence about the term and uses it as neither adjective nor adverb. Could someone kindly explain to me where I can put that quote in the entry, so that people using stateside as either adjective or adverb can better judge whether the usage is dated? Chachagouache (talk) 14:17, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

I should clarify that it's actually the adjectival use of the Alaska/Hawaii usage specifically. Having learned more about the distinction between obsolete and dated, I think both the adjectival and adverbial Alaska/Hawaii usages should be dated rather than obsolete. Chachagouache (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

I've gotten all mixed up. It's the adjectival Alaska/Hawaii use. They left the quote in the adverbial Alaska/Hawaii use. Chachagouache (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

@Chachagouache, please stop pushing "Statesider" into entries; it is not a common or usual word for "(US) American". The most common term is American (by far), followed by US American, and even USian is more common than Statesider. - -sche (discuss) 19:48, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

I have provided many usage examples from, among others, the Times of London, the Economist and Frommer's travel guides. What I am pushing is evidence. The term is a demonym, and demonyms are capitalized in English. Chachagouache (talk) 20:08, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

no one is denying those exist, but that is a small selection of evidence, and quite easily victim to selection bias. Did you look at the other evidence (in the links) provided in the thread? Vininn126 (talk) 21:13, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Once I was made aware of this thread, yes, I did. Google Books is also subject to selection bias, and terms like U.S. American and USian are often mentioned in lists of proposed alternatives to American, when what we are looking for is actual use of the terms. Statesider is used in British English without explanation because people know what it means in part because the British have many demonyns ending in -sider, whereas in the United States, a much larger country, I think there are only one or two. Personally, I have never heard anyone outside of North America use U.S. American, though some no doubt have. The Brits have many terms for Americans, but most of them (like Yank) are very informal, even derogatory. Usage suggests that Statesider is not informal. It's a neutral alternative.

I've lived in Australia (I used to be a Sydneysider), Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.S. (Midwest and Deep South) and am currently working in South Africa for a few years. It may be that my exposure to the English language is broader than most people here. Chachagouache (talk) 06:15, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

How is it subject to selection bias? It's much wider a sample size and neutral in showing what is more popular. Do you mean something else? Vininn126 (talk) 09:50, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, Google Books is heavily skewed toward U.S. texts. And it doesn't sort out natural usage from word lists of proposed alternatives to the word American for U.S. citizens. U.S. American frequently appears in discussions about terms to replace American, whereas Statesider has been virtually absent from those lists but is already natural language in Commonwealth countries. I have yet to see anyone in the Commonwealth write that we should start calling Americans Statesiders. They don't have to. They've been doing it for decades, and the Statesiders haven't noticed. Chachagouache (talk) 10:07, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

You can filter by corpus and search just British in Ngrams. Vininn126 (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Terms like this are not always capitalized: for example, frog (“a French person”) is often uncapitalized, as are some of the synonyms it lists. (I also checked pommy, which Wiktionary currently lemmatizes in lowercase, but Ngrams suggests that one should possibly be moved to Pommy.) It doesn't surprise me that statesider is also often lowercase (though Ngrams does have Statesider edging out statesider recently), particularly in the senses that are analogous to e.g. mainlander and refer to people who are stateside, both of those terms also usually being lowercase (Ngrams). It's possible that those senses should be lemmatized at lowercase (compare how southerner (“person from the south of somewhere”) is lemmatized in lowercase, and only Southerner (“person from the US South”) is lemmatized in capitalized form), though it's also possible that it's better to keep them all on one page.
In any capitalization, "Statesider" is a very rare term for an American, so adding it as a translation to terms like US-Amerikaner that already list the common English terms/translations is, I think, more confusing than helpful, and should not be done. - -sche (discuss) 00:53, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Stateside is a specific place, not like the south of just anywhere. It's also not derogatory, like frog. I also noticed the trend in capitalizing it from actual usage before making that switch.

Statesider may be infrequently used, but its usage is real precisely because it has been omitted from lists of proposed alternative terms for American, precisely because Statesiders are unaware of the usage in the Commonwealth. U.S. American's stats are inflated by its inclusion in those lists.

The saddest thing is that you won't let me characterize the Alaskan and Hawaiian use of Statesider for someone from the 48 contiguous states as dated, when both of those places became states in 1959 and the most recent usage of that sense that I could find was from 1962. Imagine how degrading it is for Alaskans and Hawaiians to be told that they still refer to themselves as being outside of the United States proper, when they don't (with the possible exception of some indigenous Hawaiians who don't recognize the U.S. annexation, who I can't blame because what happened to them was appalling). The term stateside clearly includes both Alaska and Hawaii today. I have found no recent usage to indicate otherwise. Chachagouache (talk) 06:41, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

The saddest thing is that you've convinced yourself that you've found some secret that no one else has observed. Some of our most prolific contributors are from the UK, and they've never seen fit to frame it the way you do. If I had to guess, I would say that you've been getting most of this from some AI chatbot. You need to be aware that the primary purpose of AI as currently implemented is to promote the use of AI as it's currently implemented. It's very good at telling you what you want to hear, sometimes including its best guess at what the evdence would look like if it sctually existed. Chuck Entz (talk) 11:45, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

I, at least, have had the intellectual honesty to present evidence that doesn't necessary support my interpretation of things, whereas you clearly have an axe to grind. I have asked questions, whereas you bark orders at me as if you own this site. Chachagouache (talk) 12:51, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

You accuse me of pushing my ideas about stateside, but I see you're in there claiming that an obscure text discussing things happening in the military in the 1960s referring to "stateside, Hawaii, or Guam" justifies the claim that it's still used today. How about this text from 2021, from People magazine talking about a U.S. Senator moving stateside, to Hawaii, as a girl? Could you maybe find an example that is clearly from this century? Or even clearly from the last fifty years?

2021 April 8, Sean Neumann, “She Survived a Helicopter Attack and Gave Birth in Office: Now Tammy Duckworth Writes 'Love Letter' to America”, in People‎[4]:

When she, her brother and father Frank eventually moved stateside, to Hawaii, the teenager became the family's breadwinner.

