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.

For questions about the general Wiktionary policies, use the Beer parlour; for technical questions, use the Grease pit; for questions about etymologies, use the Etymology scriptorium. For questions about specific content, you're in the right place.

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Please do not edit section titles as this breaks links on talk pages and in other discussion fora.

I think Euclidian space should be marked as just an alternate form of Euclidean space. The Euclidean space page lists Euclidian space as its alternate form, but not the other way around. Even its corresponding Wikipedia page redirects to its article on Euclidean space. But I'm not sure if this is correct as I don't really have much experience in Wiktionary. NOTAROBOT1101 (talk) 09:21, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done Jberkel 12:58, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Some older blokes from the United States are probably capable to pinpoint the bureaucratic meaning better than I am able to discover by way of imagination. Maybe there are even multiple ones developing in various spheres? In the databases there is a lot of noise from literal pink letter papers, bed-sheets, and proper nouns. I figured @Sgconlaw would be interested to present this term as word of the day some day. Fay Freak (talk) 13:56, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: please feel free to nominate it at "Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations". — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: Only if the accuracy of the meanings is controlled by other editors, such as you, this was the subtext. The meanings in questions are not covered by any dictionaries yet, so I am guessing around here. Fay Freak (talk) 18:22, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: ah, I see. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I was reading some discussions on Wikipedia yesterday and noticed that Wiktionary doesn't have that meaning of snow. Is snow close a fixed phrase or can snow be used in phrases such as snow delete or snow merge? If so, what part of speech would this be? Wreaderick (talk) 08:47, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It is used in various phrases e.g. "snow keep", but only attributively and not predicatively (not "this keep was snow"). I suppose it's an adjective if you want to separate it out. Wikipedia's glossary page says it comes from "snowball keep" which meant "keep because it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being deleted", i.e. no realistic prospect. ~2026-13595-69 (talk) 09:41, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We don't keep wikijargon, let alone enwikt jargon, in principal namespace. In addition, usage on any(?) wiki doesn't count for attestation. Should words of such jargon enter the general lexicon, normal standards apply. DCDuring (talk) 13:37, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why would we have different standards for wikijargon vs other terms? Language is language, attestation is attestation. How is this any different? Plus this category exists. Wreaderick (talk) 13:57, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

People who make surveys don't include themselves in the respondents. Scientists don't experiment on themselves (mostly). Lexicographers also shouldn't incestuously document their own world in mainspace. ~2026-13595-69 (talk) 14:03, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

But those people aren't lexicographers, they're encyclopedians. We're distinct yet overlapping communities. Wikipedia has plenty of articles about itself, I see no reason why we can't do the same. Wreaderick (talk) 14:44, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'd say we can keep wikijargon if it's attestable in permanently archived media (i.e. not Wikipedia), from three distinct sources that are independent of each other and of Wikimedia, and without mentioning Wikimedia. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:24, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I hardly doubt most if any invocations of the snowball clause on Wikipedia mention the Wikimedia Foundation. Would an Internet Archive snapshot of a Wikipedia discussion be a suitable source? I mean what else could serve as proper attestation? It’s Wikipedia jargon, where else would it be used? Wreaderick (talk) 20:50, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Right and wikis are, by their very nature, not durably attested. It is hard to put much faith in archives being durably attested, given their shaky finances and the unfortunate recent history of archive.today, a relatively successful one. DCDuring (talk) 20:59, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah I saw what happened with that website. Sad what happens to Wikipedia and other places that relied on it. Genuine question though, and not just for this term: If online archives aren’t durably attested, then what should we use in their place? Especially for internet slang like this. Also, if we can’t find a good alternative, can’t archival websites work for now at least, even for wikis like Wikipedia? Wreaderick (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

By "mentioning Wikimedia" I didn't mean mentioning the Foundation directly, I meant mentioning any Wikimedia project. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:25, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Technically, even paper has a shelf life. Just ask any research library.

Speaking of research libraries, entire libraries have been destroyed. See List of destroyed libraries on Wikipedia.

Philosophically speaking, nothing is truly durable. SVG-image-maker (talk) 16:09, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This plural does not seem findable in GBooks or on the Web at all. Yet harmonizabilities with a z can be found. By rights it seems we should delete this one even though it's just a spelling variant. (In theory it could be pluralised but in theory any noun could, and many are not.) Yes? ~2026-13595-69 (talk) 09:39, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I feel that Wiktionary doesn't yet have a good-enough answer for this class of words, and thus there won't be a satisfying conclusion to this instance anytime soon. It will just sit with sucking, for now. This example shows well why, for the whole class: It isn't genuinely true that harmonisability "has no plural form", but its plural form is not yet attested in ways that WT:CFI requires. So what do we do at the harmonisability entry, then, except either (1) let the "{en-noun}" show a red link for the plural that Wiktionary isn't allowed to bluen or (2) suppress that aspect by entering the "?" parameter into "{en-noun}", which essentially creates a false claim or at least a misleading appearance. If I were king of the world I would create an exception class that says that any word that has "attested-enough" -ization/-izations declension and has an attested -isation alt form is allowed to show both parts of the declension for the latter, because pretending like the plural doesn't or can't exist is obviously dumb. But I realize that such a proposal is unlikely to win approval. So I mostly just ignore the dumb instances when I rarely run across them. Something for a future era maybe. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:03, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris: You could always do this. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:52, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: Thanks, but I believe that the objection is that because harmonisabilities lacks attestations, it shouldn't be a blue link at all, by WT:CFI's lights. (It could get RfD'd anytime and go back to being a red link.) Which then raises the corollary that "{en-noun}" at the singular headword shouldn't point to a red-link plural form at all (no matter which method it uses for pointing to it), given that WT isn't allowed to bluen that link (per WT:CFI). Or even if someone manages to dig up 3 durable attestations for that particular example of a rare plural form, the question still stands: supposing you have one like that (where no amount of cleverness in searching any durable corpus has found 3 durable citations), what's the proper course. I realize that this is not a huge deal, because it can just lie fallow for now. But having WT:CFI specify an exception class for these would be good. The class would be: "any word that has attested-enough '-AmE-spelling-sg-suffix/-AmE-spelling-pl-suffix' declension and has an attested '-BrE-spelling-sg-suffix' alt form is allowed to enter both parts of the declension for the latter [too], even in cases of durable-attestation lexical gap for that particular plural form, because it is a lexical gap only by a technicality (the inflected form is wholly realizable/instantiable as soon as today or tomorrow in quality formal writing) and therefore pretending like the plural doesn't or can't exist is too dumb to countenance." Quercus solaris (talk) 14:43, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris: What bluelink? The method I used displays the plural, but links to the entry itself, and selflinks are never blue or red. It's a bit of a hack, but it works. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:35, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: D'oh! You're quite right. Thanks. So I guess that method is what I will do with such ones in future, when I notice one. Until anyone might establish that the selflink method is unacceptable, I'll consider it accepted-enough. (Small update: I personally am not going to bother to RfD such a plural that's already entered. Anyone else will have to bother with doing such an RfD if they consider it necessary.) Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 16:18, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Technically if it's unattestable it could be {{en-noun|-|!}}... but we don't require that regular inflected forms have their own cites unless there is a reason to think a term doesn't inflect in a particular way, and in this case, the existence of the plural in other spellings would be reason to think it inflects regularly. No? - -sche (discuss) 02:39, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh! I hadn't realized that Wiktionary doesn't require that regular inflected forms have their own cites unless there is a reason to think a term doesn't inflect in a particular way! OK, well, that modifies my understanding. Yes, I agree that in the case of this example (and many others), it is true that there is no reason to doubt the regular inflectability of the lemma, and that the attestability of its alt-spelling twin reinforces that certainty. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:04, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

TBF, that principle usually isn't relevant for English nouns, because they only have one inflected form (their plural), so there's usually no way to distinguish "the plural is not attested, but that's only because it's not common enough to have made it into print, it does secretly exist just as expected" from "the plural doesn't exist" (and if no plural form is attested, we have to assume it's a {{en-noun|-}}, {{en-noun|!}}, or {{en-noun|-|!}} situation); this is kind of an edge case where the existence of the same word in US vs UK spelling allows us to infer that if it pluralizes in one spelling it probably also pluralizes in the other. The principle is mostly relevant for highly inflected languages, for example if just one slot in the inflection table at mitternachtsblau were only attested twice but not three times, it's not like we're gonna worry about suppressing that one cell in the table when the word clearly inflects regularly. - -sche (discuss) 01:26, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Noun ("excessive complimenting or praise, especially in a cringeworthy way") and related verb. What is the ety? Ours says it "allegedly follows the visual of a donut being glazed", but does not explain why. From reading around, it seems it may be pornographic: think bukkake rather than doughnut icing. Can we confirm/deny? ~2026-13595-69 (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ejaculating on another person is "praiseworthy" ? That's new to me Leasnam (talk) 22:20, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Not praiseworthy, but giving praise — i.e. you like Beyoncé (or whatever) so much that you ejaculate as a result. Makes more sense than icing a doughnut. ~2026-13595-69 (talk) 22:25, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I suspect that the LLM-related "glaze" usage arose from some kind of mental syncretism of (1) the metaphors around sugarcoating and apple-polishing and (2) porn-adjacent/ejaculation-adjacent metaphors, reflecting the way that mainstream speech is nowadays infiltrated by 4chan/incel influences (the bukkake-as-doughnut-glaze metaphor does indeed exist, and the only question is its degree of relation to the ass-kissing "glaze" usage), but the second influence is indirect/oblique enough that normies can use the word without realizing that aspect. (EtymologyNerd has interesting content about that social dynamic). Quercus solaris (talk) 23:33, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

(See sense 6 at tribute for related example of this particular metaphor.) Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:16, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

the link we claim talks about donuts in fact explicitly ties it to semen. it does mention donuts further down, but i recommend reading the whole page because that seems like the sort of explanation you'd give to a young child who isn't ready for the truth yet. —Soap— 21:33, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The source does indeed mention semen so I've added it to our ety. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 15:59, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are all four senses here really distinct? Or are these just how different political ideologies would implement the same essential principles of capitalism? At socialism, we combine statist socialism and anarchist socialism under a single sense (although we do have two subsenses), and I'm wondering if we should do the same here. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:02, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm inclined the same way you are. Subsenses under a single parent sense, it seems to me. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Described and diagrammed here. This looks like a continuous stitch, or running stitch, but I'm not confident about my surgical skills. Any suggestions? Vealhurl (talk) 09:26, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are there other terms like this? Is there a general -zo suffix that forms slang versions of terms (maybe just those ending in /n/)? I'm sure I've heard "funzo" before, although I can only find one or two non-durably archived cites. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:52, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interesting: My gut feels like this is "a suffix trying to arise naturally" via reanalysis (in that way, similar in nature to -burger), but weak in productiveness and therefore limited in spreading. At dunzo#Etymology the formation of dunzo/donezo is explained as "{af|en|done|-s|-o}", but "af" ought to be tweaked to "surf" there. It is undoubtable that -o is involved; a question, though, is why the /z/ intermediate consonant doesn't occur in more of that suffix's derived terms, and what its true nature really is. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:55, 5 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris: My best guess is someone playfully rebracketing gonzo as gone +‎ -zo, and then playfully using the suffix on words that sort of rhyme with gone. After a while the memory of the original pun would have faded, and then it would have become a sort of meaningless game. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:56, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think it couldn't have made many more words than it did. Except for "ponzo", any instance of an item sold under a Ponzi scheme. :) TooManyFingers (talk) 05:17, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The -s -o theory seems very plausible when you consider things like -sies and lolz. ~2026-18647-55 (talk) 09:31, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The current first definition seems incorrect. Further, it's defined using the word attribute, which is defined using the word ascribe, making both definitions less informative. I propose the following American Heritage definitions, which are clearer versions of what the current two definitions get at:

as·cribe (ə-skrīb′) tr.v. as·cribed, as·crib·ing, as·cribes 1. To regard as arising from a specified cause or source: "Other people ascribe his exclusion from the canon to an unsubtle form of racism" (Daniel Pinchbeck). See Synonyms at attribute. 2. To regard as belonging to or produced by a specified agent, place, or time: ascribed the poem to Shakespeare. Bartoldson (talk) 09:42, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The following is the current definition, which confusingly suggests you can attribute a cause to something. Bartoldson (talk) 09:44, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

(transitive) To attribute (a cause or characteristic) to someone or something.

Synonyms: accredit, attribute, impute; see also Thesaurus:ascribe

One may ascribe these problems to the federal government; however, at this stage it is unclear what caused them. Bartoldson (talk) 09:44, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree that defining word A only with a single word word B which is only defined as word A is inadequate. I think we can ascribe the phenomenon at Wiktionary as resulting from the habit, especially of those who work principally on languages other than English, of using one-word definitions, which are the most common form of definitions in non-English entries. A single-language dictionary needs a solid foundation of defining terms that have multi-word definitions that use the most basic words in the language.

Are you saying that people don't use the ascribe about causes? And that they don't stop their analysis of responsibility at, say, the gummint or any other point they choose in a causal chain? I think they do. DCDuring (talk) 15:05, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Look at what comes after the semicolon in the current example: "; however, at this stage it is unclear what caused them."

The example is clearly saying the government is the cause of the problems; i.e., the problems are ascribed to the government. Note that the government is the cause the problems are attributed to and not a cause you look to attribute to something.

However, this doesn't fit the definition, which says that you "attribute a cause to something". The definition should clarify you attribute an effect to some cause to fit the government example, like American Heritage's definition suggests: "To regard as arising from a specified cause or source". Adopting this definition addresses the circularity issue and the cause issue.

I'll make the edit if I'm allowed. Bartoldson (talk) 08:02, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think part of the problem with the word "cause" is it presupposes that every such attribution is always correct. It appears to conflate cause with effect, during a discussion of cause and effect. :) TooManyFingers (talk) 17:12, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

In any case, I changed the definition to match American Heritage's. Bartoldson (talk) 06:38, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This entry uses the label genericized trademark for senses A 7-Eleven convenience store. and The 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores. Surely this is not genericized usage? Although the term probably passes WT:BRAND. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 14:23, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've added a definition "Any convenience store", which does merit the "genericized trademark" label, removed the label from the other definitions and adjusted the translation section, included requesting clarification of the 4 translations offered. Arguably, only the added sense truly meets WT:BRAND. DCDuring (talk) 15:14, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We currently describe Esperanto agita as a passive participle of agi (“to act”), but I think it's an adjectival form of agiti (“to agitate”). For one, agi is "usually" intransitive (and I have not yet found any transitive usages). jlwoodwa (talk) 16:30, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

For the sense related to agiti, by all means add a definition line. It could be defined as "agitative" or "agitational".

For the inflection of agi, traditionally we don't require citations for all inflections of a word, as long as the word is expected to have those inflections. In this case, if we can find three citations demonstrating that agi is used transitively, then we should keep all relevant inflections (agita, agataj, agotan, etc.). The alternative (for Esperanto as well other highly inflected languages like Spanish and German) is a confusing patchwork of present and absent inflections depending on which ones Wiktionary editors have happened to find citations for. That would tend to mislead or confuse readers more than it would inform.

If you think agi isn't used transitively at all (which might be right), I think RFV is the place to resolve that. If we can't find three transitive citations, then all passive inflections of agi should be deleted. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:07, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Should this be labelled as a caught-cot merger pronunciation, or does it exist as a variant pronunciation of Audrey even for caught-cot-distinguishing speakers? - -sche (discuss) 05:28, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it really accurate to encode the Portuguese -us/-os abbreviation with the same symbol for the con- abbreviation? Unicode has a separate character ꝰ (MODIFIER LETTER US). The example image in the Portuguese section does not show the abbreviation descending below the baseline. I do see some other websites that use ꝯ to transcribe the Portuguese form (e.g. Universo Cantigas) but I'm not sure how intentional that is. Urszag (talk) 12:13, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Trooper57, MedK1 — I’m thinking it makes sense to use the superscript. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 15:25, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Polomo: It makes more sense to have them separate, yes. Also lol at the OGP quote having an unicode square. Trooper57 (talk) 17:14, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

OGP and Galician have a lot of those "we did that thing wrong in 2010 and it stayed like that forever". Trooper57 (talk) 17:16, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Latin *alvīna (“beehive”) is recorded as a reconstructed term based on Romanian albină, Aromanian alghinã, Megleno-Romanian ălbină, Istro-Romanian albire (all meaning “bee”), and Venetan albina (“hive”), derived from Classical Latin alvus or alveus. — But, in fact, the term is attested in 2nd century, as a "vulgar" variant of alveāria, in Flavius Caper, De verbis dubiis: Alvearia, non alvinae. Therefore, the etymology is: alveus > alvina > albina etc as a bad&vulgar series parallel to the "correct" one alveārium - alveāria.

The direct derivation alveus → alvīna seems normal in popular Latin (gallus → gallīna). The fact that the pair is recorded as plural might already be a hint toward the semantic evolution of Eastern Romance: hive = many bees > the bee.

