Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations

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Note: Use the talk page only for comments about this page. Nominate words below.

This page is for nominating future Word of the Day entries. The philosophy behind our WOTD feature is similar to that of Wikipedia’s featured articles. The main goals are:

  1. to highlight the best of Wiktionary’s content by featuring it on the Main Page,
  2. to nurture people’s natural interest in unusual words and phrases
  3. to help readers improve their vocabulary.

Nominate a new word

What to nominate[edit]

Any interesting English word or phrase that appears in Wiktionary may be nominated for WOTD, including both rare and exotic terms and terms that are used in everyday conversation.

Variety[edit]

Before nominating a word, you might want to look through our index of past Words of the Day and at the word’s page itself to make sure it (or a variation of it) hasn’t already been featured.

Also keep in mind that featured words are chosen to reflect a variety of:

  • parts of speech — Nouns, verbs and adjectives should appear more or less equally, but we also need good adverbs, idioms, set phrases and the like.
  • languages of origin — Many English words derive ultimately from Latin or Greek precursors, but English has borrowed from, and styled itself after, many other languages, so try to mix it up a bit.
  • initial letters — Not all interesting words start with J, K, Q or Z.

What not to nominate[edit]

These are in addition to the other warnings already mentioned above.

  • No “redlinks” (missing pages) — If a word is not yet in Wiktionary, it belongs at Wiktionary:Requested entries, not here. (Better yet, why not create the entry yourself?)
  • No offensive words — Please avoid profanity. A nominated word should not offend the average person, nor should it be something you would be embarrassed to use in front of your boss or your grandmother (or your boss’s grandmother, for that matter). Wiktionary defines profane words in part so people know not to use them in polite company. WOTD nominations, on the other hand, should be words that people can safely use in everyday speech. Note also that many parents and schools automatically filter out pages that include certain offensive words, so featuring such a word on the Main Page would restrict access to Wiktionary itself.
  • Avoid abbreviations — Abbreviations, initialisms, acronyms, symbols, and the like are unlikely to be selected without extremely convincing reasons. In other words, don’t nominate WYSIWYG, dpi, or ☿. Symbols in particular cause problems for readers who lack the required fonts, and are therefore unlikely to be featured.
  • Avoid proper nouns — Names of specific people, places, or entities are better suited to featuring in an encyclopedia. Such words rarely have interesting definitions or translations.
  • Stick to English — The featured word is an English term because this is the English Wiktionary. For foreign words and phrases see the Foreign Word of the Day.
  • No previous selections — We want to feature new selections, not the same selections over and over. Please check the list of previous Words of the Day, to be certain it has not been selected previously. In addition, you should see a little “previous WOTD” box in the top right-hand corner of any such entries.
  • Avoid other WOTDs — We want to feature words that haven’t been WOTDs for other dictionaries, partly to highlight unique terms that make Wiktionary so special, partly to avoid complaints (by preventing the possibility entirely) that WOTDs were “stolen” from other dictionaries.
  • Avoid purely obsolete words – Words whose definitions are only obsolete, archaic or similar should be avoided.

Updating guide[edit]

If you are familiar with using wikitext, please help update future Words of the Day! Do consider a quid pro quo – promoting one or two older nominations as Words of the Day for each new nomination that you make. Click on the “Expand” link below for a detailed guide on how to do this.

Click here for the guide
I.
Check if the nominated word meets the criteria.


Nominations are listed at “Latest nominations” and “Older nominations”. Check if the nominated word meets the criteria for appearing on the Main Page. Try to consider older nominations before more recent ones.

II.
Update the Word of the Day page.


  1. Go to the page for the day that you wish to update.
    For example, to set up a new Word of the Day for January 1, go to “Wiktionary:Word of the day/January 1”.
  2. Check the page history to see if the page has been recently updated. If it has been, pick a different day to update.
  3. If not, go ahead and update the {{WOTD}} template on the page. In the edit history, indicate the year that the new Word of the Day is scheduled to appear in.
    For example, if you intend the new word to appear on January 1, 2015, put “2015” in the edit history.
  4. Go to “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Status” and edit the page to indicate which days of the year have been updated.
III.
Archive the Word of the Day and the nomination.