Try googling "stateside, in Hawaii," and you will see obituary after obituary of U.S. service men and women who served stateside, in Hawaii. Chachagouache (talk) 14:16, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

This is a clear example of not assuming good faith. Please change your attitude before you consider contributing more. Vininn126 (talk) 14:43, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for proactively referencing that policy with a hyperlink. (Another user declined my repeated requests for an explanation of what they meant by "TR.") With people repeatedly accusing me of "pushing" Statesider into contexts where they did not think it belonged, I would have otherwise been unaware that assuming good faith was required here. I appreciate your rebuke because I do see the value behind the policy. Chachagouache (talk) 15:56, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

If you don't, then I'm not sure how much of a place there is for you. Vininn126 (talk) 15:58, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Your statement is a clear example of not assuming good faith. Chachagouache (talk) 07:42, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Exodia

The sample we have does not seem to match the IPA transcription; I personally hear them saying /ɪgˈzoʊdi.ə/, but I might be wrong. Maybe we need more than one given pronunciation. Imbricitor (talk) 12:37, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

We cannot expect a neologism that is mainly spread through textual channels to have a canonical pronunciation. Speakers are likely to model this after the pronunciation of a similar word. Since English has exogamy with /ɛkˈsɒ.../ but exotic with /ɪɡˈzɒ.../, several pronunciations should be expected to coexist.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:31, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

October 2026

Problem with citations link at 👁️👄👁️

👁️👄👁️ has a broken citations link. There is Citations:👁👄👁 (the eyes are different) but 👁👄👁 merely redirects to 👁️👄👁️. ~2026-52584-23 (talk) 11:11, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-52584-23 No 👁️ or 👄 though? ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 07:44, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

On foxburgers existing or not

Thoughts on this? [6] I feel it's definitionally useful to state that the foxburger is not a real thing (mainly an invention of anti-fox-hunting activists, I suppose?), not unlike how we state that a unicorn is not a real animal. ~2026-52584-23 (talk) 12:08, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Unicorns do not exist, but foxburgers can be (and could have been) made. J3133 (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

@J3133: Frexit says "the possible act of France leaving the European Union". So you would reject that "possible"? Seems very misleading to remove it. ~2026-52584-23 (talk) 16:45, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-52584-23: Possible is present because France has not left the European Union, and if we are using the same rationale, we would be assuming that a foxburger has not been made. J3133 (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Are you dogmatically vegan? Get hands on fox-meat, make a burger and upload a photo. In fact, we need a step-by-step guide of how you prepare and fry the patties and how the end-result tastes.

They are hunted anyhow by necessity and in the UK the native humans often recover roadkills, so it is a good thing to have on your bucket list.

Otherwise I might do this within the next years. Got kind of bored by beef and it’s becoming more expensive. I read a convincing interpretation of § 22 Abs. 1a Tier-LMHV shared by the Federal Ministry of Nutrition that allows selling huntable canids in Germany. Otherwise I might get it from Switzerland or Italy. Fay Freak (talk) 17:41, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

Apparently we can add quick facts to aid contextualization. I draw this from the wording of “possible” in Frexit as well evidentiality and subjective speaker positioning in language in general. The historical circumstances just shouldn’t be out of proportion to the definitions, so here a short usage sidenote about the context of fox-hunting criticism or sarcasm is apposite. The naive reading here might be thankful.

It’s not definitional, as I don’t change linguistic reality by publicly preparing a foxburger (which is why it is not disreputable in participation of this linguistic project, unlike astroturfing words on the internet; eating something and photographing it is like the most basic thing which you can do, though notoriously some food can be advanced). Fay Freak (talk) 18:12, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

In accord with the concept (mentioned above by Fay Freak) that a usage note is apposite, I added a short but useful note to handle this aspect. Because this instance is but one instance of a theme with many instances, I hereby point out that such a note could perhaps be templatized and used in dozens or scores of entries. "This term is used rhetorically (for polemic effect) more often than literally (to denote an existent XYZ)" [where XYZ in this instance = 'serving of meat']. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:11, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

On one hand, I agree with OP that if something (even or especially something invoked in polemics) isn't real, we shouldn't (and normally don't) define it as it it were real. (Besides the difference mentioned above between how we define unicorn and horse, compare also Great Replacement, fan death, Duodecember, rape tree, defferent, etc.) OTOH, I appreciate that it's hard to be sure that a foxburger has never existed, since fox meat is sold in some places like China (though it is reportedly very gamey and unpopular on its own), so theoretically someone could make one. But theoretically someone could add more months to the calendar, or hang rape victims' clothes on a tree, or be elite and assist migrants with the goal of introducing non-Europeans to Europe, or die in a room with a fan; theoretically France could leave the EU; I don't think that being theoretically possible means something is (to be treated as) real. I have made the usage note a bit stronger. - -sche (discuss) 15:57, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: If pandaburgers and raccoonburgers have been made (per quotations), this makes the claim that a foxburger was not doubtful, taking into account that foxes are hunted more commonly. J3133 (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: I have removed “it is not clear that fox-meat burgers actually exist” from the usage note after finding quotations confirming their existence, as expected. J3133 (talk) 16:49, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche: There are many more such terms in Category:English terms suffixed with -⁠burger, but is guessing whether each has been made and adding corresponding usage notes (such as “most likely not” for spiderburger, “unknown” for babyburger, “likely but not confirmed” for wolfburger) what we should be doing? This is complicated by anyone being able to make one, or claim to have made one, being of a different category than concepts such as Frexit or unicorns, in that both burgers and the animal exist, but we do not know whether the animal has ever been made into one or not. J3133 (talk) 17:53, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

politico

A lot of potentially overlapping senses. Should some be merged?

• A politician.
• Someone involved in the professional life of a politician or a political campaign to varying degrees.
• A prominent activist.
• Someone with strong views regarding a political cause.
• Someone who follows politics regularly and is knowledgeable about at least the political news in their local area.