My idea is that alvina-alvinae should be recorded as attested, just like speclum, oclus, etc from Appendix Probi. The term ”alvina” should NOT be discussed as a reconstruction (*alvina), but as a normal Latin entry. A single attestation is an attestation nonetheless. Cipricuss (talk) 11:54, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I support the general motion of merging Reconstructed Latin alvína into the regular Wiktionary entry alvina as attested Latin. TrialDragon (talk) 23:07, 6 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved from WT:RFM#Latin ”alvina” should be recorded as attested, not reconstructed. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 15:24, 7 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Can we be sure the pronunciation would be /ˈmʌbəlˌfʌbəlz/? I'd sooner expect /ˌmʌbəlˈfʌbəlz/, as in mumbo jumbo GenAm /ˌmʌmboʊˈdʒʌmboʊ/. (And wouldn't the RP version have the same pattern? Right now it's just /mʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/; Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary 18th ed. indeed provides /ˌmʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/.) I'm not a native English speaker so perhaps my intuition could be wrong. I checked OED 2nd ed. and it says nothing about the pronunciation. — Phazd (talk|contribs) 06:50, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would expect the stress as given. ~2026-14738-79 (talk) 15:36, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm a native English speaker, and though I've never heard this term, my intuition is also that the stress as given is correct. I can't explain why I feel like it ought to have a different stress pattern than mumbo jumbo, but somehow it should. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:37, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The stress given (ˈ1.2ˌ3.4) feels right to me too, though I would not be surprised if ˌ1.2ˈ3.4 also marginally exists. Four-syllable foobar-roobar reduplications do not appear to all consistently pattern one way or the other:

• for tittle-tattle, MW, OED, Longmans, Dictionary.com, Cambridge and Oxford Learners all agree the stress is ˈ1.2.ˌ3.4 (like our pronunciation of mubble-fubbles);
• for prittle-prattle, all of those dictionaries have ˈ1.2ˌ3.4 except MW which says either half can receive either stress;
• for wishy-washy, all the dictionaries have ˈ1.2ˌ3.4 except the OED which says it can be either ˈ1.2ˌ3.4 or ˌ1.2ˈ3.4; and
• for dilly-dally, most dictionaries have ˈ1.2ˌ3.4 but Dictionary.com has /ˌdɪlɪˈdælɪ/ instead and the OED has /ˈdɪlɪˈdali/

but

• for mumbo jumbo, all the dictionaries have ˌ1.2ˈ3.4, except Dictionary.com which has /ˈmʌm.boʊ ˈdʒʌm.boʊ/; and
• for hoity-toity, helter-skelter, and hocus-pocus, MW, Cambridge and Oxford Learners have /ˌ1.2ˈ3.4/, while OED and Dictionary.com have /ˈ1.2ˈ3.4/;

Subjectively, the ones that pattern ˈ1.2ˌ3.4 feel like English reduplications (tittle, tattle, prattle, wish, wash, dilly, dally are recognizably English), whereas the ones that pattern ˌ1.2ˈ3.4(~ˈ1.2ˈ3.4) feel non-English: mumbo-jumbo is possibly borrowed from Mandinka; hoity-toity may historically have been derived from an English word hoit but because that word is now obsolete it is not recognizable as English and instead looks foreign like hoi polloi; helter-skelter doesn't look or feel English (helter is an apparently unrelated(?) obsolete dialectal word and skelter is derived from helter-skelter); and hocus-pocus looks like and is fake Latin). Though neither element of mubble-fubbles is an English word per se (or at least, we don't have entries for them yet), they feel English like rubble and stubble, especially with the English plural -s. Whether this difference between feeling English vs non-English causes the difference in stress or is merely a coincidence I don't know. Perhaps comparing more reduplications would even show that there is not actually a correlation. - -sche (discuss) 19:19, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

"Jumbo" is legitimately a word on its own, and that's probably a major factor in why mumbo-jumbo is different. TooManyFingers (talk) 06:02, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It says: "Derived from pretrain, from pre-, or from train." That is odd. Better: "Derived from pretrain or from pre- and train." I can't edit it myself since it's done with overcomplex templates that restrict editing to an elite in-crowd. ~2026-14738-79 (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Bad markup. By the way, there's a documentation you can read. No one is trying to make an elite in-crowd, but the thing that's making it is an unwillingness to look at it. Vininn126 (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This analytical ambiguity (either pre- + Ved or adjectival use of the past participle of preV) applies to many preVed adjectives, in which V is a verb stem: preabsorbed, prebleached, precleaned, ..., but we usually present just one analysis.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:07, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Showing the two analyses is both synchronically complete (in all cases of multiple affixation) and diachronically honest (in any case where diachronic studies as evidence are not adduced), whereas showing only one of them is neither synchronically complete nor (except in a minority of cases) diachronically honest. I hope that Wiktionary will move toward the optimal method over time. Alas, it might not, but that would be the right path. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:41, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Like .txt and .php. Can someone remind me? There are of course thousands of these. I've even created some in my career. ~2026-14738-79 (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't recall whether we have a policy on these or not. The only discussion of file extensions I can find is this from 2013. We do have TLDs like .eu, .us, and we have things like cmd and str, and MS-DOS, and common, 'generic' extensions like .exe feel at least as useful (as entries) as those things, so I don't see a reason to exclude these per se, as long as they meet CFI. But it seems like de facto anyone can put out files with whatever extension they like (?), and make a program that reads files with that extension, so some extensions do seem BRAND-like, like Amazon's .azw3, so maybe they need to pass BRAND? (If other people don't like having these, I am OK with banishing them to an appendix — and the TLDs too.) - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Some of the less-supported ones can probably be banished to Appendix:Translingual/File extensions. SVG-image-maker (talk) 16:12, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sum-of-parts? Why/why not? — Can external genitalia be idiomatic because of WT:EMPTYSPACE? — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 21:57, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interesting question. We also have facial hair, body hair, and (most dubiously IMO) chest hair. The OED online appears to have entries for "pubic hair", "internal genitals" and "external genitals" (but not "... genitalia"); Cambridge and Collins too have entries for "pubic hair". I suspect many of these could also meet THUB if we were to go looking for translations, but that would only mean the entries would be kept, it'd have no direct bearing on whether they're SOP or not. - -sche (discuss) 23:04, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I guess chest hair and maybe body hair would be kept by WT:COALMINE in an RfD. facial hair and pubic hair probably wouldn’t. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 23:16, 8 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

There's more to the difference between the hair on one's head and pubic hair than just where they're growing- the structure and appearance are quite different. It would be extremely bizarre if someone had pubic hair growing on their head. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:49, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

if one got a skin graft they could have "pubic hair" growing on other parts of their body, so I don't belive it is SOP BirchTainer (talk) 03:47, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

sawn should have two etymologies, right? And the citations page only contains nouns, but there's no noun definition. ~2026-11487-24 (talk) 07:27, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

To the second point: the citation page can be used to gather evidence for a rare word or sense if there's any question as to whether it meets WT:CFI. The two sentences are by the same author in the same work, so they only count as a single cite. We would need at least two more independent of this one and each other to justify an entry for the noun. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:58, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

To the first point: Yes, true, it should have two etymologies, for the same reason that saw has Etymology_1 for kerf-cuttery and Etymology_3 for eyeball-see-ery. I will implement accordingly. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:15, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

God forbid seems to have a missing sense. There's no explanation of the oblique, sarcastic usage found in phrases such as "God forbid a woman get some peace and quiet." I don't know if this should be excluded solely because it is sarcastic, as that sense genuinely transforms the usage into a different construction. Additionally, I'm unsure how this second sense should be classed, since it is not wholly an interjection and is more of an idiomatic verb construction. BillMichaelTheScienceMichael (talk) 15:09, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think we usually leave out sarcastic readings from our definitions, since almost anything can be said sarcastically. An exception would be something like fat chance, which is really used only sarcastically. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:11, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The tone of voice with which something is said can by itself "genuinely transform" an expression from a neutral to a negative (sarcastic), a positive, a question, an order, etc. To clutter up further a dictionary that already includes so many rare, obsolete, dated, and unattested expressions with entries for any SoP expression that might be used in non-declarative sentences seems foolish. DCDuring (talk) 15:51, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

There is now one straight usex and one sarcasm usex (labeled as such). This will make both uses clear to any user without cluttering up WT. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:48, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for adding that. [For the mystified, he added a "usage example" (wikt jargon "usex")] under the first sense. -- R. S. Shaw (talk) 20:05, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am writing to challenge the current reliance on broad phonemic transcription (e.g., /p, t, k/) in English entries. While linguistically "efficient," omitting aspiration markers (the h or ʰ sound) is fundamentally misleading for language learners. I am proposing that Wiktionary transition to, or include, narrow phonetic transcription ([pʰ, tʰ, kʰ]) for the following reasons: Accuracy is not Redundancy: If a word is physically pronounced with a puff of air, omitting that sound from the phonetic guide is a failure of accuracy. A dictionary should reflect the actual spoken reality, not just a simplified mental model. Providing the full sound is not "extra" info; it is the correct info. Comparison Example (The word "Paper"): Current Wiktionary style: /ˈpeɪpə(ɹ)/ Actual Pronunciation (Narrow):[ˈpʰeɪpə(ɹ)] The current style hides the fact that the first 'p' has a strong breath of air while the second does not. A learner follows the guide and misses the most important phonetic feature of the word. Learner Exclusion: Native speakers might find aspiration "predictable," but learners from non-aspirating languages (like Spanish, French, or Italian) or languages where aspiration distinguishes meaning (like Hindi or Thai) do not. By leaving out the h sound, Wiktionary provides an incomplete "secret code" that leads to heavy accents or being misunderstood as using voiced consonants (/b, d, g/). Transparency over Theory: A learner should not have to hunt down a separate 20-page appendix on "Allophonic Rules" just to figure out how to say a single word. The pronunciation guide should be self-contained and transparent. Universal Accessibility: As an international resource, Wiktionary should cater to the needs of the global learner, for whom the distinction between [p]and [pʰ] is critical, rather than catering to the convenience of native-speaking editors who already know the hidden rules. Requested Change: Either adopt narrow transcription as the default for American/British English or ensure every entry includes a phonetic [ ] line that explicitly marks aspirated stops where they occur. ~2026-15353-41 (talk) 01:09, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Discussion on wiki projects isn't just "asking ChatGPT" — it's developing your own arguments.

Wiktionary’s English IPA for some reason seems to follow very different principles from those applied for all other languages, in that our transcription between brackets / / really attempts to be "phonemic", and not "broad phonetic". I don’t like this myself, but there are various other aspects of this system that also need to be changed, such as implementing ⟨ɾ⟩. The principles for English IPA transcription have been discussed many times; see, for example, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/November § /ɾ/ in GenAm. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 02:04, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The English Wiktionary already allows a phonetic transcription to be given second, in addition to (and after) the phonemic one, which is treated as principal. It also allows any person to add whichever of those they care to add even if the other hasn't been supplied yet, and the one is allowed to exist while the other is being indefinitely awaited. This existing tolerance, combined with the inherent nature of a wiki (which is that it is a negative-space creation in that the extent to which the statue has been brought out of the marble is only the extent to which any rando has yet bothered to chisel in any particular spot) completely scratches (and exhausts) ~2026-15353-41's itch. The answer is then evident: Anywhere and anytime anyone wants to add a phonetic one, they can go right ahead (as no one is stopping them, or anyone else who feels the same way on the topic), and that addition doesn't mean that the phonemic one will or should be taken away (i.e., it's not going to become newly banned, nor should it); the desire to have the phonetic one has thus not been thwarted in any way, and other people's (not less-valid) desire to have the phonemic one has not been thwarted in any way either, and the extent to which any particular entry hasn't yet received either of the transcriptions is just another portion of the marble that no one has yet bothered to carve, but anyone can carve it anytime anyone is willing to be arsed to do it. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:10, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Polomo: Can you give some examples of English transcriptions between slashes that are "'phonemic' and not 'broad phonetic'" as opposed to examples from other languages? As for [ɾ], there is certainly no need to implement it, especially not between slashes, since it's not a phoneme. To OP's suggestion: we're a dictionary, not an English phonetics textbook, so there's no reason for us to give pronunciation information that isn't lexical, and doing so is actually counterproductive. Telling people that point is pronounced [pʰɔ̃ɪ̯̃ʔ] is unhelpful, because they'll be so focused on trying to get every little detail right that they lose the forest for the trees. Telling them it's pronounced /pɔɪnt/ tells them everything they need to know. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:55, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree with @Mahagaja. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:54, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our entry formerly said that this was pronounced /luː/, with a dated alt of /ljuː/. Diff changed this to now say it's pronounced /ljuː/, or /luː/ only if yod-dropping. Is this correct? Many of this user's other edits have been subtly or blatantly wrong, requiring cleanup or reversion. Does the set of possible pronunciations differ by etymology/sense? It seems odd to me that ety 1, the French coin (derived from /lwi/ → /lu/) would've ever had /j/, whereas for other ety sections it seems possible; for the "lukewarm" ety/sense, the OED lists /ljuː/ and /luː/ without apparent distinction, while various other dictionaries only have /lu/. (Also check diff.) - -sche (discuss) 03:26, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yod-dropping is more widespread after /l/ than after many other consonants. There are plenty of people who pronounce new /njuː/ and dew /djuː/ who also pronounce lute /ljuːt/. So yes, lew is /luː/ only when there's yod-dropping, but the set of people with yod-dropping in that context is larger than it is in other contexts. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:39, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

BTW, have all the spurious or incomplete links to WP articles from pronunciation templates been cleaned up? DCDuring (talk) 21:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Did this diff accidentally get something right? /ʊ/ is the vowel we give for the Welsh word, so it's plausible English borrowed it. Can anyone find examples of this word being spoken, or other dictionaries prescribing one pronunciation or another? - -sche (discuss) 05:35, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The usage example shown is Roll on summer! Shouldn't there be a comma after on? —⁠~2026-15436-91 (talk) 07:58, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Added. Leasnam (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

An other interjection not worth including. DCDuring (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I understand this to mean "waiting for an unacceptably long time", but have trouble attesting it. Does it not mean that? What I did find:

Possibly (it doesn't seem literal to me, but it might be):

Not durably archived, but another use in the wild: if that’s next, we’ll be waiting until the sun goes down for a decent buy! (fishmansvacuum, 2007)
Native speakers: are you familiar with the figurative sense of this term? — Alexis Jazz (talk) 06:23, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

In my judgment as a native AmE speaker, it has no particular currency as a figurative idiomatic turn of phrase meaning more or less "for a long time, and especially, too long"; this fact makes it different from until the cows come home, which definitely does have (and is well known for) that sense. But in fairness to anyone who might occasionally have used it that way, it has a certain feel to it whereby it kinda wants to grow into such a sense; it has cognitive adjacency, among literal thoughts standing ready to slide into metaphorical use. Thinking about it consciously also reminds me that you often hear people say "until the sun comes up" as a way of expressing the idea of pulling an all-nighter. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:13, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would interpret it as a roundabout way of saying "all day". Chuck Entz (talk) 03:49, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Excellent point! In either sense: all day or all day. Some days are longer than others. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:50, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The Latin veritabilis is linked from the Etymology of English veritable but doesn't exist. Likely some version of a Latin term related to "truth", but seems like the entry should exist since it's linked to from that place and places in two other words (plus some user Pengo pages). Also on the veritabilis page, the Catalan Etymology links to veritābilis but actually goes to veritabilis (different "a" character); why the difference in spelling, and why automatically directed to the other spelling? -- R. S. Shaw (talk) 19:52, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

You'll see both of those phenomena recurrently: (1) a red link to a Latin inflected form sometimes is still awaiting (and is validly eligible for) eventual bluening; and (2) the vowel-length macrons often conventionally used today in the writing of classical Latin words are a convenience for modern readers although they were not used by the Romans, and both (a) the link resolution and (b) the headword orthography act as if they weren't there. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:31, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

As the definition (see -ing) and the nouns included in the category make clear, this is not a diminutive suffix. It should be labelled with something like "derivate noun" or something of the sort. Someone may have gotten confused with -ling, which creates diminutives. I don't really deal with categories much, so I'm not sure how to fix this without messing something up. (Sorry if this isn't really a Tea room thing. I wasn't sure.) Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:57, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is a diminutive suffix. The OED states: "A suffix forming derivative masculine nouns, with the sense of ‘one belonging to’ or ‘of the kind of’, hence ‘one possessed of the quality of’, and also as a patronymic = ‘one descended from, a son of’, and as a diminutive." It might not have any obvious diminutive connotation today, but it was originally a diminutive suffix. Leasnam (talk) 20:45, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

But that's not the primary meaning (according to either our definition, the OED, or the actual words formed from it), so why should we list it as such? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved from Wiktionary talk:Tea room/2026/March.