  1. Go to the page of the word you have set as a Word of the Day, and apply {{was wotd}} at the top of the page.
    For example, if you have set interesting as the Word of the Day on January 1, 2015, go to “interesting” and insert “{{was wotd|2015|January|1}}” at the top of the page.
  2. After you have saved your edit, click on the WOTD link that now appears at the top of the page. A WOTD archive page will open. On that page, put a copy of the {{WOTD}} template that you just updated. (If the archive page does not exist yet, create it.)
    For example:
    1. After adding “{{was wotd|2015|January|1}}” to “interesting”, click on the link “WOTD – 1 January 2015” that appears on the top of the page.
    2. This will open the page “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Archive/2015/January”. Add a section heading in the format “== 1 ==”, where “1” is the day of the year, then under that add a copy of the {{WOTD}} template which you placed on the page “Wiktionary:Word of the day/January 1”.
  3. Next, go to “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations § Latest nominations” or “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations § Older nominations” and remove the nomination of the word you have set as a Word of the Day. Transfer the nomination to a suitable nomination archive page. Such archive pages are in the format “[[Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations/Archive [''year''] ]]”.
    For example:
    1. Go to “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations § Latest nominations” and remove the nomination of the word which you set as the Word of the Day for January 1, 2015.
    2. Let us assume that the nomination was made in December 2014. Go to the nomination archive page “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations/Archive 2014” and, under the appropriate section (which, in this case, would be “December 2014”), insert the nomination.
    3. Strike out the nomination using the tags <s> and </s>, and add a comment after the nomination stating the date when the word will appear as Word of the Day (such as “— set to appear on January 1, 2015”). Sign your comment with four tildes (“~~~~”).
  4. If you are feeling particularly energetic, update the alphabetic archive as well.

How to nominate[edit]

Follow the Nominate a new word link below and add your word(s) to the top of the list. Please link your word to our page for it by typing {{wotd-nominee|EXAMPLE_WORD}} (be sure to get the capitalization right, and replace “EXAMPLE_WORD” with the word that you want to nominate). You might want to include a concise reason or justification for the nomination. A definition is not necessary since our page for the word should already contain a good definition.

In case there are questions about your word(s), it is imperative that you sign your nomination by adding four tildes (~~~~) at the end. (Although it is not required, you can quickly register for free if you don’t already have a username.)

Nominate a new word

Latest nominations[edit]

So that those setting the Word of the Day for future days may know what has already been done, anyone doing so should here indicate the last date for which a Word of the Day was set, or the first for which it wasn’t, and any relevant notes.

For a guide on how to set Words of the Day, see the “Updating guide” section above. You may also find these personal comments by EncycloPetey and -sche useful (click on the links).

Words have been set for the following dates:

Entries are in reverse chronological order, by date of nomination. Please add your word or words to the TOP of the list below and remember to sign each new entry by typing four tildes (~~~~)

General nominations[edit]

2021[edit]

Well, there is (Blackadder), but it's a proper noun anyway. DonnanZ (talk) 09:52, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

2020[edit]

Why the archaic form? DonnanZ (talk) 20:15, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
palingenesis (Check: R, G, H, W, Y) PUC – 20:22, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
RFV resolved same day - excellent! DonnanZ (talk) 15:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Reinstated as a valid nomination. DonnanZ (talk) 21:52, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
To me, "tall story" feels at least as common, if not more so, than "tall tale". According to Ngrams, the perception that "tall tale" is more common may be regional (US) and/or recent (since 2000). Mihia (talk) 22:12, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
It's not new, but it could be regional. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:03, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

2019[edit]