~2026-52584-23 (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

SSUC

Enough for a dictionary? Standard Scale of Unit Costs- ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 08:32, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

lökoplast

Turkish. The entry shows lökoplastler as the plural, but a quick Google search (with the language searched for being set as Turkish) shows very few instances of lökoplastler, and much more instances of lökoplastlar. Moreover, kloroplast, whose -plast part has the same origin as that of lökoplast, also seems to have kloroplastlar as the plural based on searches like that, and its Wiktionary entry shows kloroplastlar as the plural. So, do both lökoplast and kloroplast use -lar to form the plural, do they both use -ler to form the plural (despite how I feel from the search results), or do they use different forms of the plural ending? (If Wiktionary is showing the correct plural for both of the words, the third possibility would be true.) Intolerable situation (talk) 13:09, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

I don’t think the form *lökoplastler* is the regular Turkish plural. By vowel harmony, both *kloroplast* and *lökoplast* end in back vowels (*a, o*), so the expected plural is *‑lar* (*kloroplastlar, lökoplastlar*). The occasional spelling with *‑ler* looks irregular.

One possible explanation is that this variation reflects historical contact. In Albanian we have forms like **le‑er, le‑ar, lar, ler, largo**, which carry meanings of *to leave, to fix, to stretch, to move away*. These roots describe something left behind or stretched out, and they resonate with the idea of dividing or extending into multiple parts. Communities in Constantinople often borrowed and blended forms across languages, so it is not surprising if Albanian usage influenced occasional spellings in Turkish.

That said, the standard Turkish grammar is clear: the correct plurals are **kloroplastlar** and **lökoplastlar**. The *‑ler* forms are best understood as irregular spellings that arose in multilingual contexts, not as the regular outcome of Turkish vowel harmony.

References

- Lewis, Geoffrey (2001). *Turkish Grammar.* Oxford University Press.

- Çabej, Eqrem (1976–1996). *Studime Etimologjike në Fushë të Shqipes.* Tirana.

- Topalli, Kolec (2007). *Fjalor Etimologjik i Gjuhës Shqipe.* Tirana: Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë.

- Orel, Vladimir (1998). *Albanian Etymological Dictionary.* Leiden: Brill. VocerinkaVjol (talk) 15:50, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

Is the correct definite accusative singular of lökoplast likewise lökoplastı with the suffix in the back unrounded vowel form? Intolerable situation (talk) 06:44, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

(Notifying workgroup: Itidal, Fytcha, Vox Sciurorum, Lambiam, Whitekiko, Ardahan Karabağ, Orexan, Moonpulsar, Lagrium, Trimpulot, Sedataltundal, M Ali Kara, Californium-252, Wreaderick): Can you confirm if lökoplastı is the correct definite accusative singular of lökoplast? Also, adding a declension template to the page after dealing with the forms in the headword would be nice. Intolerable situation (talk) 13:13, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

It is. The only time consonantal effects kick in are if the word ends in /l/ or in a number of words derived from Arabic such as harf or saat. Wreaderick (talk) 13:26, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

I have accordingly changed the definite accusative form to lökoplastı and the plural form to lökoplastlar in the entry. Intolerable situation (talk) 13:28, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

along side

Is along side a misspelling of alongside, or an acceptable alternate spelling Wiktionary omits as Sum Of Parts?

Wishing everyone safe, happy, productive editing. --~2026-53302-45 (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

A set of facts constituting an answer: (1) Yes, it is descriptively an attested alternative spelling of the same term that is written solid in standard English orthography (alongside), as evidenced by various good GBS hits (various examples here); (2) the fact that Wiktionary hasn't entered it yet (as of this writing) is due to mere "hasn't been done yet" rather than "not allowed to be done", because (3) such alternative spellings meet WT:CFI via the principle behind WT:CHAIR. I will enter this spelling variant. It is optimally entered with {{nonstandard spelling of}}, more specifically than {{alternative spelling of}}. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:45, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

PS: Nearly all such spellings (i.e., open spellings of terms whose standard spelling is solid) exist descriptively, and the precise location of the line between {{nonstandard spelling of}} and {{misspelling of}} lies in the eye of the beholder. A great class of examples of that theme is that many English speakers with mediocre spelling skills tend to write deverbals open, so much so that it feels both pedantic and even descriptively inaccurate to claim "{{misspelling of}}", whereas {{nonstandard spelling of}} is accurate. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:08, 2 October 2026 (UTC)

billion looks messy

The page billion looks awful to me across a range of browsers and screen sizes. The templates get in the way of each other and the text flow doesn't behave very intelligently. Removing the etymology tree would help I think (in my opinion, it's quite unnecessary here), but are there other solutions that anyone can suggest? Urszag (talk) 15:16, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

@Urszag: For now, I've removed the {{enum}} and {{number box}} usages for 10^12 since that sense is rare in English anyways. I also think that the number box itself needs to be trimmed since I don't see the reason to add rare or obsolete terms to them, and this has been brought up before. The etymology tree... I'd remove it myself, but I feel that that would be more controversial. AG202 (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

𝠿𝪟𝪧: Spelling out left front direction

See Production section. Ping @Beefwiki 物灵 (talk) 13:21, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

demek

Pinging several users for this discussion: @AmaçsızBirKişi, @Samubert96, @M Ali Kara, @Lambiam

This word is grammatically quite confusing, and I'm a native speaker. Why does this verb get used as an adjective in the infinitive? I can't think of any other verbs like this. Why exactly does this entry call the definition of "to mean" an adjective? The entry for the same word in Azerbaijani (demək) lists the definition as a verbal one. Wreaderick (talk) 13:55, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Should be deleted, in my opinion. It's used in a verb sense in the given ux; "bu ne demek". Adverb sense should remain though.
AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Is there some reason why it’s not conjugated? Why not “bu ne diyor” bu “bu ne demek”? Wreaderick (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

No idea. Maybe a calque of Persian این چیست؟ (this + what-is.PRED)? Just a theory, though.
AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 16:36, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

I realized that it probably comes from an ellipsis of demek istiyor, like bu kelime ne demek istiyor. Should I include this in the etymology? Wreaderick (talk) 20:10, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

You can use demekti, ^[7][8][9] which IMO establishes this as an adjective.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:38, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

How would you suggest we phrase its English definition then? Starting an adjectival definition with "to" feels strange, though this word might warrant it. Wreaderick (talk) 19:12, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

I’m afraid we cannot do much better than mimic the type of contortions also seen at the adjective var. A one-word translation is “meaning”, which, however, is ambiguous because it can also be a noun. Worse, it does not work in translations, just like “existing” is useless as a definition of var.