I believe the Wiktionary definition of adermatoglyphia is too narrow. I would argue that adermatoglyphia is simply the absence of fingerprints (and sometimes other epidermal ridges), regardless of the medical cause. I believe it is incorrect to refer to the genetic disorder that CAN cause adermatoglyphia (as is done in def. 2) as adermatoglyphia … adermatoglyphia is simply a symptom of that genetic disorder; “autosomal-dominant adermatoglyphia” is a description specific to the adermatoglyphia caused by the SMARCAD1 mutation, but that term is not relevant to, or a synonym of, all adermatoglyphia. The condition can indeed be caused by a genetic mutation, but the condition can also be acquired in life (e.g., by treatment with certain chemotherapy drugs). This juried article from Cureus presents some elements of a much broader definition: https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.4040 Joncaire (talk) 22:55, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Joncaire: we don't use the talk pages for forums like this, except to talk about the forum page itself. I've moved your topic here where it belongs, and where people will see it. 03:07, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Joncaire: You are verifiably correct that the usage distinction that you mentioned is attested, as the collocations "acquired adermatoglyphia" and "induced adermatoglyphia" are attested. I adjusted the entry accordingly. The word is uncommon enough that not even medical dictionaries enter it (regarding the several that I checked), but the scientific literature has many attested uses of it. The phenomenon that you stumbled across in this instance recurs with other instances too, although I am blanking on naming examples off the top of my head. Strolling through weeds and thickets of hypersynonymy at OMIM uncovers examples sometimes. It's a pattern whereby people often use "condition name such-and-such" alone to mean the usual type of the condition, namely, the condition as produced by the most common cause of it. It's a class of autohypernymy/autohyponymy. Another aspect of it, which this instance exemplifies, is using the same word to name either (a) the sign or symptom itself or (b) a disease that is often (but not always) the cause of it. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:24, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for moving my comment where it belongs … I actually thought I had posted it in the Tea room, but, well … I’m new here, at least on the back end of things. Another example of autohyponymy (if I understand it correctly) is when people insisted during the pandemic emergency that SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 were two different terms for the same thing. The former is the virus; the latter is an abbreviated name for the disease caused by the virus. Joncaire (talk) 02:39, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, definitely the common theme underlying it all is the practical attitude of "same difference" from a viewpoint involving loose usage. Thinking about the COVID example made me realize just now that in my earlier comment I inadvertently conflated two of the reasons behind it — the autohyponymy one is when the same word has senses of both "something" and "a type of that thing", and the other one often involved is metonymy, regarding a thing and its cause (such as [1] a symptom or sign versus [2] the disease that causes it). We often see either or both of them at work, if we are looking; but often we don't notice, depending on the mode of our thinking at each moment, i.e., what we're focusing on or not. A goal of well-edited writing is to use precise usage at least enough to prevent the readers from tripping over a discrepancy of this kind, distracting them from the main point of the message — rather than the point being merely to be pedantic for pedantry's own sake. And meanwhile people who aren't as good at noticing the discrepancies will tend to wonder what all the fuss is about and to perceive that it's much ado about nothing. The sweet spot is wording things well while also not seeming to be trying to do so, i.e., going out of the way to do so. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:11, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

So it seems the COVID example is really neither one, then. Autohyponymy: referring to a facial tissue of any brand as a “Kleenex.” Metonymy: referring to the pins-and-needles sensation in one’s feet as “neuropathy,” when neuropathy is technically the nerve damage causing that sensation. Have I got it? Joncaire (talk) 11:57, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Pretty much. Many examples, involving many conditions, whether infectious diseases (e.g., flu, COVID, viral, bacterial, parasitic), NCDs (neuropathy, nephropathy, anemia, diabetes), or many others, do involve metonymy (e.g., the symptom-or-sign versus the disease, the pathogen versus the disease [for the infectious disease class] — for example, SARS-CoV-2 [the pathogen] versus COVID-19 [the disease], or influenza virus aka influenzavirus [the pathogen] versus influenza [the disease], or HIV [the pathogen] versus HIV disease [the disease, which is also often called HIV/AIDS idiomatically]). The neuropathy example is a good one. The pins and needles are a paresthesia caused by the neuropathy, precisely speaking, but people will say something like "this pins-and-needles feeling is your neuropathy, and here's what we can do about it", or whatever, and the communication is plenty clear, and you'd have to interrupt it (a net negative) to stop and think about rewording it, which isn't necessary anyway, for communicative purposes. Same with infection in the sense of any inoculation at all versus the symptomatic condition that may develop from it. "Don't want to catch the flu" or "don't want to catch covid" — well, precisely speaking, what you'll catch is the flu virus (or SARS-CoV-2), not the flu (or covid), but who's going to correct you about that detail (or not) in polite conversation, and why (or why not)? And you can come down with flu or covid even if you can't (precisely speaking) catch them, but who's gonna be pedantic about it tho? One practical upshot to know about all such examples is that the metonymy cannot be entirely removed from natural language, because much of human cognition (not all of it, but important amounts of it) basically depends on it to keep moving efficiently from moment to moment and from one transient mental focus to another. Similar in this way to literal/figurative differences in thoughts from moment to moment: we can't even notice them all consciously all the time, and dwell on them, without derailing flow of thought and transitions of attention for other purposes. Prescription can't annihilate all such effects without ruining the smooth flow of texts, and their tone. What good writing and editing can do is avoid any instances that are clumsy, showing rough corners where the transitions in flow of thought are stitched together, as it were. And people with less talent for writing and editing (but very talented in other areas of human endeavor) have little patience for anyone else dwelling on it, because from their viewpoint it is logically a waste of time and effort and is a needless distraction from what matters, i.e., what is worth time and money. It's basically the old theme where they are saying or thinking, "Whatever, you know exactly what I meant, you pedant, or if you don't then you're a moron anyway [i.e. way too easily confused], so either way shut the F up about my word choice and turn of phrase." Lol. Plus now (since 2022) they have LLMs to slop words together smoothly for them, too, so now they're even more dismissive of the idea of any humans seeking to belabor it manually. Brings one back to the thought about the sweet spot in balancing the goals regarding writing and editing. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:46, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I do not know how to remove these, but it seems like this double-linkage is a mistake. Which section of the entry is the link supposed to be in? BillMichaelTheScienceMichael (talk) 22:29, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fixed. Horse Battery (talk) 22:44, 13 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Do Polish-speaking linguists actually pronounce this /ˈsan.txi/? It seems unlikely, but you never know. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:14, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

My intuition is that the phonetic respelling is <sandi>, but I can't find sources showing this, nor am I sure how to find something online. Vininn126 (talk) 11:28, 14 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Mechanicism has been used to describe the role and responsibilities of managers as opposed to leaders. JMGN (talk) 00:11, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

In the last five months, a "formal, dated" label has been added by BirchTainer, removed by Kelisi, readded by BirchTainer, removed by Cookiefonster, and readded by BirchTainer. How do people feel about this word, and what do other sources say about it — is it formal, is it dated? Other dictionaries I checked do not label these senses as dated or formal AFAICT. Searching on Bluesky and X, and searching song lyrics on Genius.com, I find plenty of modern uses, including uses that seem colloquial, aren't bothering with capitalization or punctuation, etc. - -sche (discuss) 05:33, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It seems clear to me that BirchTainer and BirchTainer alone considers "nor" to be "formal, dated". Well, to me, it is neither formal nor dated. I use it all the time. I don't know how BirchTainer would express my second sentence. Perhaps he just doesn't know his English. The labels are utterly unwarranted. "Nor" is perfectly current, even in colloquial speech. Kelisi (talk) 05:44, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I suspect that BirchTainer might have been thinking that standalone "nor" (without any "neither") is less common than it once was - which may or may not be true. But it's obviously not declining in "neither...nor...". TooManyFingers (talk) 17:40, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Neither dated nor particularly formal, at least in UK. ~2026-16204-70 (talk) 06:12, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

No reliable source has labeled it as formal, It does seem to be considered formal by some, possible only in the US, I'll remove it for now. BirchTainer (talk) 06:22, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Kelisi raises the interesting question: how would one replace the term or a listing of which it is a part? DCDuring (talk) 16:23, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Neither dated nor formal in US English either. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:45, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Agree with others here that it is not exclusively formal nor dated. The closest to it being so is that there are some occasions in informal speech or writing where it feels like the sightly more formal option among the straightforward options for how to compose a particular sentence. The point that DCDuring and Kelisi raised is an important force that pushes in the direction of keeping the word current: the word is too useful, and not always easily enough and gracefully enough replaced, to allow it to slip out of widespread usage. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I had a brain block. It is replaceable to an extent with or, either a single one before the last item in the list or between each item and the one following. Using nor seems to add unmistakable emphasis to the negation. DCDuring (talk) 18:16, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

FWIW, Ngrams suggests that over the past hundred years, usage of nor, neither, or and either has been largely unchanged: 1922-2022. (Over the past two hundred years, all four words appear to have become a little less common, and nor saw the largest change, being a third as common in 2022 as it was in 1822.) (I scaled the or line to not dwarf the others.) - -sche (discuss) 18:21, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We can also see that neither ... nor is more common than neither ... or by close to two orders of magnitude.^[4]  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:22, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Please mark as North American. Britain uses "arse", not "ass". Abuse filter prevents edit. ~2026-16204-70 (talk) 06:11, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I applied label "North America". Quercus solaris (talk) 18:04, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are these notes... well... accurate? They come from a rather old dictionary. If still useful, we should probably include the same notes (via template?) in the entries for the other words being compared, i.e. correct, exact, precise. In any case they could use rephrasing since the English sounds a century old. ~2026-16204-70 (talk) 07:29, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

They sound right to me overall, except for (ironically) the one for accurate. The wording could definitely be updated. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 14:54, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is the Spanish name for the Spanish language Español (capitalized), español (lower case), or something else? The español#Spanish entry says the noun is español but also says that name is sometimes offensive, without specifying under what circumstances it might be considered offensive or by whom, or what would be a non-offensive alternative. (It does say Synonym: castellano, but that entry seems to describe a regional dialect... which come to think of it is not what i would consider a synonym.)

Gracias. Wishing everyone safe, happy, productive editing. --~2026-16332-43 (talk) 13:29, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

You need to read the usage notes. Like many European countries, Spain started out with many regional dialects and languages. As the regional kingdom of Castile developed into the Kingdom of Spain, its language became the standard for all of Spain. The other languages in Spain went from being considered equals to the Castilian language to being called "dialects" of it ("a language is a dialect with an army and a navy"). Chuck Entz (talk) 16:05, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Castellano can refer to a regional dialect, but not necessarily. In Spain, it generally means Spanish as opposed to the other languages spoken within Spain, such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan; though it can also mean specifically Castilian Spanish as opposed to, say, Andalusian Spanish. In Latin America, castellano and español are basically synonyms, though one tends to be preferred in some countries and the other in other countries. I've never heard of castellano being considered offensive, but maybe Spanish speakers in Spain but outside Castile (e.g. Spanish speakers in Andalusia) don't like it when their language is called castellano. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:11, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm only speculating, but if "español" is considered offensive, it might be by people who are Spanish and whose primary language is not Castilian Spanish; it can be seen as a declaration that their primary language is not the real Spanish. TooManyFingers (talk) 18:04, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Defined as Alternating transparent and opaque white rings which are seen outside the blastoderm, on the surface of the developing egg of the hen and other birds. from Webster 1913 There's a picture here. The term halones is old, but the thing presumably still exists. It could be a blastodisc or wall of the area opaca (needs defining), but I'm unsure. Any help??? Vealhurl (talk) 16:45, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I tried but couldn't crack this one. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:05, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

they don't appear to have other names, but I found out a cicatricula is the same thing as a blastoderm, which is nice. --~2026-12941-7 (talk) 07:52, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the old sense: "(obsolete, transitive) To have (someone) as a lover or spouse; to enjoy sexually". Is this not defined in a rather backwards way? If the lady rejoices the man (as in the citation) doesn't it literally suggest she's giving him pleasure, rather than taking pleasure ("enjoying him sexually")? So maybe it should be rephrased. ~2026-16605-55 (talk) 21:35, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Verb template is too confusing, but the simple past form should be "...saw what stuck". ~2026-16605-55 (talk) 08:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is what pharma companies, funds managers, and other resource-rich entities do. Closely related is the all-or-nothing version: throw something at the wall and see if it sticks. DCDuring (talk) 14:39, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I too tried my hand at getting the template parameters to show the principal parts correctly, but no luck. I'm not certain that the template as currently written can handle three strong verbs in one head. I didn't study it extensively yet. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:58, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Does this fix it or are there still incorrect forms? - -sche (discuss) 17:42, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Closer to right, but not done yet. One option would be to allow this entry to be a rare exception where the head is simply entered manually instead of template-generated. I think I'll make it so for now, so that it at least doesn't say something wholly incorrect in the meantime. Anyone else could replace it again later if doing so is feasible. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:31, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Just to make the cheese more binding, add the alt. forms, substituting to see for and see: throw things at the wall to see what sticks and throw something at the wall to see if it sticks. I think we should throw in the towel on the inflection line. DCDuring (talk) 18:54, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

At soft, /sæft/ is listed as an obsolete "Southern US" pronunciation, but the reference cited is only about (and presents this as a feature of) The Speech of East Texas; it does not, as far as I can tell, claim that this was a general "Southern US" pronunciation. Is there other evidence that suggests /sæft/ was formerly used throughout the Southern US, or should the label be narrowed, at least to "Texas"? Other entries also cite this East Texas book as if it described "Southern US" writ large, so it would be useful to know if that is generally correct or if the labels should be narrowed in other cases as well. - -sche (discuss) 21:26, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

PEAS doesn't mention soft at all; and neither K&K nor Webster's Third (these three being my go-to sources for old-fashioned American pronunciations) lists /sæft/ as a possible pronunciation. PEAS does mention /ˈsæsɪd͡ʒ/ as a dialectal pronunciation of sausage, so it's not totally implausible, but if there's evidence for it in soft, we'll have to look elsewhere. —Mahāgaja · talk 23:39, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for checking those. I have tentatively narrowed the label, and have looked through (all?) other uses of the template, tweaking some. One I will specifically mention, in case anyone has information on it, is invariable as "/ɪnˈvɛɚbl̩/". /ɪnˈvɛɹ.ə.bl̩/ (dropping only one syllable) sounds like a pronunciation that would exist in folk speech, but /ɪnˈvɛɚbl̩/ I have doubts about, and have not yet managed to find anywhere but The Speech of East Texas (where the author writes what looks like /ɪnˈve˞┬ɚbl̩/, notably using /e/, and not /ɛ/, which is used in transcribing the very next word mentioned on the same line, wealthiest, as /wɛl-/). - -sche (discuss) 04:49, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

(Notifying Fay Freak, Brutal Russian, Benwing2, Lambiam, Mnemosientje, Nicodene, Sartma, Al-Muqanna, SinaSabet28, Theknightwho, Imbricitor, Graearms, Kaloan-koko): @Agamemenon, Kwékwlos, Catonif

The entry currently shows an unsourced and fairly hypothetical declension (including the nominative singular), so I'd like to establish consensus on which forms we should actually show there.

Assuming it stays at *juwō, I oppose the in-line citation in the headline to De Vaan 2008:317-318, since this source only provides the oblique stem *juwen-, not the nominative singular form *juwō. @Victar re-added this after I edited to remove it (though I left an in-line citation in the etymology section): I find this annoying since there were past discussions about being careful to place in-line citations in a way that doesn't falsely attribute Wiktionary editor's assumptions to cited sources.

For specific reasons, I think it's not entirely safe to infer the nominative singular from the oblique stem in this case. The primary descendant is Latin iuvenis (“young man; young”), which has an anomalous and defective declension pattern in Classical Latin. The nominative singular has an i-stem ending attached, but otherwise, the word is inflected as an n-stem. It's used as a noun and or as a masculine or (rarely) feminine adjective, but generally defective in the neuter; e.g. neuter nom/acc plural forms like *iuvena and *iuvenia are unattested until Medieval or later Latin. Latin has no regular class of n-stem adjectives, making this a relatively isolated paradigm, although the semantically similar senex (“old man; old”) shows some similarities.

De Vaan is vague about the period when its declension evolved, just commenting that "the original n-stem *iuwen- was made into an i-stem". Previously, the entry was (mis?)placed at Reconstruction:Proto-Italic/juwenis; then I moved it to Reconstruction:Proto-Italic/juwen-; now Victar has moved it to Reconstruction:Proto-Italic/juwō.

I don't object that strongly to the title *juwō, although I think it's less than fully certain and I'd prefer not to use it unless we can find some reference for it. On the other hand, I consider the inflection table both dubious and unnecessary; e.g. I think it's hard to be confident that neuter singular *juwon and plural *juwenā existed in Proto-Italic, and I don't see how showing these forms is helpful to anybody. Urszag (talk) 00:22, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm surprised you didn't reply to the discussion on my talk page, as I thought we might have come to an understanding. To quote my last reply, "Proto-Italic *juwen- is the oblique stem of n-stem adjective *juwō, just as PIE *h₂iu-h₁en- is the oblique to *h₂yuh₁ō." Normalizing entries to the nominative is standard practice, as is attributing non-nominative reconstructions to them. If that were not the case, the vast majority of proto entries would be falsely cited, cf. PG *hrīmô to Kroonen's reconstruction *hrīman-. --{{victar|talk}} 01:11, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Urszag On the topic at hand: Given the neuter is defective and the fact that n-stem adjectives are irregular, I agree that we shouldn't be giving a declension table. I'm also fairly sure that Victar is wrong that it was changed to an i-stem later, given that Sanskrit युव॑न् (yúvan) is also an i-stem in the feminine: यूनी (yūnī).

More broadly: these i-stem feminine adjectives seem to crop up as oddballs across multiple branches of IE (e.g. Sanskrit युव॑न् (yúvan) mentioned above has two additional, irregular feminine stems). In Greek, I think it's notable that they also exhibit the same neuter-defective tendency that we see here (with piecemeal exceptions). I can't speak for Sanskrit, but in the case of Greek they're barely discussed in the grammars, depsite them being a fairly large class of adjectives. Theknightwho (talk) 01:25, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for linking to that discussion. I concede that in some cases, there’s no real doubt that we can infer the nominative singular form based on the oblique stem that is given by a reference. For example, De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *ekwo- as the ancestor of equus: since the gender is obvious in context, and the nominative singular ending of masculine o-stem nouns is uncontroversial and well-attested across the whole declension class, I don't think it's a big deal to silently switch between *ekwo- and *ekwos (although I also don't see why an in-line citation is any better than a general bottom-of-the-page citation in such cases). So I'm not that concerned with reconstructed entries that have straightforward declension classes, which will presumably account for the majority. But I think it's important and helpful to readers and other editors to be as clear as possible about what cited sources say about reconstructed nouns that have more complicated paradigms. I feel like *juwen-/*juwō is such a case, so as I said, I was annoyed to have my edit moving the in-line reference reverted. Do you know of any evidence or arguments that demonstrate that the nominative singular ended in *-ō rather than *-is in Proto-Italic? Regarding other forms shown in the table, I don't understand the contrast between masculine dat/abl plural *juwenəβos and feminine/neuter *juwenβos. I also don't understand yet the basis for reconstructing the neuter nom/acc singular: assuming it even existed at all, how do we know it would be *juwon as opposed to juwn̥?--Urszag (talk) 02:19, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

If De Vaan had intended his Proto-Italic reconstruction *juwen- to be interpreted as an i-stem, he would have reconstructed it as *juweni-.

The PIt. nominative singular neuter ending *-on derives from the PIE nom.sg.n. ending *-on, see *h₂yéwHō. You'll have to ask @Kc_kennylau, Mellohi! about the plural forms. I didn't create the Proto-Italic consonant stem table.

--{{victar|talk}} 03:16, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree that De Vaan would have written *juweni- if he reconstructed an ordinary i-stem inflection for this word in Proto-Italic, but I'm not so sure we can conclude from this that De Vaan thinks it had a nominative in -ō. As I said, I'm not that opposed to us making that assumption for the convenience of having the title at the nominative singular, but I don't get why we need to have an inline citation placed directly after a form that literally doesn't appear in the cited source. The formation of the nominative singular of masculine n-stem nouns in Proto-Italic isn't completely trivial; aside from e.g. *hemō, we have *pekten and *sangwens, and (for some reason I don't understand) Sihler 1995:319 reconstructs the original nominative singular of senex as *sē.