I am a bit doubtful about the adverb entry. Is there a real POS difference between 1 and 2 here?:

1. Demek anlayış ile tutku bir arada yaşar.
2. Bu demek anlayış ile tutku bir arada yaşar.

 ​‑‑Lambiam 21:26, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Is ‘yapmak’ (e.g. "İstediği tek şey onu yapmaktı.") also an adjective then?
AmaçsızBirKişi (talk) 09:01, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Here, yapmak is a verbal noun, like doing and to do can also be used as the heads of noun phrases. The noun phrase in the Turkish sentence is onu yapmak, as also in “onu yapmak istiyormuş”.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:46, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

long/translations

The Zulu translation in this translation subpage is given as de-. However, there is no Zulu entry in the page de-. Interestingly, there is a Zulu entry in the page de, and the entry has an adjective section with the headword -de and an inflection table where all the forms end with de, but none start with de. Should the Zulu translation in the translation subpage be changed to de for the link and -de for what is displayed? Intolerable situation (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

Proto-Koreanic terms

I recently created a page that lists all of the Proto-Koreanic terms I reconstructed based on at least two descendants in the Koreanic languages. I do not know much about Korean phonology, so can someone review the terms I reconstructed to verify that they are accurate reconstructions? Transducer1 (talk) 14:54, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

I've revised the Proto-Koreanic terms based on Appendix:Koreanic reconstructions. So are the forms listed on my page accurate to Korean phonology, or do they need to be revised? Transducer1 (talk) 01:36, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

I suggest you review the sourcing of your "Baekje" terms. Bentley did not exactly do a rigorous job when he 'extracted' some of those supposed Baekje terms from various sources. Chom.kwoy (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

Do you know how to access Vovin's paper From Koguryǒ to T’amna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean? I wanted to use this paper as a source for creating articles on Baekje terms but couldn't figure out how to access the paper, and I believe that this paper might be a more reliable source than the paper from Bentley that I've been sourcing to create the Baekje articles. Transducer1 (talk) 18:17, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

unchilding

Looking at the cites, like "the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps", our definition "life-threatening, life-taking" seems to miss the actual meaning: the deeps probably are life-threatening, but it seems to me that what unchilding means is clearly not "generically life-threatening", but something directly analogous to "unfathering" but about "child" instead of "father". "# Causing to be childless" / "# That causes someone to be childless, that takes away the children of someone"? Or should the definition be moved from unchilding#Adjective to unchild#Verb, like unfathering is lemmatized at unfather?) BTW we are missing widowmaking, google books:"widowmaking". - -sche (discuss) 15:17, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

(I changed the definition. - -sche (discuss) 16:47, 9 October 2026 (UTC))

Sanskrit word देही

The word देही actually refers to the Self. देह refers to the body. The entry in the wiktionary is erroneous. Teen Parrot (talk) 19:37, 5 October 2026 (UTC)

crack (“to have sex”)

@MichaelWashboard changed this definition in April to mean something akin to deflower. This is unsupported and (I think) simply wrong. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 03:30, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Was that the original meaning? That would make more sense etymologically, I think; but it certainly isn't the main use now.

even if so, i find the "with a female or feminine person" part a little strange…

I agree deflower can't be correct. crack appears to be used just as generically as fuck:

• transitively, to penetrate (most common)
• intransitively, of a couple:
  • My Upstairs Neighbors Won't Stop Cracking [10]
  • Cracking every time we agree (TIKTOK COMPLITION)🩷🌷🌸 [11]
  • wlw trend cracking every time we agree tiktok compilation🫦💅🏻 #2 [12]
  • "They cracked after this btw" [13]
• of an individual woman, to have sex:
  • Her mom caught her cracking 😭💔 [14]

Msyds (talk) 21:05, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

OK, I undid the change to the definition: [15]. - -sche (discuss) 16:46, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

nonsense

Should sense 3 and 4 be merged? They seem quite similar. Frog x Lover (talk) 11:32, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

I think they are distinct. If you say to a child "I've had enough of your nonsense", you don't mean that the child is failing to be logically coherent, but just that the child is being foolish and difficult. ~2026-53844-63 (talk) 17:53, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

libertarian sense 4 (not politics)

Noun sense 4 is "(crosswording) An Araucarian"; but Araucarian has no noun at all, and araucarian only has a noun meaning a type of tree, no connection with crosswords. ~2026-53844-63 (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

It seems that Araucarian has been used as a noun, e.g. here: "Araucarians, as we’re dubbed, view a phrase like ‘found in hot water’ as a fair nod to TEABAG." Although I haven't found another two citations, most probably the sense legitimately exists and should be added. Mihia (talk) 23:47, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

(capital S) Sourcemod (“a game built with Valve Corporation's Source Engine”)

Hi, I'm thinking this page should be moved to sourcemod as the term is neither a proper noun nor easily attestable in its current case (per my cursory efforts, at least). I am curious if the term's derivation from a proper noun (Source + mod) implies that Wiktionary should keep it capitalised.

It is worth noting that SourceMod occasionally appears as an altform of sourcemod; i.e. as a non-proper noun, presumably influenced by the proper noun SourceMod (http://sourcemod.net/). Msyds (talk) 21:24, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

(forgot to mention here that I did end up moving it.) Msyds (talk) 21:38, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Koran, Quran or Qur'an?

I have always written Koran (which seems to reflect my age and education in the "late 20th century"; see below) so I was surprised to see that we describe it as {{dated form of|en|Qur'an}} (especially the apostrophe as the "standard" form surprised me). I asked Google AI about it and got this:

Quran is currently the most common, preferred, and standard spelling in mainstream English writing. [1, 2]

While multiple variants are understood, their usage breaks down by specific contexts:

• Quran: This is the dominant standard for modern journalism and general publishing. Major style guides—such as the AP Stylebook and the Diversity Style Guide—mandate Quran because it uses the letter "Q" to accurately transliterate the Arabic letter qāf (ق) without adding punctuation that might confuse general English readers. [1, 2]
• Qur'an: This variant is highly preferred by Islamic scholars, academics, and Muslim communities. The apostrophe represents a hamza, which signifies a distinct glottal stop sound in the original Arabic pronunciation. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Koran: This is an older, anglicized transliteration that was standard in the West from the 17th through the late 20th centuries. Today, it is largely considered obsolete or outdated and is generally only used if it appears in a historic document title or the specific name of an older organization. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Wikipedia also puts the main article at Quran. I believe we should do the same; although the form with the apostrophe may be preferred in scholarly sources, we are a general-audience dictionary. (Surprisingly, Google Ngrams shows Qur'an > Quran > Koran, but Ngrams is often not trustworthy; their results are heavily dependent on the particular corpora they choose and the vagaries of normalization [although the latter may not apply here].) Benwing2 (talk) 22:26, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

I've seen AI get enough things wrong that I don't really trust it except as a source of leads to things for humans to confirm or disprove. FWIW, searching Google Scholar papers from the last quarter-century, both "Qur'an" and "the Qur'an" of "of the Qur'an" (the latter two of which weed out non-English hits) are more common than "(of the) Quran", and Google Books' Ngram Viewer also has "Qur'an" being more common. And as an example of the issues with AI, I asked Google to find other English corpora that could be searched online for free without registering for an account, and the AI answers were sites that are not free or do require registration. - -sche (discuss) 18:29, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

@-sche What you observed is completely consistent with what Google AI says and what I've written above; you are quoting Google Scholar, which is an academic source. See above where I note that academic sources prefer the spelling with an apostrophe, but non-academic sources (major style guides and newspapers) prefer the opposite. My question is this: do we go with academic or general-usage style? Benwing2 (talk) 18:36, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

There is an argument to be made that the scholarship is wrong. The hamza is not a contraction, not an off-set apostrophe, and this is not an impoverished 20th century type setting issue today anymore. Since it was decided by the wiktionary to use ʕ if possible, which is obviously not an option, to revert to the apostrophe is a regression. Following Benwing, Quran should be it for the headword. ~2026-54479-30 (talk) 16:42, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Google Books / Ngrams is, AFAICT, a general corpus (including fiction, fantasy novels, etc, not just scholarship), and it too has "Qur'an" being more common. Maybe someone can bring other corpora to bear, but maybe "Qur'an" is indeed most common. What sources did Wikipedia consult when choosing "Quran"? - -sche (discuss) 17:16, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

I found the discussion; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Quran/Archive_9#Requested_move. Benwing2 (talk) 19:03, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

The New Oxford Style Manual (3rd rev. ed., 2016) establishes Koran as the main spelling with Quran and Qur'an as variants. Howardcorn33 (talk) 07:55, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

That surprises me; that's half a century out of touch (Qur'an having overtaken Koran in the early 1970s, even in British English). That's stodgy even for Oxford. - -sche (discuss) 18:20, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Garner's Modern English Usage (5th ed., 2022), also published by Oxford University Press, states that "Qur’an and Quran are now predominant in World English print sources", so I assume if OUP releases a new edition of their style manual, they'd probably change the main spelling. Nevertheless, the MHRA Style Guide (4th ed., 2024), which cites Oxford, uses Koran as the spelling in passing. Howardcorn33 (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Direct subjects

What is its meaning as used in the entry of that? ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 08:03, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

It is contrasted with "delayed subject" in the previous definition. Does that help? Mihia (talk) 10:25, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

@Mihia I am not aware of such terminology, but direct is not the opposite of delayed, is it? ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 10:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

Opposite enough, I would say, in this context. However, it's quite likely that I wrote those definitions. If you think that the terminology is non-optimal, please feel free to improve it. Mihia (talk) 10:57, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

The definition of the Mushroom Syndrome

The definition you provide for the "Mushroom Syndrome" is incomplete. The mushroom syndrome has 3 parts:

The mushroom syndrome is a management style where employees are kept in the dark, have fertilizer rained down upon them, and then have their heads chopped off.

Jim Lundy, author of "Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way", taught this version in his management training classes. Also, in the vernacular of Hewlett-Packard this was the version that people talked about, not because it was common, but because it was something to be avoided. Dave the manager (talk) 23:20, 7 October 2026 (UTC)

I tweaked s.v. mushroom syndrome to account for the 3-part version. Wiktionary's (current) lexicographic choice is to split the information, in a certain reasonable way, between the Etymology section and the def. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate it. Dave the manager (talk) 17:17, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Should aiglet be lemmatized at aglet? (at least for shoelace sense)

I've always understood this word to be "aglet", and based on my searches "aglet" seems to be the preferred term (at least when referring to the protective sheathe around the ends of shoelaces). Youglish searches for "aglet" vs. "aiglet" only return results for the former in youtube subtitles, and internet searches for "aglet" primarily return results for shoelace ends, whereas "aiglet" returns mostly dictionary results, results specifying "aglet (or aiglet)", or results about reproduction/medieval gambesons (our only "aiglet" quotations are from the 16th century as well, so maybe these senses should be lemmatized separately with a historical tag for "aiglet"). Horse Battery (talk) 04:09, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

more or less

Is ± a symbol for it? ~2026-52969-60 (talk) 08:27, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it is descriptively indisputable that that is so. Therefore, I have made a small addition s.v. more or less to account for it. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

less

Returning to everyone's favourite topic of less as an adjective, the present adjectival definition, labelled "archaic", has this example:

• 1916, The Wood-Worker‎^[16], volume 35, number May 1916, page 36:

  High speed is another cause of bullheads and cracks, because of the greater shock of contact than is the case where the speed is less.