You didn't create the template, but you added it to the page. I don't think it's unfair to request that you verify that the forms it produces are correct if you're advocating for keeping it there—or are you OK with me removing it? If the *juwenəβos/*juwenβos thing that you aren't commenting on is just some accidental error, I'll admit that's not that significant by itself, but I think it would show that there's some risks to a maximalist approach of adding inflection templates everywhere on reconstructed terms just because we can. I don't think completeness and inter-entry consistency should be prioritized at the expense of accuracy.

I see that Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂yéwHō has neuter singular *-on in its table, but what I really would like to know is what linguistic data that is based on. Furthermore, projecting the form forward from PIE to Proto-Italic without evidence of its survival in an Italic descendant doesn't seem particularly sound from a methodological perspective.--Urszag (talk) 04:04, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

To clarify, the discussion concerns n-stem adjectives rather than n-stem nouns, of which there are only four in PIE, *-Hō, *-nós, *-onts, and *-wénts. If De Vaan had intended to derive Latin iuvenis from one of the latter two -- namely an nt-stem -- he would presumably have reconstructed the PIt. oblique stem as **juwent-. If derived from the second -- a no-stem -- the expected reconstruction would be **jūno-. This leaves Hoffmann's suffix *-Hō, which is supported by Sanskrit cognate युवन् (yúvan).

Since n-stem adjectives were no longer productive in Italic, they were absorbed as consonant stems and thus inflected the same as other consonant stems, such as *engents. So if you find issue with how the plural is declined, that would pertain to consonant stems more generally, and be more appropriately addressed to the larger Latin editorial community.

--{{victar|talk}} 21:13, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The consonant-stem ablative/dative plural is a more general issue and doesn't need to be covered in this discussion if you have nothing to say about it. I’ve already edited the template to remove the weird gender-conditioned *-əβos vs. *-βos thing, which I saw no support for in Brent Vine’s chapter on "The morphology of Italic" in the Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics.

I agree the end of iuvenis does not come from *-nós, *-onts, or *-wénts; those aren't even options I was considering. (Isn't the first thematic, and the second two *t-stem? I don't get how they can be called n-stem adjectives.) The part that I'm asking about is how we know Hoffmann's suffix *-Hō formed adjectives that ended in *-Hon in the neuter singular in PIE, and *-on in the neuter singular in Proto-Italic. Why reconstruct an o-grade form of the suffix in this form? It's different from what we see with n-stem neuter nouns, e.g. *nōmn̥. The entry for Sanskrit युवन् (yúvan) currently shows yúva or Vedic yúvat as the nom/acc neuter singular form. The ending -a can come from PIE -n̥, as in Sanskrit -ma from *-mn̥. So I don't understand how Sanskrit yúva or yúvat provides evidence supporting PIE *-Hon, as opposed to *-Hn̥. (I can see that Fortson 2010 describes o-grade in the accusative singular as a characteristic of amphikinetic nouns, but that doesn't resolve my confusion either, since I don't understand why or how securely we know *-Hō followed an amphikinetic pattern.) Furthermore, even if the ablaut pattern of *-Hō in PIE can be established with confidence, I still don't see how we can be sure it was preserved without analogical change into the Proto-Italic period: saying that n-stem adjectives were "absorbed as consonant stems and thus inflected the same as other consonant stems" doesn't clarify what the nominative/accusative forms were, because as I said, there seems to be evidence for various possible formation types (*hemō/*pekten/*sangwens).--Urszag (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Proto-Italic *-ō m and *-on n represent the regular reflexes of PIE *-ō m and *-on n, respectively. That said, I'm not opposed to adding an alternative paradigm table on *juwō, with the neuter in *-n̥, analogous to what what done on the page for *magjōs. --{{victar|talk}} 04:57, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Those endings correspond per sound changes, but that isn't enough to establish the Proto-Italic forms: the input also needs to be correct, and we need to know that regular reflexes were not disturbed by analogy. In fact, I think pretty much none of the forms in the table currently shown at *juwō are regular reflexes of the forms shown at *h₂yéwHō. For example, the PIE table shows separate feminine forms, so showing feminine forms identical to the masculine in Proto-Italic implicitly indicates an analogical change to the paradigm of the word. Likewise, the PIE table's vocalism isn't regularly represented in the alleged Proto-Italic forms: *h₂yéwHones would regularly yield something like Proto-Italic *jowones, not *juwenes; *h₂yéwHō would regularly yield something like Proto-Italic *jowō, not *juwenā; *h₂yuHnóHom would probably regularly yield Proto-Italic *jūnō̆m, not *juwenō̆m, and so on. In other words, the forms don't regularly correspond to either PIE or Latin, so I'd like for you to address the topic of analogy rather than avoiding it. To ensure the table is accurate, we need to be able to answer the following questions: "How do we know that the PIE word had a neuter singular nom/acc form that ended in -on" (I'm not just going to take the inflection table at *h₂yéwHō on blind faith) and "How do we know Proto-Italic kept the PIE nom/acc singular forms, rather than replacing or losing some of them"? Are you able to answer either of these questions?--Urszag (talk) 06:09, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nussbaum argues that Latin iuvenV- sequences were probably analogically reshaped after some form that preserved the inherited reflex of *h₂yuh₁n̥-.^[1] I don't see any reason to presume that the analogical remodeling was of Proto-Italic date, especially considering that there are no exact parallels within Italic and the connection with the Umbrian forms is doubted by De Vaan. Graearms (talk) 02:34, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Internet-connected device. JMGN (talk) 08:35, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree. Well-attested. I will add the sense there. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:27, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Where does the scrabble part come from? Contextually, it seems to suggest there's an old or dialectal "soil" meaning of scrabble. Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:22, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've always taken it to be a reference to the notion of how a dirt farmer has to scratch the dirt really hard (laboriously) while trying to eke out a living. In other words, tilling the soil is sometimes a tough row to hoe in some places for some people. And then, from there, the literal agricultural meaning is extended figuratively to any difficult livelihood. Looking at what MWU gives me for hardscrabble and scrabble, I'd say that that interpretation is sound. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:35, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

PS: One could also say that they really have to scramble hard for their living, and I just now looked at scramble#Etymology, and what's there is interesting in light of this thread. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:40, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've seen many times the phrase inna de. Is the whole phrase idiomatic? JMGN (talk) 15:44, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I see online confirmation that the title of Inna de Yard means in the yard in Jamaican Patois. I'm not aware of its use in English not influenced by Jamaican Patois and Jamaican English. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:02, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris It's a secondary meaning "in", just with an epenthetic vowel?

From me love how you fit inna your blouse

And you fat inna your jeans

(https://genius.com/Sean-paul-temperature-lyrics) JMGN (talk) 00:19, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I agree. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:22, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris How is it to be edited? New etymology? JMGN (talk) 17:09, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh, right, I had not come back to close this loop yet. Yes, I agree that a new (second, i.e., Etymology_2) section at inna is the correct approach. I'm going to implement it right now since I am thinking about it at the moment. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'd reckon that the video game Minesweeper is way more often capitalized than not, but they are both on minesweeper. A handy dandy Google search or a quick trip to our sister Wikipedia would tell you that the lowercase is usually meant for the ships. This game is certainly not on the same level as chess or poker, which are lowercase games- and on top of that, the capital is more common in the first place. Spongebuddymaniac (talk) 16:39, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why would we want a definition for the game with either orthography? DCDuring (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I guess you got me there. Note though that Wikipedia has a seperate page for Minesweeper (video game) and Microsoft Minesweeper Spongebuddymaniac (talk) 18:13, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We'll see how the lower-case word is used via WT:RFVE#minesweeper. I hadn't realized how many games may be called minesweeper. Usually someone manages to establish a trademark that prevents or delays generic use of such a name. As best I can tell, Microsoft failed to establish Minesweeper as its trademark and had to settle for Microsoft Minesweeper. DCDuring (talk) 18:24, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

welp Spongebuddymaniac (talk) 13:10, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Under quantitative#Pronunciation we list a (proscribed) pronunciation /ˈkwɒntətɪv/. Isn’t this, much more likely, a sloppy pronunciation of the alternative form quantitive? Compare the RP pronuncation /ˈpɑː.tə.tɪv/ that we list at partitive#Pronunciation (where I'd actually expect /ˈpɑː.tɪ.tɪv/).  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:15, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, this is a common haplology Hftf (talk) 14:00, 18 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe make a citations page then? If that entry was deleted for "not being dictionary material" I think a citations page would remedy this sentiment. ~2026-17107-55 (talk) 08:48, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Term is out of use since th 19th century. It seems to have a similar (identical???) Function to thrombin. Did I unearth a synonym here? ~2026-12941-7 (talk) 14:39, 19 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I was trying my hand at this one (while taking a break from banging my head against a wall in other work) and I saw that the relation "fibrinoplastin [obsolete] SYN paraglobulin [obsolete]", regarding terminology from the 1880s to 1910s, is true. (I will capture at least that much, in WT's entries, in a moment.) I figured that we are most likely seeing the effect that back then they were not able to differentiate among the various proteins in the blood very well, so the ontology will not map 1:1 with today's terms for various proteins as opposed to umbrellas such as "serum globulins" and "non-globular factors". I asked Claude the following question, and the answer that it gave looks like it's probably correct, to the extent that a schmuck like me can judge its biomolecular boffinry. I pasted it below for the lulz; anyone feel free to vibe on it or to ignore it and mock it, as you see fit.

Q: What would be the current name for the molecule or family of molecules that in the 1890s was called (by some scientists albeit not others) fibrinoplastin aka paraglobulin?

Claude said:

This is a great historical biochemistry question. The answer requires understanding what 19th-century scientists were actually observing and how that maps onto modern protein classification.

Fibrinoplastin / paraglobulin was understood at the time as the substance in blood that, together with fibrinogen, caused blood to clot — essentially the non-albumin, non-fibrinogen protein fraction of blood serum. It was described as an albuminous substance existing in the blood which, in combination with fibrinogen, forms fibrin.

The short answer is that "paraglobulin" corresponds most closely to what we now call beta globulins (or more broadly, the serum globulins involved in coagulation). However, the story is more nuanced:

The term was imprecise even then. Late 19th-century researchers lacked the tools to cleanly separate proteins. "Paraglobulin" was likely a catch-all for the non-albumin globulin fraction of plasma/serum, and different scientists used the name for somewhat different things — hence the disagreement you noted.

The coagulation-relevant component of what they called paraglobulin — the part thought to combine with fibrinogen to make fibrin — would now be understood as coagulation factors, particularly things like Factor V (labile factor) or the complex of serine proteases involved in the clotting cascade. The 1890s model of fibrinogen + paraglobulin → fibrin was a simplified (and partially wrong) picture of what is now known to be a multi-step enzymatic cascade.

The broader protein fraction they were describing corresponds to what we now call globulins — the non-albumin serum proteins, and more specifically the beta globulin fraction, since fibrinogen partially migrates into the beta-2 globulin region during electrophoresis and coagulation factors cluster there.

So in summary: if you're asking about the family of molecules, the modern equivalent is the beta globulins (particularly those involved in coagulation). If you're asking about the specific function ascribed to paraglobulin — acting as a cofactor in fibrin formation — that role is now distributed across several named coagulation factors, with Factor V and the prothrombinase complex being the closest conceptual heirs.

Thanks Claude! You may be only pseudosentient, but you're nonetheless interesting to pseudotalk to. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:37, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've found similar relationships and/or lack thereof in other cases of like terms. AI seems better at this than me.

Could Claude's sources be mined for specific on-point citations? DCDuring (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It is definitely possible. The Claude reply that I quoted above did indeed contain a few citations, although I did not put any time into investigating into each one (I deleted the little citation doodads when I pasted the quote above). It's interesting regarding your point that "AI seems better at this than me" — I feel the same way, and I feel that this is becoming true for all of us (humans), because it actually is getting pretty good at this kind of thing (and it always takes us humans time and mental effort to do each individual task of this type, and those are scarce resources that we have to mete out parsimoniously), and it feels like we are reaching the point with AI technology where it is indeed pretty darn good at, and decently accurate at, doing jobs like this one, which means that it will indeed have practical value to humans for quotidian tasks, even though it is still far from perfect and far from AGI and ASI. It's funny because I just bought Jimmy Wales's ebook recently (The Seven Rules of Trust) to give it a whirl, and I started into it last night, and he tells an anecdote, in the opening pages, about needing an answer to a question circa 2001 and being kinda screwed for a quick-but-useful online answer because Wikipedia didn't exist yet, and now of course a person is less screwed than that when they seek an answer, thanks to Wikipedia and various other things that now exist. And my experiences with AI in recent months kinda remind me of that, because it kinda seems like we are entering a new phase (era) in which now not only can your internet search lead you to a thing like a Wikipedia article (which is often useful, when a relevant one is available), but also, it can now give you an analytical answer (with inline citations included) that at least has a snowball's chance in hell of being accurate and containing some genuine synthesis of insights. Anyway, I am droning on, but no doubt you know what I'm on about. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:31, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've used Gemini for a few things but, only two types so far for enwikt entries: 1., clarification of terms for various type of groups of galaxies and, 2., gender of genus names and. I could often do this last by some of, i, checking of Latin or Greek term (or ending) gender, ii, gender of associated specific epithets, and iii, simple lookup at cites that provide gender info. I never looked at iv, what the taxon author said or v. what the Code rules said, because they were too time-consuming. I suppose it might have taken me 1-10 minutes, averaging maybe 2-3. With Gemini, I type my request once 30+ seconds and get an answer in perhaps 10 seconds, including what I had been doing and its determination of applicable Code rules and taxon author intent. While it does that, I tee up the next genus. Reading the result takes a minute. Each subsequent request just takes typing the name and reading the result. If I am skeptical, I type a clarifying question and get a quicker answer. It is teaching me not to be too skeptical about its answers in this area. So it takes less than half the time to get a better quality answer than I was generating.

Other questions I've asked have been about abandoned railroads, tinnitus treatment, Omani pipeline logistics and plans, Iranian drone propulsion and guidance, spiral grain patterns in trees, conditions favorable to landspouts, snow-blocked air intake and exhaust ducts, smart CO and methane detectors, extra-wide boots, 3 proper-name etymologies, and soups served cold. The only case that was not satisfactory was my request for a map of narrow-gauge railroads in the Catskill Mountains (NYS). It generated an atrocious map that didn't even have the appropriate positions of the settlements in the area and, after two more tries with partial corrections, it wouldn't try again.

I think it might be very useful for getting clues about technical terms, possibly even finding cites for some. It seems a bit like having one's own superfast polymath student intern. You do have to ask the right questions. DCDuring (talk) 23:41, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

no doubt that public humiliation and rape did happen to slaves; however it seems highly unlikely that slaves were publicly raped. Should probably mention that public rape is likely ahistorical ~2026-17303-06 (talk) 02:49, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The citations don't support much of the wording of the definition, including, but not limited to, the rape/sexual assault aspects. I would RfV it, to try to get such citations, whether truly credible or not. DCDuring (talk) 21:17, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Idiomatic usage is missing. Is this intentional? Aloysius Jr (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Good call, I've added a sense. Wording could possibly be tightened. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:21, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Many thanks! Aloysius Jr (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

That's figurative rather than idiomatic. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:18, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's both at once: a figurative use that is idiomatically worded (i.e., the idiomatic norm is to call such a thing a death rattle, not an expiration gurgle, even though the latter is only a lexical gap rather than any morphologic or syntactic impossibility). Idiomatic collocations can have figurative meanings, or not, as each case may be. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:02, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The first user said "idiomatic", but meant "figurative". So Vox Sciurorum was quite right to point that out. Of course, it's also idiomatic, but this is the case both in the literal and figurative senses. ~2026-18156-57 (talk) 02:47, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

"The science that deals with the form and structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.

"The study of the parts of any organized body, to discover their situation, structure, and economy."

These definitions seem to me to be duplicative and amenable to combination into a single definition. There is a separate definition for an extended sense of analysis of something inanimate or non-corporeal. Also economy can apply to the efficiency of living organisms and their parts. DCDuring (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

How should the following be parsed?

- What say you give me a piece of your cake? JMGN (talk) 17:03, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

we ought to create suggestive what say "how about?" Saumache (talk) 17:06, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes. It' idomatic https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/What+say%3F JMGN (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

only sense 2 ("used to gauge interest...") from the link you provided, otherwise go ahead Saumache (talk) 17:14, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've encountered "what say we" [do something]. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:14, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Well-attested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective-taking JMGN (talk) 19:42, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is sense 2 (video games) really a separate sense? I would say remove the second sense but add "usually hostile" to the first sense, and keep the video games category and antonyms. BirchTainer (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Where have you seen this used as an ordinary word? Isn't it really just a very specific Dr. Who character, that has also been copied into some very specific games? (For example, The Doctor is not in Wiktionary and shouldn't be, and neither should this as far as I can tell.) TooManyFingers (talk) 00:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'll add some quotes. BirchTainer (talk) 01:16, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I added some quotes BirchTainer (talk) 02:44, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. Looking at those quotes and the range of contexts the term is found in (including not just video games but also TTRPGs), I agree that the senses should be combined as you propose. - -sche (discuss) 16:43, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I didn't find any quotes from my short search directly talking about movie/TV/videos but I definitely have heard it in those contexts as well. BirchTainer (talk) 23:48, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2026/March.

The destroy/demolish sense is missing. How is the sense number decided? Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:14, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Aloysius Jr: That would be the "knock down or lay low" sense. As to sense numbers: that's just a result of the order, which isn't decided by any specific procedure. In the past, there have been debates about certain aspects of the order not applicable here. In this case, the order seems logical enough. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:19, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Okay, thanks. The example sentence "The prize fighter quickly flattened his challenger." confused me because, looking at Merriam-Webster, it's about the extended use of knock down: "to defeat decisively". Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:13, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

On second thought, it could also be lay low -> knock out. Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:24, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring moved this to the capitalised form, saying it was more common. I don't think it is. long primer seems the best form, as originally. ~2026-18093-25 (talk) 14:17, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

My haste and mistake. It is more common at Google Ngrams, but not in running text. The all-caps form occurs most often in tables of font sizes. In running text, long primer is more common. That should govern what we make our headword. DCDuring (talk) 14:37, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

• 13. (intransitive, archaic) To dwell; linger; tarry; wait.
• 16. (intransitive, obsolete) To wait; rest in patience or expectation.

There are citations on both. Should we merge them? ~2026-18093-25 (talk) 17:26, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

(you mean stay#Verb) Kedymera (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

#13. basically means "to dwell, remain, sojourn"; #16. means "to wait". They're not quite the same. Leasnam (talk) 05:33, 24 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

At diskret#German, there is a Usage Note that I find confusing in more than one way. Here’s the note:

German diskret means “discrete” in the sense glossed above. In English, the word also has the somewhat broader sense of “tactful”; for that dezent or taktvoll is used instead.

My first confusion: “discrete” is not glossed above, but (correctly I’m sure) simply gives a link to English “discrete”. “Discreet” is glossed above, with (respectful of privacy and secrecy), which was added at the same time by the same person who added the Usage Note.

Second confusion: In the “Further reading” section, there are links to this word in Duden and in the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, and both of those dictionaries list all of the same senses for which English uses “discreet” (more fully in fact than our own entry for English “discreet” does), including the “dezent” and “taktvoll” senses, plus of course the undisputed “separate items” sense.

The IP editor who wrote the note, seemingly not seen since 2018, could be somewhat right if those senses are in fact very unusual in German, or partly right if they’re locally unusual in some varieties of German - or maybe the whole thing was just their personal opinion. I don’t know. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:31, 23 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@TooManyFingers I've watered it down by giving both definitions, but indicating that the "secretive" sense is the most usual. I think if you call someone "diskret" it will indeed usually be interpreted this way, but broader use for "tactful" is not impossible. Surely, however, it can't generally replace "rücksichtsvoll" (as per DWDS and Duden). "Ein diskreter Nachbar" is a neighbour who doesn't spy on you, doesn't ask you about the row you had with your wife etc. "Ein rücksichtsvoller Nachbar" can be a lot of other things, e.g. one who doesn't mind you having a party in the garden, one who doesn't park his bicycle in the middle of the hallway etc. But I suppose "discreet" wouldn't be used for this in English either. ~2026-18156-57 (talk) 02:09, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Your last sentence is true; "discreet" never means those things in English. "Considerate" is an exact match for "rücksichtsvoll", as far as I can tell. TooManyFingers (talk) 17:19, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It can be either m (blikseming etc.) or mm (bliksemming). I don't understand the template documentation. Tried but could not make it work. ~2026-18765-55 (talk) 11:23, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fixed. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:56, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

They're probably fine as phonemic transcriptions, but they're presented as phonetic, and as such they're not even close. (It appears they are just auto-conversions of the orthography.) If someone has JWB installed, the square brackets should be changed to slashes. That won't provide a lot more help to the reader than the transliteration already does, but at least it will be accurate. People have copied some of them to WP to illustrate sounds, thinking they have a phonetic transcription, and so misrepresented the language. kwami (talk) 11:56, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is this a consonant-vowel-consonant placeholder? If so, should not be an entry. ~2026-18765-55 (talk) 13:39, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I opened up a discussion over at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2026/March#Problem_of_using_reduplication_patterns_in_entries regarding this. View my points over there. — 🍕 Yivan000 ^view_talk 13:48, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Comment: I too think entries like these (with placeholders for letters) are unusual, but for better or worse we have had entries of this kind for a long time: I raised the issue of Finnish -V, -Vn, and -hVn (created in 2009!) back in 2022 in a discussion that only one other person commented on (a Finnish editor, so I let the entries be). - -sche (discuss) 15:06, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

It says "obsolete spelling of shear", with an old Dryden citation. But I see no sense at shear#Verb that could explain that citation. Anyone know? ~2026-18647-55 (talk) 09:29, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

He's saying that the enemy ships were so thickly numerous on the water that the English navy could only with difficulty cut its way through them. The mental image is like someone with a sword or an ax who is chopping down foes or trees that are thickly surrounding. Thus, alt spelling sheer#Verb sense 2, corresponding to modern spelling shear#Verb sense 3, "To cut, originally with a sword or other bladed weapon, now usually with shears, or as if using shears." Quercus solaris (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

There are two senses (but only the first has citations): "Difficult to endure; arduous" and "Irritating, stressful or bothersome". Is there in fact any way to distinguish these two senses, or say that any cite belongs only to one? ~2026-18647-55 (talk) 11:41, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

There might be different definitions. For example, the synonym clouds both seem to relate to human emotional reaction to something, but at least one cite shows application to a locomotive, admittedly a trivial metaphorical extension. I wouldn't have thought such a citation would be the best attestation for either definition.

Certainly, "arduous" and "irritating" refer to different reactions, not just matters of degree. I think one could probably find cites for which one or the other term might apply. Other dictionaries including the OED have only a single definition for trying#Adjective. The either focus on "arduous" or link the two notions with or or and.

I like MWOnline's "severely straining the powers of endurance", possibly paraphrasable as "difficult to endure". DCDuring (talk) 16:26, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The second one might imply "trying my patience", which in my opinion has the conceptual effect of keeping the same underlying meaning of "try" while shifting its object. But even if I was right about that, it might not be a valid argument for anything. TooManyFingers (talk) 20:02, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Unisex? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_(name) JMGN (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Barely any male examples there, and it's given as a nickname, not as a short form of an actual female name, so... not really. ~2026-18647-55 (talk) 14:32, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

defined as a synonym of white women's tears. Is it really specific to women? ~2026-18647-55 (talk) 18:36, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Seems like an RfV question to me. DCDuring (talk) 20:09, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

But easily resolved. The expression in the meaning given doesn't seem attestable before 2012. The 2017 novel White Tears by w:Hari Kunzru seems to have made the expression popular, possibly beyond academia. It is abundantly attestable at Google Scholar in the sense given. DCDuring (talk) 20:50, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've been watching some classic BBC documentaries from the 70s lately, and I've noticed that the (very RP) presenters consistently pronounce sexual in a strange lisping way with what sounds like a /θ/. Listen to John Berger and the women he interviews at at 10:59, 15:43 and 19:10 here for example. Even when I don't clearly hear the /θ/, there's something very old-fashioned about it. David Attenborough also uses the pronunciation in Life on Earth, but not AFAICT in more recent series. No-one involved seems to have an obvious lisp. Is this a former pronunciation of x in the middle of words, or an awkwardness with sex leading speakers to deliberately distort the word, or something else? Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:44, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've parodied it (these RP pronunciations of sexual) as /'θɛk.θjuː.əl/. DCDuring (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interesting to ponder. To my yod-dropper ear, before I think much about it, it sounds like I'm merely hearing "what a non-yod-dropper would say", not much more than that, although it's kind of hard to zero in on it and dwell on it because the syllable is over so quickly; but I have no doubt at all that the hangover aftereffects of the Victorian-and-Edwardian-prudery era is not not involved in how people were saying the word sexual in 1970. Lol, this line of thought also reminds me a lot of when the character Hank Hill speaks of his own urethra and his own orthotic. He handles the words with tongs while holding his nose, as it were, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:08, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Only in shaddup? JMGN (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, only there, in GenAm at least; I'm not aware of it existing elsewise in other varieties either. I will share here that the /æ/ in shaddup feels "jokey" to this native speaker of AmE. I do believe that that feel is related to the fact that it does not occur outside of that word. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:41, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

i wonder if this is a pronunciation spelling and that the original vowel intended in shaddup was more like an IPA [a]. —Soap— 20:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

At first I thought that when pronounced more like [a] it's a more plausible distortion of the original word. Then I thought of the accent of Bugs Bunny and some related characters, which, while it's a parody, is not an outlandishly illogical one. TooManyFingers (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe not obsolete in wouldna? JMGN (talk) 16:51, 27 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fair point. Relatedly: I feel that couldna, couldnae, wouldna, wouldnae, shouldna, and shouldnae should all have twin L2 sections for both English and Scots. I have fun with using those once in a while, as humorous affectations, even though my variety (AmE) doesn't use them (within usual conditions). To me it seems that many words ought to have twin L2 sections for English and Scots but don't yet have the Scots L2. But I can't work on that problem because I don't speak Scots. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:31, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This pronunciation is incorrect because the aɪ̯ --> ʌɪ̯ rule only applies before unvoiced consonants, and for [ɾ], the original value (either /t/ or /d/) matters. For example, writer is [ˈɹʌɪ̯ɾɚ], but rider is [ˈɹaɪ̯ɾɚ]. Including [ʌɪ̯] for "spider" would only be valid if the word were "spiter". ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 01:21, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Spider pronounced with Canadian raising is a very well-known exception to this rule. Hftf (talk) 01:26, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm Canadian and I pronounce it like [ˈspaɪ̯ɾɚ] (while also pronouncing "writer" like [ˈɹʌɪ̯ɾɚ]), so it should at least be noted in the article that this isn't universal. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This also applies to cider, which I pronounce with a vowel different from citer despite it being noted as an exception. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The type of Canadian raising that is common in much Northern US AmE undeniably occurs in the word spider: a spider is not a "spydəɹ" here (just as the high in high school is not quite the same high as in highrise for us, even though a lot of dictionaries' phonemic transcriptions act like those are identical for our accent); rather, our spider is homophonous with spiter because we have both /ɾ/ and /ʌɪ̯/, although some of us might deny that they are homophonous because the emic understanding of /ɾ/ is not always well formed. Which is to say, some of us grow up thinking that we hear a difference. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:57, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I believe the case of "high school" is due to it being treated as a single word (even though there's a space in the orthography), which leads to the raising occurring since /s/ is voiceless. This isn't directly related to the spider/cider case though. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 06:15, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Quite right regarding the nature of the high school compound. I'm gathering that your accent and my accent share more or less the same raising in high school but our accents have a difference in how they handle spider (versus spiter) and cider (versus citer). I'm viewing that fact as natural and explainable for the same underlying reason why Canadian raising sense 2 talks about "with significant speaker-to-speaker variation" [and it could also say "locoregional variation" as well there]. One way to look at it is that there's no hard-and-fast or set-in-stone or 0-or-1 "law" saying that the consonant must be unvoiced for the raising to happen — rather, [ɾ] is a borderline case because accents like mine (which lean heavily toward [ɾ] [unvoiced] for both /d/ and /t/) are going to do the same thing to the vowel of spider that we do to the vowel of spiter (and thus also cider/citer) because we've lost the sound distinctions between those (which is to say, to be more precise, the loss is anywhere from "totally" to "mostly", depending on the utterance, because of prosodics etc; I feel the need to admit that here because my fellow accent-sharers would point out like 'nuh-uh, I can force the distinction to be noticeable if I enunciate strongly to emphasize it, so no it's not lost' etc). I freely admit that I'm just a phonological novice — but like many people I end up doing DIY plumbing because there's no licensed plumber around and the faucet needs diagnosing. Quercus solaris (talk)

I've changed it to "Eastern Canada," because I've never heard it from western province speakers, but that may need to be refined further. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:14, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The pronunciations (RP) /ˌlaɪbɹəʊˌkjuːbɪˈkjʊləɹɪst/ and (GA) /ˌlaɪbɹoʊˌkjubɪˈkjʊləɹɪst/ were previously tagged but not listed. I have added the alternative pronunciations (RP) /-kjuːˈbɪ-/ and (GA) /-kjuˈbɪkjə-/ with the stress on the fourth syllable (following cubicular) rather than the fifth, and it seems plausible that the first syllable is /ˌlɪbɹəʊ-/ since the first syllable of its Latin etymon liber has a short vowel. Not entirely sure how the pronunciation can be verified, though. — Sgconlaw (talk) 07:56, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

ample, numerous, sufficient have Determiner sections, but copious, abundant do not. What is the rule here? ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 09:54, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm pretty sure I can say "Numerous people have responded". I'm also pretty sure everyone agrees that "Copious people have responded" is not good, and I think it's because we continue to treat "copious" as an adjective regardless of the writer's apparent intention.

I'm aware that "try to make it act like a determiner, and see if it fails" is not a real rule; such a test only works for someone who can get by without the rule. TooManyFingers (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe they all could be determiners, but only when matched with the right type of noun? (countable vs not) TooManyFingers (talk) 20:29, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh, yeah, I can see a shadow of a distinction from what you've said. "Sufficient people have responded" (enough of them) is rather different from (say) "adequate people have responded" (which means the people themselves are adequate, i.e. an adjective). ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'd reword meaning 5 to include examples such as Your hat really caught my fancy. JMGN (talk) 10:20, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done but both cites are still really for take a fancy to, which is unfortunate. ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 10:22, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

You've just changed the usex. The meaning still reads the same: 5. Love or amorous attachment. JMGN (talk) 11:00, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 13:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't really understand what it's getting at. Sense 1 is "in a precise manner" (e.g. "he spoke very precisely, using technical language"), but sense 2 is a "focus adverb". I suppose it refers to constructions like "he asked for X and received precisely that", but I would expect more of a definition than just "emphasis": it's not really about emphasis. ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 12:53, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I too am leaning toward "not two senses" because I find the "focus" one slippery when I try to pin it down as denotatively different from the main sense. This makes me think about fuzzy logic and how when people say "precisely" for something-perhaps-like-emphasis, they're merely emphasizing that full-on nonfuzziness applies to the instance. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Both senses are defined as "A female dragon" but one is glossed archaic and the other as furry fandom. Since the meaning is the same (dragon has no furry-specific sense) this seems non-ideal. ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 13:10, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is the proposed bifurcation of senses resting on the distinction between "a dragon that is female" and "a human that is pretending to be a dragon that is female"? It seems to me that that's the distinction underlying it, but I don't know much about furry fandom. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:46, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, the citation is about a real dragon (in a fictional universe of course!). ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 14:53, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ah! Lol! In that case "non-ideal" seems right! Quercus solaris (talk) 15:04, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Change to “archaic or furry fandom” I would say BirchTainer (talk) 01:33, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it really archaic outside of niche fandom usage? I don't think so. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe the "fantasy" gloss is suitable (as it tends to occur in dungeons-and-dragons type books rather than, say, scholarly discussion of Chinese dragon art). ~2026-20486-19 (talk) 10:15, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it the same as homoplasy? Also, homoplast needs looking at - some old biology... Vealhurl (talk) 15:41, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

There's a semantic distinction between homology and convergence, that is, respectively, (1) things that are similar because of shared ancestry versus (2) things that are similar because of evolving toward the similarity (despite not sharing ancestry, other than distantly/primordially). The homoplasty definition at WT refers to the homology type of similarity, and the homoplasy definition at WT refers to the convergence type of similarity. But as you said, the terms themselves (i.e., homoplasty and homoplasy) are old and (anywhere from mostly to wholly) disused, so this is the first time I'm encountering them (that I can recall). If I ever decide to spend the time on them, I could confirm the defs asserted at WT (via attestations) and spruce up the semantic relation links. TBD. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Missing definition: softgoods. Citation:

1. • 1927, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados Mysteries

     We have wheat "kings" and cotton "kings" and coal "kings"; railroad "kings", stationary engine "kings", and Mr Ford; "kings" in the realms of hardware, software, sectional bookcases, crime, and canned tomatoes.

~2026-19353-89 (talk) 17:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Added, with 2 additional citations. DCDuring (talk) 18:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Apparently, the OED doesn't have this sense! DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Awesome work yall. I love instances like this one because they are great examples of why Wiktionary is valuable even despite lots of other resources coexisting. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:09, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

1. • 1927, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados Mysteries

     Mrs Bycourt has two boys of her own, a few years older than Cyril and perfect young ruffians. Fortunately, they are generally away at boarding-school.

~2026-19353-89 (talk) 17:45, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Requesting verification for pronunciation as half hazard. This doesn't strike me as a likely mispronunciation ... if you're reading ph as /f/ you probably won't also pronounce the /h/, and I wouldn't think you'd leave the vowel unreduced either. It may be the source of half-assed (espevially if originally "half-assèd" with three syllables), but that joke only works when it's all there together, not just one piece of it. —Soap— 20:22, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This resembles "for all intensive purposes" and other such misinterpretations (sometimes called "eggcorns"). TooManyFingers (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Agree. I had the same thought: In my view the word's pronunciation as if it were "halfhazard" is in the range of catachrestic/eggcornian/wordplay (depending on instance) as opposed to being alternative/variant per se. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree and have (re)moved that pronunciation. The error also exists in speech, google books:"halfhazard", Citations:halfhazard. I was unsure whether or not to create an entry halfhazard, because it is very rare, 1 / 25,000th as common as the normal form, but I decided to create the entry because the difference in pronunciation and spelling and parsing/interpretation of the morphemes leads me to think that this is something more entry-worthy than a mere misspelling. (But if anyone feels otherwise, feel free to RFD it!) - -sche (discuss) 22:41, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think it should be kept and marked as "nonstandard". I've heard it from several different speakers, both including those reading the word and using it in speech. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:17, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have a sense, "A large or extravagant meal", but our only cites of this are of "blowout meal", where it seems to me the word meal (and not blowout) is what causes the phrase to mean a meal. Can bare blowout (without a following word like meal) mean "meal"? It seems like one can use blowout attributively to convey that a lot of different nouns are "large or extravagant" or lopsided, e.g. a google books:"blowout binge", though in most other cases I can think of (e.g. a blowout victory or blowout loss) bare "blowout" can be used alone and so we have specific senses. - -sche (discuss) 22:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, just search for the plural: [5]. ~2026-19353-89 (talk) 22:31, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done Added 2 cites of "blowouts" meaning meals. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 12:49, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hi!

To preface, I'm neither a Wiktionary editor nor a native Bulgarian speaker.

However, I think that I can find at least one source that uses the word "че" in Bulgarian in a way not mentioned here.

The folk song "Седнало е Джоре, дос" has a line:

Кому че го дадеш, дос? Кому че го дадеш?

Komu če go dadeš, dos? Komu če go dadeš?

To whom will you give it, dos^[a]? To whom will you give it?

In this context, it is used as the particle "will", instead of the more typical "ще". I'm not totally sure if this is a dialectical difference or not, so if any Bulgarian speaker could chime in it would be much appreciated.