To me this is not archaic but a normal modern usage. Does anyone agree/disagree? Mihia (talk) 21:01, 8 October 2026 (UTC)

Looking at the three citations listed (under less#Adjective), I think the problem is that the use in attributive position does indeed sound old-timey but the use in predicative position doesn't sound old-timey (that latter part accords with what you said). Which is an interesting and unusual situation. I'll have to think about how Wiktionary could optimize its labeling of that odd circumstance. Perhaps delete the "archaic" label (which paints the whole sense) and instead have a usage note that says that the use in attributive position sounds old-timey. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:38, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Rephrasing this sentence to put less in an "attributive" position, "High speed [...causes...] greater shock of contact than less speed" doesn't sound particularly old-timey to me. But we seem to regard less, in that case, as the determiner "lesser" rather than the adjective "lesser"...(?) Are we sure the entry is dividing quotes between parts of speech correctly? We have "to a greater or less extent" and "a less matter" an archaic adjective, but "must lie at a less inclination to the base", which also sounds archaic, as a non-archaic determiner... and we currently seem to be saying that "less speed", when rephrased to put "less" in a predicative position, changes POS... - -sche (discuss) 06:01, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Most likely the present article is inconsistent and wrong in places with regard to PoS. This is usually the case with function-word articles that probably haven't been properly looked at in ages. Having said that, the PoS of "less" can be tricky. I think that "less" is unlikely to be a determiner before a noun when an article precedes it, as in "a less inclination", which sounds off to me too, fitting with it being an archaic attributive adjective. My feeling is that "less" is indeed a determiner in e.g. "High speed [...causes...] greater shock of contact than less speed", but unfortunately adjectives are also substitutable (e.g. "low(er) speed"), so I don't know how we prove it's a determiner. Perhaps the fact that an article cannot be inserted (in standard modern English), whereas it can with e.g. "low(er)"? It isn't clear to me either that "less" is an adjective in "the speed is less", or what PoS it is in "A is less than B". Again, adjectives can sometimes substitute, e.g. "A is smaller than B", but "less" doesn't to me really feel adjectival in that construction. Mihia (talk) 14:44, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

It seems to me that "smaller" can arguably be an adverb, e.g. in "think bigger, not smaller!", and in fact we do list it as an adverb; however, in such cases it seems that "in a smaller way" can substitute. Unless anyone has any better idea, I propose to treat usages of "less" where "smaller" can substitute but "in a smaller way" cannot as adjectival. Mihia (talk) 19:35, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

lawyerpoint

What do I do with this redlink? I created the entry at lawyerpoint today and now the headword shows a redlink for the lone word lawyerpoint, suggesting that an entry be made for it. The problem is that this word appears never to have been used without the preposition at. Is there a term for a word only used in a pair like this? Howardcorn33 (talk) 17:35, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

{{only used in}} is relevant here. Alternatively, I would also submit the notion that {{en-prepphr|head=[[at]] [[lawyer]][[point]]}} can be viewed as etically accurate although it may be emically unacceptable when playing by the rules of Wiktionary. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:40, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Fixed. There's actually a parameter, |nolinkhead= for that. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:55, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Ah, that's right! My brain was blanking on that fact earlier. You use the nolinkhead parameter to tell the machine to forgo any link at all. So the head will thus appear black. Thanks, Chuck. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:31, 9 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Howardcorn33 (talk) 05:09, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

I like to use {{only used in}} in these cases, because I don't know if people unfamiliar with the term (at) lawyerpoint (and potentially not even that familiar with English) would think to look up the longer phrase that starts with a... rather than look up the one unfamiliar word (l...). Some people like to just suppress the link in the headword. - -sche (discuss) 16:35, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

Extremisms

I feel like we should have an entry or more on nihilistic violent extremism, also nihilistic extremism, sometimes violent nihilist extremism, and abbreviated NVE (entry is older than the term or even concept), apparently a new ideology with particular non-null content despite its name, but we don’t have other extremisms save coalmines (well, counterextremism is no example even for this) and I am not up to pin down the core points thus far. I note that apocalyptic violent extremism (N/AVE) is too much of a protologism, of one author. Fay Freak (talk) 01:32, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

proplastid

(Notifying workgroup: The Editor's Apprentice, Juwan, Qwertygiy, Kaloan-koko): The definition in this entry currently says: "(cytology) A small, colourless cell that develops into any form of plastid". Isn't a proplastid more like an organelle than a whole cell? Intolerable situation (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2026 (UTC)

You're right! I've changed the definition. Frog x Lover (talk) 15:18, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

gold lily

This is entered as if it were a different thing from a fleur-de-lis, with which it is linked only by ===See also===s. Does it in fact differ from a fleur-de-lis, and if so, how? Or should it just be defined as a gold/yellow fleur-de-lis? - -sche (discuss) 07:13, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

rente

Defined from Webster 1913 as "In France, interest payable by government on indebtedness; the bonds, shares, stocks, etc. that represent government indebtedness." I'm sure there's a simpler term for this, various suggestions are goverment bonds, government debt, perpetual loan, government stock or public debt. I'm also sure this no longer exists in France, so should be tagged as historical. Perhaps a "usually plural" tag too, and some robust referencs Father of minus 2 (talk) 13:36, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

To me, "debt" seems slightly more abstract than the actual debt instruments. I don't mind the present definition too much, though I would either split it into two definitions or replace the semicolon with "or". Or, if felt cumbersome, we could perhaps say "In France, government debt instruments, such as government bonds, or the interest payable on these". Mihia (talk) 14:58, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

I should say, this is assuming the present definition is actually correct. One of the citations seems to suggest that it does not include all types of securities, and also there is a singular/plural issue, in that "the bonds, shares, stocks, etc. that represent government indebtedness" suggests an uncountable use, yet in the citations it is pluralised. So, are these government securities collectively "rente" as the definition says, or are they "rentes" per the citations? Mihia (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Translations of mitochondrion

First, the Indonesian translation is given as mitokondria, but what confuses me is the neuter gender given for this translation. Doesn't Indonesian have no grammatical genders?

Second, the Japanese translation 糸粒体 is given with the transliteration shiryuutai. Since the vowels of the ryuu part seem to not be separated by a morpheme boundary, shouldn't it be a single long vowel, leading to shiryūtai?

If these are indeed faulty, I want to see the translations themselves being checked as well. Intolerable situation (talk) 03:55, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

@Intolerable situation: the Indonesian translation was added in May of 2021 by an IP that geolocates to Java, and an entry was added in March of 2025 by one of our regular Indonesian contributors, complete with a link to an online dictionary- so it checks out. My guess is that the IP had no clue what the second parameter was for, and used it for "n" as in "noun", which is a notation that the online dictionary uses. As for the Japanese translation: it was added in January of 2014 by an IP that geolocates to Maryland in the US. Japanese Wiktionary has an entry under that spelling, so it's probably correct even if the transliteration is wrong. I would note that science is one of the fields where Japanese tends to prefer katakana over kanji, so I would expect ミトコンドリア (mitokondoria) to be more common, but I don't know Japanese well at all so that's just a guess.