I'm not even sure if this is enough to warrant adding a new meaning to the entry... QuickQuokka (talk) 22:07, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

According to Encarta® 2009, with the meaning "impair the ability of somebody to move", this transitive meaning is offensive. Is it (still) really so? JMGN (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I assume that the offensiveness is/was from the noun being considered by some an offensive way of referring to someone who suffered a crippling injury. I'd like to see an alternative 2- to 4-syllable term to replace cripple#Verb in the sense given. (Such alternatives would be useful for many or all offensive terms.) DCDuring (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree. The noun when used with a disabled person as the referent is now viewed as offensive. (As with other instances of that theme, trolls who base their own identity on being transgressive will eagerly use it, for that same reason, i.e., vice signalling.) The verb, however, is not offensive in its figurative sense, and when it is used with a person as direct object, a news report today edited to a style such as AP style would usually say something like "disabled him" or "seriously injured him, leaving him disabled". Quercus solaris (talk) 23:52, 29 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Circumlocution is a waste of carbohydrates. DCDuring (talk) 14:41, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it a problem that talkingest is described as a superlative form of talking, which is not an adjective? ~2026-11487-24 (talk)

We could redo it like losingest. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 11:44, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

खुर्दबीन and सूक्ष्मदर्शी are given as the translations of microscope into Bihari. However, Bihari is actually a group of languages, not a single language. I cannot deal with this on my own because I have little to no knowledge on Indo-Aryan languages, the only sections in खुर्दबीन and सूक्ष्मदर्शी respectively are for Hindi, and none of the languages in the Bihari group have their own translation in the page microscope. Can someone check what language(s) in the Bihari group of languages use(s) these words as its/their word(s) for "microscope"? Intolerable situation (talk) 07:29, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Plus, if the translations given for Bihari are used for one of the languages in the Bihari group of languages, should their transliterations be added? Intolerable situation (talk) 07:32, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are there really 2 distinct senses in horology? ~2026-12941-7 (talk) 07:55, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

In a usex such as He's got a car, hasn't he?, is the tag hasn't another appearance of the headword, and so it should be highlighted in bold too? JMGN (talk) 11:01, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, it's not an occurrence of the headword "have got". There is no "got". ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 11:44, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I was considerin today's omnipresent ellipsis "∅", but maybe it's not yet there in lexicography I guess.. JMGN (talk) 11:49, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I know just what you mean regarding "∅". It's really the same underlying creature but there's an ellipsis applied to it that is idiomatically mandatory, so ~2026-19770-79 is right that it's best not bolded for usex purposes. We know that it is the same creature because we can say "he hasn't got a car" (i.e., regardless of whether each speaker chooses to express it that way, we can do so in English), but even though that's true, I agree that it's best not to add more bold in the usex mentioned here. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:21, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I believe "colors" should have a small c here according to our category naming. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 16:40, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@~2026-19770-79: I moved it to "Category:en:Idioms involving colors", because the idioms are not actually referring to colors but just have names of colors in them. Please help to move entries to the new category. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:11, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: All done chief! ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 18:28, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

This category is intended for colours (e.g. "red") or types of colour (e.g. "complementary colour"). But it's full of idioms about colours (e.g. "see red", "yellow-bellied") which should only be in Category:en:Idioms about Colors Category:en:Idioms involving colors. The same is true of all of the subcategories, e.g. Category:en:Purples has once in a purple moon in it, and so on. There are so many of these: can someone perhaps with a bot or script remove the bad ones? ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 16:46, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Ghost translates You seem to have added a whole lot of these in error. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I saw intimate hygiene requested at WT:REE (meaning genital hygiene, perhaps specifically feminine hygiene) and it struck me that we have intimate area, intimate apparel, intimate parts which all mean "relating to (perhaps specifically female) genitalia". So should we just add a sense at intimate? ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 21:12, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that seems worth including. I expect examples can be found referring to male genitals as well, even if this kind of euphemistic terminology might be more commonly applied to female genitals. I added a sense and broadened one of the existing senses.--Urszag (talk) 00:18, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hilariously the template says it's a poetic name for a country, but doesn't mention which one. It's Scotland. Maybe some template nerd can fix this. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Who wants to improve this sad and pathetic entry? User:DCDuring and Private Pyle, get to it. ~2026-19770-79 (talk) 05:58, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

In “nailer” an example refers to “dimensional lumber”, but no sense of “dimensional” seems to fit. PJTraill (talk) 12:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Good spot. That should point to dimensional lumber, a set phrase - I'll fix the link. Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:46, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I can also find references to the google books:"dimensional sizes" of lumber, google books:"dimensional wood", google books:"dimensional boards", etc, so we may be missing a sense at dimensional (~"pertaining to the standardized sizes of dimensional lumber"?) even if dimensional lumber is an idiomatic set phrase. - -sche (discuss) 16:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have added a sense; improve if needed. - -sche (discuss) 20:39, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our definition of dimensional lumber says it's US-only and is "specified in inches", but Wikipedia suggests it is "often specified in millimetres or inches" and can be found outside the US. - -sche (discuss) 16:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I fixed that aspect. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:00, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

lumber is a pretty North America-centric term, so I doubt it's used outside the US/Canada (most hits I find for "dimensional lumber" + "Australia" or "UK" seem to be North American - a few for "dimensional timber" might be Australian) - speaking personally, I've certainly never heard it in the UK. Neither the main British DIY store B&Q nor the main Australian/New Zealand chain Bunnings seem to sell any wood products labelled as "dimensional". Both just call pre-cut wood "timber" - we already have this as sense 2 at timber. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:10, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I removed the "US" geolectal label because it's more than just US, but I will put back a geolectal label but make it "chiefly North America" this time rather than "US". Will do. I see ISO standards using the term sawn timber for the category. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it a plural noun for human history? People have warred with one another throughout the ages. JMGN (talk) 13:03, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I'm going to enter the sense at ages#Noun. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Another use of the phrase "up and away" is in aircraft operations, where the phrase is used to describe one state of retractable landing gear, the opposite state being "down and locked". Unlike the current entry where the emphasis is on motion, this usage focuses on the end state, and would not be generally be said "with a sense of joy or excitement."

I hesisitate to add this definition without consensus from the community as I am not a regular editor of Wiktionary (I focus my efforts on Wikipedia) and am not familiar with the norms and standards involved. Mermaldad (talk) 14:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I entered the sense, because I see enough attestations to support it. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:50, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

For future reference, the main rules here are:

• Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion: A term should be included in our dictionary if it’s likely that someone might come across it and want to know what it means. So we do not include just any term someone just made up, and also not combinations like “spectacular sunset” whose meaning is already obvious from its parts.
• Wiktionary:Entry layout: This is a list of norms that govern how an entry should be formatted.

The first one is important; getting rid of terms that should never have been included is an annoyantly awkward process. As to the second one, editors make formatting mistakes all the time, including seasoned editors, but others will gladly correct them. For new entries I often find it easier to start by finding and copying a similar entry and then editing it into shape.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:14, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interjection synonymous with make way? JMGN (talk) 21:11, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'd say too WT:SoP for entry. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Seeing this question, its meaning may not be that obvious. I’d categorize this as slang. Urban Dictionary claims it originated on US Namy submarines.^[6]  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:23, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've heard it in movies and TV shows set on US Navy vessels, especially submarines. IMHO, it is an idiomatic metaphorical extension of the SoP definition, obvious enough in the naval context. I wouldn't be surprised if it were used in a crowd to attempt to get people to allow someone a path though the crowd, eg, a person with restricted mobility, a person suffering an emergency, first responders, or bigwigs. DCDuring (talk) 17:17, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

First draft completed. DCDuring (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

As an unregistered user, i see "View source" instead of "Edit" on the thot page. Please add Thot to the "See also" header on thot. Thanks. Wishing everyone safe, happy, productive editing. --~2026-16332-43 (talk) 02:49, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done —Mahāgaja · talk 07:19, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

"tur-tlesk" or "tur-tl-esk". Inpacod2 (talk) 13:29, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Three syllables: /ˈtɝtl̩ɛsk/, especially given the alternative spelling turtle-esque. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:34, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that's what I thought originally. But, there is animesque that is pronounced "ani-mesk" instead of "a-ni-may-esk". Inpacod2 (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Of course, there may be variation among native speakers, as there is in settler, which is 2 syllables for some people and 3 syllables for others. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:49, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

• I kind of doubt that pronunciation of animeseque, to be honest. Looking at Youtube videos using "animesque" (natural uses, not garbage churned-out "How to pronounce" videos), only one of the 6 videos (one is a false hit for animalesque) pronounces it as /ˌænɪˈmɛsk/. Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:56, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

  (RP) /ˌtɜːtl̩ˈɛsk/, (GA) /ˌtɜɹtl̩ˈɛsk/. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:47, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have a separate entry for keep from (as in “to keep someone from doing something“), but treat the synonym prevent from as one of the meanings of transitive prevent, even though the objects of these meanings (an outcome and an agent) are in very different categories. Wouldn’t it be neater to also allot prevent from its own entry?  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:01, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Curiously, a few OneLook dictionaries join us in having an entry for keep from, but not prevent from. I have long been mystified by the supposed criteria for declaring something a phrasal verb rather than simply showing the kinds of complements a given verb definition can have in usage examples or collocation listings. DCDuring (talk) 23:15, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

According to Harold Holt the words holt and salt rhyme. Not according to my American ear. The pages holt and salt need Australian pronunciations. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:05, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Military use, but I cannot parse it correctly. Is idiomatic enough? JMGN (talk) 21:54, 1 April 2026 (UTC):Reply

Googling it, it would seem idiomatic due its terseness. (It is a "brevity code".) It means "(of an aircraft or missile system) Authorized to engage a target." Hot is adverbial, but we don't have a suitable substitutable adverb definition. It is used in US, NATO, and other US joint training and operations with other militaries. The terminology is used by UK, Canada, and Australia independently as well. DCDuring (talk) 23:35, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ground-only and maritime brevity codes are different. DCDuring (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring Which adverbial meaning is used here? JMGN (talk) 23:42, 1 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

"Hot is adverbial, but we don't have a suitable substitutable adverb definition." It is clearly related to our def. 3 at hot#Adverb. DCDuring (talk) 00:03, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is millions here a numeral too? JMGN (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

A noun, given it is used attributively (noun adjunct), you wouldn't likewise say "is in the ten place" but use tens, a noun. Saumache (talk) 10:52, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

But million, its use having changed over time, goes between numeral/noun boundaries, hence the "numeral" having a plural on our page, maybe we should split things up to be more descriptive about modern use of the word. Saumache (talk) 11:02, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Saumache Cf. the nominal meaning at hundred. JMGN (talk) 11:14, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Well, I guess a numeral can technically be a noun, but it makes the concrete meaning of this POS even more arcane to me. We definitely lack a page for nominal millions though, tens has one. Saumache (talk) 11:34, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sorry to break it to you, but 7,654 has 7 in the thousands place. SVG-image-maker (talk) 16:27, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Tom refuses to wear hats or caps (i.e. ‘both not’)

Is this use of not already covered in its entry? JMGN (talk) 15:59, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

What use of not are you referring to? I don't see one. DCDuring (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring in "both not", as an elliptical explanation that Tom refuses to wear either (hats or caps). JMGN (talk) 16:56, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are you proposing it as an entry? It might be SoP AND it just isn't a use of those words that I have ever heard. Ie, is it attestable?. DCDuring (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

If the entire sentence "Tom refuses to wear hats or caps (i.e., 'both not')" is intended as a usage example, it's a poor one. It seems very unnatural for a native English speaker to say "both not" like that. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw It's concise explanatio from a grammar book JMGN (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@JMGN: it may be intended as a brief explanation, but it's still not a natural way for anyone to speak or write in ordinary usage so it should be avoided as a usage example, and definitely not created as an entry. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:49, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There seems to be some overlap between the nominal meaning of other and the second meaning of the plural only entry others (Those remaining after one or more people or items have left).

Thus, it's not clear which is used in say In this group, two people are Blacks, and two others are not. JMGN (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

At Talk:decry one @DrGoldin, perhaps unaware of the Tea Room, says that decry is not a doublet of descry, although the entry says it us; I thought it probably useful to mention it here. PJTraill (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I am not aware of the Tea Room. DrGoldin (talk) 21:56, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The entry is locked for editing except by administrators - IMO an excessive solution that should be reconsidered. Supposedly the proposals for modification should be placed on the talk page, but from what I see they have been completely ignored for over a decade(!). If there is no consistent mechanism for evaluating and approving proposed corrections by non-admins, entries should perhaps not be locked in the first place and thus "freeze" false or incomplete information that nobody will be able to correct anymore.

Since the talk page is evidently being ignored, I write here and hope an admin might notice: I express support for the existing proposals for removing or replacing the main image. It is visually ugly, distasteful and distracting, and of course it is "own work". A drawing or diagram should be sufficient, as already proposed at Talk:penis#Image replacement.

— Phazd (talk|contribs) 21:17, 2 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I made the image bigger, adding an elephant penis too Vealhurl (talk) 14:43, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Excellent, apparently the article is locked so that only admins' vandalism is allowed, and not ordinary users' vandalism. — Phazd (talk|contribs) 18:30, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We do like a bit of quality contol. Nicodene (talk) 21:16, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I tweaked it so that a user who lands at the page will have one more layer of click or tap before they see any dickpics. It is not unreasonable to spare users from landing directly on dickpics upon link landing. But I still award one thousand points to Wonderfool for making me laugh out loud for realz upon reading his straight-faced delivery (above). Well done sir. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:35, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

PS: (1) The blind men are going to be extra busy with that one; (2) your Friday needed this classic reminder. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:53, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I updated the caption to be more informative. Vealhurl (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Quercus solaris Thank you! — Phazd (talk|contribs) 02:05, 8 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

For the record, the page is not "locked for editing except by administrators", any autoconfirmed editor can edit it. (Only admins can move the page to a new title, but that's because no-one should need to move the page.) - -sche (discuss) 21:01, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

squat#Etymology_1 says: "The sense nothing may be the source or a derivation of diddly-squat." But that sense under squat#Noun is given as a clipping (in which case diddly-squat must be the earlier form). Is the latter wrong? ~2026-20486-19 (talk) 10:10, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I made it less misleading by restating that the sense “nothing” is synchronically analyzable as a clipping of diddly-squat, although diachronically the direction of derivation is uncertain. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:56, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

CP stands for colored people, which is used in NAACP. How can this be reflected in its "{{ }}" section?

They always just delete, but never correct... https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=NAACP&oldid=prev&diff=90040341 JMGN (talk) 10:58, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@JMGN: if CP is not independently used an abbreviation but only means "colored people" in NAACP, then it does not merit being a separate entry or sense. To give another example, SA meaning "space administration" only makes sense in the context of NASA. One can't just separate out part of a term and claim it's used independently without evidence. — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:22, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw Just check CP: "14. (dated) Initialism of colored people." JMGN (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We don't know that the coiner of NAACP had this in mind: the occasional use of CP alone could be coincidence. ~2026-20486-19 (talk) 14:31, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

That wuld be its diachronic etymology instead... Cf. CJEU which clearly includes the EU. JMGN (talk) 14:34, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@JMGN: you know, you would help people not waste a lot of time responding if you provided full information when you first post your queries. You tend to post a brief one-line statement or question providing minimal context and no citations, and then only when other editors have responded in good faith do you provide this information. Why do you do this? It's getting annoying. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

referee says: "(UK) A person who writes a letter of reference or provides a reference by phone call for someone. US English: reference." But reference says: "(UK, Ireland) A person who provides this information; a referee." ~2026-20486-19 (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Poking around online, other sources agree with the first of our entries, that the person is a reference in the US. I changed the label from "UK" to "US". If such a person is a reference even in the UK, then the word is just pan-dialectal and can drop the label altogether. - -sche (discuss) 15:32, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

My understanding of UK usage is that there's some loose metonymy going on - strictly, your referee provides a reference, but in practice those can get conflated a bit. See for instance this careers advice page from the University of Manchester, which clearly distinguishes between "referee" and "reference" in the heading, but has some sloppy usage like "When will references be contacted?" and "If you are working or your work experience is relevant then you would normally want a recent or relevant employer to be one of your references". I note that the government sidesteps this problem entirely by not using the word "referee" but simply talking about "your employer". Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:36, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Here's a decent overview of the word at Urban Dictionary. It also has many results at Reddit. Can it be defined as "Expresses frustration over a perceived nonstop discussion of the Epstein files"? Or perhaps "Expresses the frequent discussion of the Epstein files used as a perceived distraction from other issues, especially those relating to Donald Trump"? Wreaderick (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It seems difficult to attest. I personally wouldn't claim it to be "clearly in widespread use," since this is the first time I'm hearing it (could just be me living under a rock, though). Most of the usage I can find is in Internet comments and protest signs, e.g. in the photograph on this article [7] by The Guardian.

It also seems difficult to define. That Urban Dictionary "definition" doesn't line up with how people use the word — they're getting in on the joke rather than explaining it }:P. From your linked Reddit search and my Googling, the cause and effect seem to be swapped from your description; used as an exclamation of frustration over the *lack* of Epstein coverage, whether that be caused by perceived distractions (e.g. Iran), or because of the contradiction from Trump's repeated promises to release the Epstein files before his appointment. Msyds (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've added cites here all using it as a phrase "for the Epsteinth time": Citations:Epsteinth. ~2026-73884-3 (talk) 17:35, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

They might be the same thing. I don't have enough knowledge on cysts to be sure. Vealhurl (talk) 15:46, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

i'll look into it. my guess is they're synonyms and that we mostly just call them cysts now ... so the older term hypnocyst would have been abbreviated to cyst, but Wikipedia needs to use a disambiguating title since there are other kinds of cysts. there's also hypnoblast which may be yet another synonym, or perhaps a subtype of hypnocyst. —Soap— 17:04, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We define this as if it meant something different (and rarer) than once in a blue moon, but AFAICT all of the citations currently present could be read as using it as a mere variant form and synonym of once in a blue moon. Is there enough evidence to support a difference in meaning, or are these variant forms? - -sche (discuss) 20:37, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm leaning the same way you probably are (i.e., variant forms). Any differentiation between them (i.e., normal degree of rareness versus extreme degree of rareness) is idiolectal, thus questionable as denotative differentiation of dictionary definitions. Speaking of speaking of purple just to seem extra different,^ this reminds me of when Kevin Smith recounted being told by TAFKAP, "if the bra fits" (anapodoton), by which TAFKAP meant, "if the shoe fits", except with arbitrary extra differentness to keep up the TAFKAP brand of being arbitrarily extra different (like choosing to stop having a typeable and pronounceable name, for example). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

• We have into the wide blue yonder defined as "A faraway place which is unknown and mysterious" (as if it were a noun, but the POS is listed as Adverb), with into the wild blue yonder listed as an alt form.
• We have wild blue yonder defined as "the sky".

It seems to me that into the wide blue yonder is probably SOP, even if we need to expand the definition at wild blue yonder first, because it certainly also occurs without into, e.g. one can also journey off google books:"to the wild blue yonder", or come google books:"from the wild blue yonder", or dream google books:"of the wild blue yonder", google books:"and the wild blue yonder", or be google books:"in the wild blue yonder", etc. (And with wide: google books:"of the wide blue yonder", google books:"from the wide blue yonder", etc.)
Is it better to have "A faraway place which is unknown and mysterious" and "The sky" as separate definitions of wild blue yonder, or how should it be defined? - -sche (discuss) 20:59, 3 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Am I the only one who uses /-ʃən/ for sense 1 and /-ʒən/ for sense 2? ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 02:47, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've never heard /-ʃən/ for equation, but then again I've never heard anyone say sense 1 in speech, which I'd blame on the fact that equating#Noun exists as a noun sense and is the noun that most minds would reach for first when sense 1 is meant. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:56, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Defined as a noun, catted as adj Vealhurl (talk) 16:45, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Fixed. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:37, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

In this entry, Template:ja-pron shows two different pronunciations, [déꜜ hà] and [de̞ β̞a̠]. Is the [h] in the first pronunciation (the one meant to show the accent pattern) an error? Urszag (talk) 23:37, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Looks like an error, also present at それでは and 又は (though oddly enough not at 若しくは, even though I can't see a difference in the template usage). Pages like 今日は and 今晩は get around it by using a わ in the template. Horse Battery (talk) 01:50, 5 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Currently merger of two different meanings, one of which is not necessarily related to literature but rather synonymous with intelligentsia. The other, for people involved with literature and the arts, not necessarily intellectuals for it. JMGN (talk) 22:50, 5 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't think you could get enough agreement that the two can be teased apart so completely as that description portrays. Definitely not in mainstream anglophone culture. Perhaps in some more or less esoteric philosophical theory, but not outside of that. I say this because, when I try to play devil's advocate for it, it doesn't hold up well emically from a viewpoint of mainstream anglophone culture. For example, take someone whose hobbies are fiction writing and community theater: they don't fit the second proposed def because their activities aren't not intellectual, even if only amateur. Then take someone who is supposedly a member of an intelligentsia but not in a literature-related way: they don't fit the first def because approximately zero English speakers would call them "literati". Quercus solaris (talk) 04:24, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Lemmings are not in agreement with each other. Some have one definition, but that could be either the intersection or the union of "the intelligentsia" and "literature lovers"; others have separate definitions for those. DCDuring (talk) 16:20, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The current entry says that 'need to' just means 'have to' but there's a topic on the discussion page which says that 'need to' can't be used in the fourth meaning of 'have to' (https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/have#have__49). Indeed, it can't be used instead of 'have to' in these sentence, I would say. Do you agree or not really? ~2026-21244-03 (talk) 18:01, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

(Notifying Daniel Carrero, Jberkel, Cpt.Guapo, Munmula, Koavf, Sarilho1, Benwing2, SinaSabet28, Juwan, MedK1, Polomo, Psi-Lord): Hello, workgroup! Once again, a discussion about the participle in Portuguese.

Earlier today, I was noting in WT:WG:pt's chat that it is curious that, in Italian, the past participles of some intransitive verbs such as dipendere (“to depend”) are normally allowed to be used attributive just because they happen to be part of the class of Italian verbs taking essere as auxiliary, while Portuguese depender's past participle cannot be used that way since it is treated as any other intransitive verb. (See WT:RFVI#dependido^[permalink])

One of the examples I mentioned was i film usciti questo mese (“the films that came out this month”).

The always-helpful @Davi6596 pointed out that filmes saídos is seemingly actually used that way in Portuguese, even though not something he would say. google:"filmes saídos"

This usage can even be found in official Amazon Prime Video Brazil articles: filmes saídos do cinema ou vencedores dos maiores prêmios^[1].

And it can also be found with nouns other than filme: como se fossem coisas saídas de um mundo onde objetos e formas são possuídas de vida^[2].

If this is not a general use of the past participle, how does one explain it? An adaptation of French sorti or Italian uscito? Does saído need an adjective definition "that came out"/"that was released"? Emanuele6 (talk) 21:51, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Saído, although formed from the past participle, is actually a fully fledged adjective. It is defined as such by dictionaries, and it has the diminutive saidinho (“clever, cunning”). Compare caído, e.g., olhos caídos (“droopy eyes”). — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 23:16, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh, yes; dictionaries do have adjective definitions for it. I guess those should be added to Wiktionary as well to replace the incorrect Portuguese saída, saídas, saídos participle ones.

I have just removed the inflected past participle forms for cair. Emanuele6 (talk) 23:39, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I’m still not sure whether we should classify those as nouns or as (nominalized) feminine past participles. I’m thinking the latter, because they are only used in very specific verbal constructions (dar uma...), in fact not dissimilarly from masculine past participles in that sense. In that case, it’d only be the masculine plural that doesn’t exist. We should start a discussion specifically about this and document consensus somewhere. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 00:25, 7 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Polomo Also desaparecido; it was defined as an adjective with just "disappeared" as definition, but I think using English disappeared in that sense would sound off and Wiktionary does not have an adjective sense for it defined except in the euphemistic sense. Maybe vanished would sound a bit better despite being intransitive just like disappear in that sense; for that Wiktionary has a dedicated adjective definition with this meaning.

I've thought about this verb, adding Italian liberatesi, quoting the song L'armata scomparsa di Re Cambise, noticing its title could not be cleanly translated to English. scomparire is an essere-auxiliary verb in Italian so this is a perfectly sound wording.

So, here is another case in which Portuguese needs a "that ...ed" adjective definition for a past participle that is essere-auxiliary in Italian. If there are many of these, maybe a category/label could make sense. Emanuele6 (talk) 11:13, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

These are all “Portuguese adjectives derived from past participles”, but I’m not sure if that would be a very useful category. It’d basically be the intersection of the “adjectives” and “past participles” categories. — Polomo ⟨⁠ ⁠oi!⁠ ⁠⟩ · 03:07, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Polomo That is not necessarily correct, and the intersection between adjectives and participles would definitely be insufficient even just considering that fingido is both an adjective (rightfully, I believe) and the passive participle of a verb. Also, I actually meant a category for the verbs, not the participles/adjectives.

Specifically, these are adjectives that have the same meaning as a relative clause with the verb from which they derive in a past but not passive sense, and often there is no better way to define them than that disappeared here.

I think the name for the characteristic we are looking for is "unaccusativity": Unaccusative verb § Auxiliary selection as a test for unaccusativity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Perhaps, one should try to understand how this usage came to be in Portuguese and whether this can be considered a general use of the past participles of this class of verbs, and we could start marking intransitive verbs for "unaccusativity" and keep the inflected past participle of verbs with "unaccusative" senses (using {{pt-conj|<pp_inv>}} only for intransitive verbs that are "not unaccusative", i.e. "unergative", I guess) if that is actually the reason. Are there (advanced?) Portuguese grammars mentioning this, maybe?

That, at least, is what I wanted to bring up for consideration; I don't know whether it actually makes sense or it is wrong in the context of Portuguese grammar to consider this general. It definitely would not be 1:1 with Italian since we have dependido-dipeso as a counterexample. Emanuele6 (talk) 06:22, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

In the conjugation table, under the perfect active 3rd person plural, the red superscript '1' denoting the syncopated form is placed next to 'crēvēre'. It should be next to 'crērunt' instead. Zypherthemineman (talk) 15:31, 7 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

i wonder if the code is only capable of rendering the superscript at the end. in which case it might be possible to reorder the words instead. either way, good catch. thanks for pointing this out. —Soap— 21:29, 7 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't know if I am in the right place to discuss this, but here I am.

This character has the kun reading "くさきがちをはってはえている" which doesn't sound right. It seems that this reading has been on the page since its creation, and the person who added it has over two thousand edits. It doesn't have a known meaning (in Japanese), and at some point the Chinese section of the page said it meant "the plants are growing side by side" which is what its Japanese kun reading translates to, however its Chinese meaning was removed almost a month after the page's creation in favor of a "this is a variant form of" template.

So my question is how legitimate is the くさきがちをはってはえている reading? It isn't like most kun readings. It consists of 14 morae, and while long kun readings like that are rare, it's actually longer than readings like hakarigoto, mikotonori, you get the point, but it also contains "を" (wo), a particle only used in sentences and never in kanji readings. Overall this alleged reading is also literally just a sentence describing what it means, which as a proper sentence it would be "草木がちをはって生えている".

But I think the one thing that this all comes down to is finding a source of this reading and adding it as a reference, because the page for this character has zero references to its reading. Ultimately I believe this is just another 閄 scenario, as they are both kanji characters that were assumed to have absurdly long readings that were in reality just their meanings.

Lucy LostWord (creator of "Wonderful Video Game") (talk) 21:31, 7 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Dai Kanwa Jiten says "草木が地を這つて生えてゐる。䕻(9—32575)に同じ。". --ItMarki (talk) 14:22, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Oh okay, I don't think that's referring to its pronunciation though.

Lucy LostWord (creator of "Wonderful Video Game") (talk) 21:10, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ya, at best, that's an explanation of what that word might mean in Chinese, not how the kanji is meant to be pronounced in Japanese.

I can't find this character referenced in any of my monolingual Japanese resources to hand. I suspect that this character is not used in Japanese, and until and unless we can find evidence of use in Japanese, with a defined pronunciation and meaning, I don't think we should have a Japanese entry for this character. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:25, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It just occurred to me that this post is here at the Tea room. It might be better to move this thread over to Wiktionary:Requests for verification/CJK. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:27, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have two senses of this word. The primary sense is "At the same time". That correlates with the usage of other, similar words. In synchronized swimming, all the swimmers perform in parallel. When characters 'synchronize watches' in a film, then they all set their watches to the same time, in parallel. That's very clear.

The second sense is specific to computing, and currently reads:

(computing, of communication) Single-threaded; blocking; occurring in the same thread as other computations, thereby preventing those computations from resuming until the communication is complete

This definition left me confused. If a computer program is "single-threaded", then it is impossible for it to carry out actions in parallel = at the same time. If a function must occur "in the same thread as being as other computations", then it must occur in series, never in parallel. So it seems that the usage of synchronous has become similar to that of inflammable, and the word is used in two senses that have 180° opposite meanings.

I think that second sense is used but the definition isn't capturing the whole picture. If we look at the description in Wikipedia's article and in a snippet from a programming textbook, it seems that synchronous has opposite meanings depending on the level we are looking at. If we 'zoom out' and look at a group of threads, then they are synchronous if they are operating at the same time. But often one of them is the 'parent' thread, and if we 'zoom in' to just that one thread, then it is described as synchronous when it can only interoperate with the child threads serially; if it can interoperate with multiple child threads at the same time, then it's described as asynchronous.

That fits with the second sense of FOLDOC's definition. And the Oxford Dictionary of Computing also says that "synchronous" is used to indicate "sequential events", but it's definition of "asynchronous" emphasizes that the key point is that an operation cannot begin until the previous operation has completed, which suggests that synchronous and asynchronous are both used to indicate serial operations in contrast to parallel ones, which again seems surprising.

However, I came to this article because I was struggling to understand the way that synchronous was used in a programming tutorial, so, before editing, I would like to see whether other users think my explanation is correct or not. M.R.Forrester (talk) 20:05, 8 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

• A synchronous write operation does not complete until the data is written. An asynchronous write operation returns to the caller when the request is submitted but is not guaranteed to succeed. For example, the request might have been sent to a file server but not written to disk on the file server. If the file server crashes the data could be lost. Depending on the programming interface, the program might make another call later to see if the operation failed. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:19, 8 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

  This seems like either the 'zoomed in' sense or a derived use of it. Are you saying that the main thread/program handling the write operation cannot proceed until the 'child' thread or 'sibling' device reports success? If so, then synchronous here means serial; the main thread cannot handle more than one write operation at the same time (which is rather counter-intuitive to me given the etymology[!], though I'm not doubting that's the usage). Conversely, you seem to be saying that a program making asynchronous writes can carry out more than one operation simultaneously, in parallel. Again, the (at least to me) intuitive meaning seems to be reversed when we 'zoom in'. M.R.Forrester (talk) 00:32, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There appears to be a broader issue with how Tamil letters are currently described across entries, particularly regarding the distinction between consonants and alphasyllabic forms.

In traditional Tamil grammatical analysis (as described in sources such as the Tolkāppiyam), letters are classified into three fundamental categories:

• uyir (vowels)
• mey (consonants, e.g., க் (k))
• uyirmei (combinations of consonant + vowel, e.g., க = க் + அ)

Under this system, consonants (mey) exist as pure forms marked with pulli (்), and uyirmei letters are explicitly formed by combining a consonant with a vowel. In other words:

க் (k) + அ (a) = க (ka)

However, several entries currently describe forms like க் as if they are derived from க by removing an inherent vowel. This reflects a generalized abugida-based analysis, but it reverses the relationship defined in Tamil grammar and may be misleading when describing the script on its own terms.

This issue is not limited to a single character but affects how Tamil letters are systematically represented.

Would it be possible to:

1. Revisit how Tamil letter categories are described across entries, and
2. Either align them more closely with the traditional grammatical model, or include a note acknowledging the distinction between Tamil grammatical analysis and generalized abugida descriptions?

For example, instead of describing க் as a modified form of க, it may be more accurate (from a Tamil grammatical perspective) to treat க் as the base consonant (mey), and க as the derived uyirmei form.

Addressing this would improve clarity and better reflect the internal structure of Tamil as described in its grammatical tradition. Godwithus (talk) 06:49, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Pixelpito@Illustrious Lock@Plantman@Mahagaja Godwithus (talk) 22:03, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Agree, labelling க (ka), ங (ṅa), etc. as "consonants" instead of க் (k), ங் (ṅ) seems to be a reductive abugida interpretation, and is not consistent with how these letters are classified in Tamil. From a traditional perspective, க (ka), as an uyirmei is the compounded form of க் (k) +‎ அ (a).[8] Pixelpito (talk) 15:59, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Kwamikagami Since you have worked on Tamil entries, I wanted to invite your input on this point.

The current descriptions in some entries appear to follow a generalized abugida-based analysis (treating forms like க் (k) as derived from க (ka)), whereas traditional Tamil grammatical classification defines க் as a mey (consonant) and க as an uyirmei (க் + அ).

Do you think it would be appropriate to reflect this distinction more explicitly, or at least acknowledge both perspectives in the entries? Godwithus (talk) 17:05, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think they're talking about two different things, rather than two different perspectives of the same thing: Phonology, which is the domain of grammar, and the script, which is the domain of orthography.

• Phonologically, /ka/ is a sequence of /k/ + /a/. In Tamil script, that is written as /க/ = /க்/ + /அ/, but on Wk-en we don't use Tamil script for phonetic transcription.
• Orthographically, ⟨க⟩ is derived from ⟨க்⟩ by the addition of a dot diacritic ⟨◌்⟩.

If we use delimiters to distinguish phonology/grammar from orthography/transcription, then this should be clear enough: /க/ = /க்/ + /அ/, but ⟨க்⟩ = ⟨க⟩ + ⟨◌்⟩. If however we rely only on wording, it could be ambiguous, and editors may "correct" it from one to the other.

We normally transcribe phonetics and phonology in IPA, though of course it would be appropriate to use Tamil script for /க/ = /க்/ + /அ/ in a Tamil-language grammar.

But when we show Tamil script, here in an English-language medium, we're normally talking about the script itself. In such cases we describe the mechanics of the orthographic system, such as the addition of diacritics. What those indicate phonetically in any particular language is secondary.

In other words, here on Wk-en I think it should be /ka/ = /k/ + /a/ for the sounds, and ⟨க்⟩ = ⟨க⟩ + ⟨◌்⟩ for the graphemes used to write those sounds. It might help to say "consonant sound", "vowel sound" and "syllable" (or "CV syllable") for the former and "consonant letter", "vowel letter" and "syllabic letter" for the latter.

Cf. the commonly posed question of whether the English letter Y is a consonant or a vowel, when it's just a letter.

A thought experiment: Imagine that a Tamil society that encourages the use of Tamil script has convinced a community in another country to use Tamil script instead of Latin for their language, the way that Hangul has been used in Indonesia. But because that community is more comfortable with alphabetic writing, they use Tamil script as a (Latin-style) alphabet. In that language, /ka/ = /k/ + /a/ is written /கஅ/ = /க/ + /அ/.

Now, because Tamil script is used differently for different languages, we want to add a translingual section to our க article. The only way to summarize its use across languages is graphemically: ⟨க்⟩ = ⟨க⟩ + ⟨◌்⟩ and ⟨கஅ⟩ = ⟨க⟩ + ⟨அ⟩.

So, speaking of க் as a "consonant" only makes sense in the context of Tamil, just as speaking of the a...e in make as a "vowel" only makes sense in the context of English. Orthographically, English a...e is not a "vowel" but rather two letters that together indicate a vowel, and similarly Tamil க் is not a "consonant" but rather a letter and diacritic that together indicate a consonant.

kwami (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think there may be a structural issue here regarding where different types of analysis belong.