So, basically, the translations are correct, but the details you noticed seem to be wrong. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:38, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

Looking at 糸粒体 on the Japanese Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^ja with the help of Google Translate, it gives the pronunciation in hiragana as しりゅうたい, which seems to represent "shiryūtai" (as I understand it, a kana syllable ending in a vowel followed by the letter for the same vowel normally produces that syllable with a long vowel). I notice that it gives the definition as simply "ミトコンドリア", and has the lemma with all the details at that spelling, so it looks like we both guessed right. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:10, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

I have removed the gender in the Indonesian translation and fixed the Japanese transliteration. Intolerable situation (talk) 02:11, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

thymos (thumos)

I keep running into this word yet I'm still not sure what it means. Here is the latest:

Let’s start with thumos. The philosophers Rubio cites did prize spiritedness, but Plato thought those impulses needed to be governed by reason. In The Republic, thumos is reason’s “ally”: It should help us act on our judgement, rather than overpower it. Plato argued that when thumos, or the pursuit of honor, becomes a society’s highest goal, as it was in Sparta, that was the first stop on the road to tyranny.

Jerusalem Demsas, Marco Rubio flunks Western Civ

So is it the pursuit of honor? Francis Fukuyama says it's pride, spiritedness, the desire for recognition.

Wikipedia intro says: "The word indicates a physical association with breath or blood and is also used to express the human desire for recognition."

An academic abstract by Douglas Cairns at says: "Thymos (or thumos), cognate with Indo-European words meaning “smoke,” is one of a number of terms in Greek which associate psychological activity with air and breath." and "Plato’s thymos represents a pared-down model of human agency typified by one central desire or aim in life but also exhibiting whatever further capacities of persons are necessary to enable it to pursue that aim in interaction with the other elements of the personality."

Yet our only definition here is: (Platonic philosophy) That area of the soul where feelings of pride, indignation, shame etc are located.

Should the sense be reworded? Should there be more senses? Should there be a general use sense? Aloysius Jr (talk) 21:51, 12 October 2026 (UTC)

I introduced a new sense. Aloysius Jr (talk) 12:55, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

cross file

Defined as "double convex file, used in dressing out the arms or crosses of fine wheels.". What does dress out mean here?Should we add a definition to the entry? ~2026-51881-48 (talk) 19:18, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

This refers to fitting and finishing. Related is the concept of dressing a grinding wheel. I will return to these entries later and do some polishing (heh). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:13, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

I note here in the meantime, regarding Mr Wrenn at Citations:cross-file, the following: I've never yet read that novel, but I do believe (so far, having skimmed that quote in isolation), that he's talking about making a card index for the purpose of cross-referencing information about those merchants. I will return to that later. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:18, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

PS: Relatedly: a file card is not a file card, although you wouldn't know it from the goofy way that natural language works, at least on the surface. God bless humans, they're cute. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:24, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

 Done. I did all the things because it scratches a certain itch whenever I set the world straight on ˈsʌmθɪn. Somebody on God's green earth's gotta do it. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:52, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

• Much appreciated --~2026-51881-48 (talk) 06:50, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

Edit request for Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/余

Currently the content of the page is:

return { "以魚三開 平以諸", "常麻三開 平視遮" }

But very obviously, the reading "常麻三開 平視遮" represents the modern character of 佘. So I instead request that Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/佘 contain the reading of "常麻三開 平視遮", and the current Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/余 reading only contain "以魚三開 平以諸". So in other words, the edit request is:

return { "以魚三開 平以諸", "常麻三開 平視遮" }

change it to:

return { "以魚三開 平以諸" }

(Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Benwing2, Fish bowl, Frigoris, Justinrleung, kc_kennylau, Mar vin kaiser, Michael Ly, Mx. Granger, ND381, RcAlex36, The dog2, Theknightwho, Tooironic, Wpi, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, LittleWhole): Blahhmosh (talk) 20:05, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh: 余 is a variant of 佘 (shé). Guangyun records 視遮切 as a reading of 余 (equivalent to modern 佘), so it doesn't need to be removed from the module. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:20, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

Removal request for Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/嬀

According to the page 嬀, 嬀 is not the standard version of 媯. In that case, shouldn't we remove Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/嬀 then? We have Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/媯 anyways.

(Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Benwing2, Fish bowl, Frigoris, Justinrleung, kc_kennylau, Mar vin kaiser, Michael Ly, Mx. Granger, ND381, RcAlex36, The dog2, Theknightwho, Tooironic, Wpi, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, LittleWhole): Blahhmosh (talk) 20:12, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh: There is no need to remove this data point. It is still good to have this page in case we ever need to reference this character variant's reading. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:17, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung Well why did they then delete all the other variant character reading's modules? For example, why did they delete Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/漑? Blahhmosh (talk) 20:19, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh: In the old days, moving Lua modules suppresses redirects. Moving the module instead of making a new module from scratch makes it clear where the data comes from originally, but it had the downside of deleting the old module. I don't think we need to delete variant characters' modules because it's not wrong information. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 20:23, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

Edit request for Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/槭

Edit

return { "精東三開 入子六" }

into

return { "精東三開 入子六", "生耕二開 入山責" }

Because the "生耕二開 入山責" was listed under 摵, but this reading-meaning pair is actually nowadays used by the character 槭. Blahhmosh (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

(Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Benwing2, Fish bowl, Frigoris, Justinrleung, kc_kennylau, Mar vin kaiser, Michael Ly, Mx. Granger, ND381, RcAlex36, The dog2, Theknightwho, Tooironic, Wpi, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, LittleWhole): Blahhmosh (talk) 22:36, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

I would not recommend you to keep pinging the entire workgroup esp. as many of your edit requests seem ill-conceived. Benwing2 (talk) 22:37, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Well I'm new to this sort of thing, and I feel like I need to add a lot to this place. This includes the fact that many of the site's Middle Chinese data seem to only come from the Guangyun when there are other sources of Middle Chinese readings including the Jiyun, the Libu Yunlue, etc. Blahhmosh (talk) 23:17, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

Indeed there is a lot that could be done, but the way to do it is not to ping everyone with a lot of little requests. Instead, batch up your requests into a more-well-thought-out batch and only then ping the workgroup, or failing that, post individual entries without pinging the workgroup. As pointed out by @Justinrleung, there are reasons why things are being done the way they are, and you can't necessarily just change one thing without understanding the overall structure. Benwing2 (talk) 23:58, 13 October 2026 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh: I don't think this is a good idea, and in fact, I don't think we should treat 摵 is a zh-see variant of 槭. Sources seem to say 摵 is shè, while 槭 is sè, even though it seems like they have the same "Middle Chinese" reading. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:44, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

@Justinrleung I am not saying that 摵 is always zh-see variant of 槭, but it is a variant in some instances. Just like how 說 isn't a variant of 悦, but in some instances 說 takes on the same meaning of 悦. Blahhmosh (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2026 (UTC)

gerrymander

Should the informal neologistic use of the word to mean simply “to cut or divide into differently- and unequally-sized pieces” be added as a definition?

Sources for the use existing: https://bananonbinary.tumblr.com/post/801231979653791744/tonys-chocolonely-mildly-pisses-me-off-every-time https://redlib-2.privadency.com/r/madlads/comments/1e0ru7f/gerrymandered_pizza/ EnigmaticLucas (talk) 03:28, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

Both of those uses appear to be deliberate jokes that are referencing the political usage of the word. I don't think they establish that a non-political definition exists. Benwing2 (talk) 19:57, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

North (adv): "comparative further/farther north".

However, the adverb south does not include such comparative and superlative forms, nor is this mentioned at further or farther. JMGN (talk) 18:02, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

It does include such forms. Maybe you looked at the adjective, which is listed as non-comparable (same for the adjectival use of north)? Benwing2 (talk) 20:00, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Yep, I skipped it. Anyway, is that an orthodox approach? Again, should it be mentioned at further/farther? JMGN (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

What is "it" that you're referring to when you say "should it be mentioned"? Do you mean the use of further as a comparative? It seems to me we already mention it under the adverbial usage. As for whether north and south are comparable, why not? "Phoenix is further north than Tucson" sounds perfectly normal, whereas #"Phoenix is more north than Tucson" does not. Benwing2 (talk) 20:12, 15 October 2026 (UTC)

1@Finger-FingerAcross-6@PalmBackFingerDown (also L@Side-PalmForward L@Trunk-PalmForward 1@Finger-FingerAcross-6@PalmBackFingerDown)

A misspelling: 6 should be 9. However there also lacks a position for 9. Currently Side or Center seem to be used as some sort of unspecific/default position. A possible approach is when the position is unimportant, use Side for all one-handed sign and Center for all two-handed sign, but that is still far-fetched. @Beefwiki 物灵 (talk) 02:53, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary's sign language titles should be aimed for being the only solution instead of multiple possibilities. In case of unimportant position, I still cannot find the only way to present it. As in one/translations, even the American Sign Language translations are gestured similarly, multiple titles are used. Beefwiki (talk) 03:06, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

organized crime

Entry has two senses: basically the crime itself (sense 2) and the entities committing that crime (sense 1). But the usexes/citations do not draw a clear distinction. I think one sense (the crime rather than the criminals) would probably suffice. ~2026-55538-08 (talk) 12:37, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

The two senses both exist; it is true that Wiktionary is not obligated to present them as two defs, as it could also respectably use one def to the effect of "crime committed by outlaw organizations; (metonymic) the organizations themselves." (Regardless of how anyone chooses to word those, that is the pair of concepts that is necessary.) I must admit that it is hard to find attestations that objectively force the parsing to resolve solely to the metonymic sense alone. In a cursory stab at it by me, so far the ones that come closest to that state are a few for the collocation "married into organized crime". Quercus solaris (talk) 19:19, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

lap

What sense of lap is used in this passage?

I spent a lot of my twenties living in southeastern West Virginia, where I labored on farms, gardened for rich ladies, painted houses, shoveled snow, and spent two years as a rural social worker. This wasn’t the part of the state with the razed mountaintops that you see in parachute journalists’ Trump Country explainers. The southeastern part looks a lot like the Blue Ridge and competes for the same tourists and transplants. In Monroe County, where I lived, fresh college grads were always showing up from DC or New York, looking to lap at the salt of the Earth.

Jake Maynard, John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Please enlighten me! Aloysius Jr (talk) 12:39, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

To lap is to lick, as animals do at a salt lick for that necessary mineral. A metaphor. ~2026-55538-08 (talk) 12:41, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

But salt of the earth means good people? Aloysius Jr (talk) 12:44, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Just as animal seeks a salt lick for necessary nutrients, so these college grads are seeking out good people to derive benefit from interacting with them. ~2026-55538-08 (talk) 12:46, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, my good man. I'm very much against bots and excess tech so only now I realised this could've been a prompt. Sorry if I wasted your time! Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:07, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Exactly right. It's a bit of cleverness by the writer. A respectable and unassailable bit. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:08, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Of course I would aways choose to ask a human but time is valuable so I'm careful not to pester people too much. Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:22, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

cute and funny

Supposed to be a noun (euphemism for cunny) but the given citation seems to be adjectival, and in fact looks like it might literally just mean "both funny and cute". ~2026-55538-08 (talk) 14:00, 16 October 2026 (UTC)

Please make description on all Nandinagari character

a help of a admin needs ~2026-55659-56 (talk) 05:17, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

raising amber

The pronunciation section has "(/æ/ raising) IPA(key): /ˈeə̯m.bɚ/" (and similar in the Australian section and probably in various other entries, the work of a prolific problematic contributor). Shouldn't /eə̯/ be in brackets? (And probably the non-raising pronunciation presented as default GenAm?) AFAICT such raising definitionally doesn't create a phonemic contrast with other words that retain /ˈæm/ (no?)... and if it creates a merger with e.g. aim- or with ember, then it should be represented with the same phoneme as that word, not with /eə̯/... - -sche (discuss) 23:13, 17 October 2026 (UTC)