Wiktionary generally distinguishes between Translingual sections (which describe symbols or scripts in a language-independent, graphemic way) and language-specific sections (which describe how those symbols function within a particular language).

The graphemic analysis you describe (e.g., ⟨க்⟩ = ⟨க⟩ + ⟨◌்⟩) seems appropriate in a Translingual context. However, in the Tamil section, it may be more appropriate to reflect how the script is analyzed within Tamil itself, where letters are categorized as uyir, mey, and uyirmei, and forms like க are understood as combinations (க் + அ). Godwithus (talk) 19:40, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

But, is that how the script is analyzed, or how the phonology is, with letters standing in for phonemes?

The two concepts are often conflated, if only to save on verbiage. People often say that Y is both a consonant and a vowel in English, when what they really mean is that it sometimes transcribes a consonant and sometimes a vowel. As a dictionary, we should be more precise. And, indeed, at y#English we don't claim it's either, but simply give its pronunciation as {/i/, /ɪ/, /aɪ/, /ə/, /j/}.

I think that if the traditional Tamil approach differs from an objective description -- assuming we can even tell the difference -- then that should be in a user note. Just as we need to maintain a use/mention distinction, I think that we should maintain a phoneme/grapheme distinction. Using delimiters to disambiguate may be one way to do that, and there's no reason we can't use them with Tamil letters. kwami (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

But why do we have an article on க் at all? It's sum-of-parts, and by that standard should be merged into க. Just as we don't have separate articles for letter + tone-mark combinations in Latin script (unless they're Unicode characters, which is a different issue), I don't think we should have separate articles for letter + vowel-mark combinations in Tamil script.

In {list:Tamil script letters/ta}, we present the letters of the alphabet as ... க், ங், ச், ஞ், ட், etc. But those aren't the letters, ... க, ங, ச, ஞ, ட, etc. are. Our presentation has been corrupted by Latin script, rather than showing Tamil script for what it is. kwami (talk) 20:45, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the clarification regarding the phonological vs orthographic distinction. I agree that maintaining a phoneme–grapheme distinction is important, especially in a cross-linguistic context.

However, I think the core issue here is not only one of distinguishing phonology from orthography, but of identifying what constitutes the primary graphemic unit within the Tamil writing system as it is actually structured and analyzed in the language.

In the traditional Tamil grammatical framework, letters are categorized as uyir, mey, and uyirmei, where uyirmei forms are explicitly analyzed as compositional combinations of a consonantal element (mey) and a vocalic element (uyir). In this analysis, forms such as ⟨க்⟩ correspond to the consonantal base (mey), while ⟨க⟩ represents a derived uyirmei form (i.e., ⟨க்⟩ + ⟨அ⟩). This is not merely a phonological abstraction, but a structural analysis that underlies how the script is described, taught, and operationalized within Tamil.

By contrast, describing ⟨க்⟩ as orthographically derived from ⟨க⟩ via addition of the pulli presupposes a graphemic hierarchy in which the uyirmei form is treated as primary and the consonantal form as secondary. This reflects a generalized abugida-based abstraction, but does not fully align with the internal grammatical model of Tamil.

So the issue here is not simply phonology vs orthography, but whether the orthographic description should reflect the indigenous graphemic ontology of the script, or adopt an external cross-linguistic framework for the sake of uniformity.

Regarding whether forms like ⟨க்⟩ should have separate entries: even if such forms are decomposable in terms of base character + diacritic at the encoding level, they function as distinct graphemic units within Tamil, representing pure consonants (mey) that cannot be substituted by uyirmei forms such as ⟨க⟩ without loss of linguistic distinction. By Wiktionary’s general practice of documenting units with distinct functional roles, this would support maintaining separate entries.

Finally, while Unicode and similar encoding standards may represent these forms compositionally (e.g., base character + virama), such encodings are abstractions designed for text processing and do not in themselves determine the linguistic or structural analysis of a script. The descriptive model should therefore be grounded in how the language itself analyzes and uses these forms, rather than in how they are encoded. Godwithus (talk) 06:50, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The language doesn't analyze the script at all, and the fundamental graphemic unit is ⟨க⟩. That's not an external abugida-based approach, but an internal one, because the script is an abugida.

This has nothing to do with Unicode. ⟨க்⟩ is ⟨க⟩ with a pulli and always has been.

If I analyzed the English alphabet as being syllabic, so that "so" was a fundamental unit and "s" was derived from "so", that wouldn't change the fact that it's actually "s" that's the grapheme. We could certainly add a user note about that conceptual approach, but for objectively describing what is, we'd still want to describe what is.

I suspect that we have a conflation here between Tamil phonology being explained in Tamil script, with how the script functions. As you noted above, uyir and mey are grammatical categories, i.e. vowels and consonants. ⟨க்⟩ is not a consonant, it's how you write the consonant /k/ in Tamil script. Now, you might say that ⟨க்⟩ is a consonant, just as in English we might say that ⟨b⟩ is, but of course it's not, really, it's just the letter that is usually used to write the consonant /b/.

kwami (talk) 07:01, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This claim is difficult to sustain. The Tolkāppiyam, the oldest extant Tamil grammar (dated conservatively to no later than the 2nd century CE), devotes its entire first book, Eḻuttatikāram, specifically to the analysis of letters: their nature, classification, combination rules, and phonological behaviour. The three-way classification of uyir, mey, and uyirmei is not a folk description but a formal grammatical taxonomy produced by Tamil grammarians analysing their own writing system on its own terms.

To say "the language doesn't analyse the script at all" erases over two millennia of indigenous grammatical scholarship. The Tolkāppiyam is precisely Tamil's own structural analysis of its letters. When it defines mey as a pure consonant pronounced for half a māttiraiː, and uyirmei as the form produced by joining mey with uyir, that is the script being analysed: by Tamil, in Tamil, for Tamil.

Dismissing that as non-analysis in order to apply a generic external framework is not a neutral descriptive move. It is a choice to privilege one metalinguistic tradition over another.

With that in mind, the claim that "the fundamental graphemic unit is ⟨க⟩" is precisely what is at issue, and it is not as self-evidently correct as presented.

1. Tamil-Brahmi itself did not treat the vowel-bearing form as primary.

According to the Tamil-Brahmi on Wikipedia.Wikipedia article on Wikipedia, "in many of the inscriptions the inherent vowel has been discarded: A consonant written without diacritics represents the consonant alone... This is unique to Tamil-Brahmi and Bhattiprolu among the early Indian scripts." This reflects the Dravidian phonotactic reality that words commonly end in consonants. The puḷḷi-marked form is not a derivation from the vowel-bearing form; historically, the relationship runs the other way.

2. The "abugida" label is a typological category, not a universal internal analysis.

The abugida framework (coined by Peter Daniels in 1990) is a modern metalinguistic typology applied externally to writing systems. It does not follow that every script so classified must treat the vowel-bearing form as the fundamental grapheme for all descriptive purposes. Even sources that do classify Tamil as an abugida preserve the Tamil grammatical tradition alongside it: Wikipedia's own Tamil script article calls Tamil "strictly abugida" and in the very same section defines mey eḻuttu as "body-letters" (pure consonants) distinct from uyirmei, the compounded forms. These are not contradictory; they are answers to different questions.

3. The Unicode encoding is a text-processing abstraction, not a linguistic analysis.

That Unicode encodes ⟨க்⟩ as ⟨க⟩ + ⟨◌்⟩ was an encoding decision made for technical interoperability, inherited from ISCII. Wikipedia's Tamil script article is explicit: "Both ISCII and Unicode encode Tamil as an abugida" meaning it was a choice made for encoding purposes. The Unicode mailing list (unicode.org, June 2005) records that scholars at the time argued Tamil should have been encoded with puḷḷi-marked forms as the consonant base, citing the Tamil Lexicon (University of Madras, 1982, p. lxviii), which transliterates Tamil consonants as k, ng, c... with no inherent vowel, unlike Hindi dictionaries which list ka, kha, ga... The encoding was a known compromise, not a neutral descriptive finding.

4. The "sum of parts" argument for merging ⟨க்⟩ into ⟨க⟩ gets the direction backwards.

Under Tamil's grammatical analysis, as described in the Tolkāppiyam and reflected in all Tamil language pedagogy, it is ⟨க⟩ that is sum-of-parts: ⟨க்⟩ + ⟨அ⟩ = ⟨க⟩. ⟨க⟩ is the derived uyirmei form; ⟨க்⟩ is the independent mey. Merging ⟨க்⟩ into ⟨க⟩ on the grounds that one is derived from the other would delete the entry for the linguistically primary unit and retain only the derived one, which reflects a Sanskrit/Devanagari-centric model, not Tamil grammar.

The proposal is not to ignore the abugida description but to ensure that Tamil-language sections reflect the internal Tamil grammatical model (uyir / mey / uyirmei) that is actually used to describe, teach, and analyse Tamil letters, while the cross-linguistic graphemic framing belongs in Translingual sections. Both framings can coexist; the question is which one governs Tamil-section entries. Godwithus (talk) 08:22, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

You're still confusing phonology with graphology.

Languages don't analyze anything. They have no agency. (I almost explained that, but thought it would sound patronizing.)

If Tamil was once alphabetic, then we could/should have two definitions for ⟨க⟩, /k/ and /ka/. But regardless, ⟨க்⟩ is transparently a derivation of ⟨க⟩. /க/ may be secondary to /க்/, but that's a different question.

Again, none of this has anything to do with Unicode. Nor for that matter with the term "abugida". Various terms were used before that, but it's all the same concept. kwami (talk) 08:49, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The observation that "languages have no agency" is a truism that no one here disputed. When this discussion refers to Tamil classifying letters as uyir, mey, and uyirmei, it plainly means Tamil grammarians, in the Tamil grammatical tradition, as documented in the Tolkāppiyam. This is standard shorthand in linguistics and does not require clarification.

More to the point: you have now acknowledged that "/க/ may be secondary to /க்/" while describing it as "a different question." It is not a different question. It is the question this discussion was opened to address, and the answer has just been conceded. The functional and grammatical primacy of ⟨க்⟩ within Tamil is not in dispute anymore.

On the claim that ⟨க்⟩ is "transparently a derivation" of ⟨க⟩: transparent to whom, and on what basis? Graphical derivation in the history of a script does not determine functional primacy in its current grammatical analysis. By that same logic, every diacritic-marked letter in every script would be "transparently a derivation" of its base form, which tells us nothing about how those forms are analysed and used within the language itself.

More concretely: Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions discarded the inherent vowel entirely, with bare consonants representing consonant sounds alone. The vowel-bearing syllabic form came after. If anything, the historical derivation runs in the opposite direction to what is being claimed here.

The original issue stands: Wiktionary entries for Tamil letters are currently being edited to reflect a generalised abugida model that even you acknowledge does not capture Tamil's internal grammatical structure. That is what needs to be resolved here. Godwithus (talk) 09:42, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

If it's a truism that no-one disputes, then why did you say I dismiss 2 millennia of scholarship? It's precisely because you disputed that truism that I spelled it out for you.

And now you do it again: You claim that I agree with your premise because you have, once again, confused phonology with graphology, saying that the issue is "conceded" because whatever I say about sounds must equally apply to letters, as if they were the same thing.

Anyway, you invited my opinion. If you're going to misrepresent my words, and then deny that you did so, there isn't much point in continuing the discussion. I'm out. kwami (talk) 09:57, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

To clarify for the record: this discussion was not opened because I "invited your opinion." It was opened because entries for Tamil letters were being edited to reflect a generalised abugida model that does not align with Tamil's own grammatical tradition, and you were among the editors making those changes. The invitation to participate was extended as a courtesy, to allow the editor responsible for those changes to engage with the discussion rather than have it proceed without you.

To restate an earlier point more precisely: the accusation of dismissing two millennia of scholarship was directed at the broader pattern of this discussion, not specifically at the agency point. That is a fair correction and I will restate it more precisely.

However, the phonology/graphology distinction does not dissolve the concession. You stated that /க/ may be secondary to /க்/. This discussion has always been about how Tamil letters are classified and represented in entries, which encompasses both their phonological values and their graphological status within the Tamil grammatical tradition. The Tolkāppiyam does not separate these cleanly either, Eḻuttatikāram treats letters as units that have both form and sound value. Pointing to the phonology/graphology distinction does not make that concession disappear.

I would also ask that the tone of this exchange remain collegial. Phrases like "I spelled it out for you" are not conducive to productive discussion and do not reflect the standard expected on talk pages. I have engaged with every point raised here in good faith and with sources, and I would appreciate the same in return.

Withdrawing from the discussion does not resolve the underlying issue. The entries in question remain incorrectly described, and the full thread, including the concession noted above, remains on the record. Other editors and administrators can review the full exchange and judge accordingly. If anyone with familiarity with Tamil grammar or Dravidian linguistics would like to weigh in, that input would be welcome. Godwithus (talk) 10:25, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There was a usage note at referee reading "In general, and as a usage guideline, a referee moves around with the game, while an umpire stays (approximately) in one place" which feels like a good rule of thumb but also very vague. I've tried to expand and make this more specific - maybe too specific, so I would appreciate a few extra eyes. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:50, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Probably the usage note should be templatized a la Template:U:en:less and fewer so it can be on both entries, and the note about reference-vs-referees should also be made into a templatized usage note so it can be on both entries... or I suppose the notes could be left on one entry only and the other entries could say "See usage notes at X"... - -sche (discuss) 16:46, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's so unreasonable to expect people to click a link and then decide whether to use the back button or an in-text link to something they would have to have remembered. Templatize to encourage further loss of capability among meat brains. DCDuring (talk) 22:31, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Being the Hindi word for tobacco, तम्बाकू is the main form being used in Hindi Wikipedia. तंबाकू should be an alternative form. Adamnewwikipedianaccount (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think Lipschitz is missing two senses. The missing adjectival sense of "related to Lipschitz continuity" is used in Lipschitz continuity, Lipschitz condition and Lipschitz constant. The missing adverbial sense of "related to Lipschitz continuity" is used in Lipschitz continuous. It seems like, ideally, we should define Lipschitz continuous, and then define all of the other words in terms of it. Does that seem reasonable? Currently, we have two different (but equivalent) definitions

Also, is the etymology for Lipschitz meaning Lipschitz continuous complete? I would have guessed that it would be a clipping of Lipschitz continuous. Of course, the adjective "Lipschitz continuous" is Named after Rudolf Lipschitz. McYeee (talk) 23:50, 9 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've made most of the changes I suggested. Do we like the definition at Lipschitz continuous or Lipschitz condition better? Other than being different parts of speech, they're equivalent definitions but they're written very differently. McYeee (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Can we verify the pronunciation as /ouo/ and not /oːo/? Following from the original form we should get something like /opo uwo/ → /opuwo/ → /ofuwo/ → /o(w)uwo/ → /oːwo/ → /oːo/, unless the uwo portion was re-emphasized after the MJP /VfV/ /VwV/ merger. (Compare 淡海(おうみ) (ōmi), which is /oːmi/ from /apa umi/ → /apumi/ and not something like /oumi/) Horse Battery (talk) 00:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I can't find anything just yet that unambiguously clarifies the pronunciation. This appears to be an archaic term, so modern references may not include this, like the NHK Hatsuon dictionary. Daijirin has it, but without showing any pitch-accent information, which is common for that dictionary for archaic terms.

Circumstantially, given Japanese readers' awareness of the uo pronunciation for 魚 (“fish”), when presented with the kanji 大魚 and the associated kana おうお, I suspect that most readers would parse this as o- + uo → /o.u.o/, and not as ou- + o → /oː.o/. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:35, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would have expected mizzensail to be pronounced /ˈmɪzənˌsəl/, but we only list /ˈmɪzənˌsaɪl/. For both topsail and mainsail, we also list /-səl/ pronunciations. Is /ˈmɪzənˌsəl/ attested? McYeee (talk) 03:06, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 03:28, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Collins defines the verb balk as follows:^[9]

If you balk at something, you definitely do not want to do it or to let it happen.

They give this usex:

Even biology undergraduates may balk at animal experiments.

I do not quite find this sense this back in any of the 11 senses given in our entry for the verb balk. The closest one seems this:

6. To refuse suddenly.

• 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XI, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 303:

  Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more

However, applying this definition to Collins's usex, we get

Even biology undergraduates may suddenly refuse at animal experiments.

Apart from this being not fully grammatical, I do not think the refusal of young kids to cut open live frogs is necessarily “sudden”.

I must also say that I do not quite get the sense of the Brontë quotation after substitution:

Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was suddenly refused; he would want me no more.

Was the passion refused?  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:12, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Good catch, we were missing a definition that clearly covered this basic sense. I have overhauled the verb section. Please improve further if needed. - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

To me, balk at suggests a sense of repulsion. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:06, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've also heard balk at used as merely "be hesitant or reluctant about"; but I see that Wiktionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged focus mainly on the refusing rather than reluctance, so I'd have to dig for citations to add it. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:56, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Refusal to do something implies there was a request or demand, while one can balk at something also when no one is requesting or demanding it. But merely “hesitant” or “reluctant” feels too weak. Somehow I have the idea that the sense applied to humans derives from that of a horse balking.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:22, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

True — agreed regarding "request or demand" — I should have said, "be hesitant or reluctant in response to a request or demand". I hunted for attestations that show that sense but am not finding any at GBS, which leads me to conclude that this sense is a semantic drift that is too drifty for entry into Wiktionary. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The page 金雕 shows 金雕 as the only Traditional Chinese form of the lemma. However, the page 鵰 shows 鵰 as the Traditional Chinese form of 雕 that is preferred in Wiktionary. Can someone check if 金雕 is written as 金鵰 in Traditional Chinese? Intolerable situation (talk) 08:20, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

As in We'll convince him yet.

Synonyms or BS? JMGN (talk) 12:27, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, it means "we will convince him at some time: we haven't done it yet, but we will, in future". It does not mean "regardless". ~2026-22133-15 (talk) 12:29, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Stop messing with English entries, you still don't know what synonyms are. Hftf (talk) 13:12, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This was recently WOTD, meaning "free from slavery". However, two of the citations use "unenslaved" in an adjectival way, meaning "not having been enslaved", e.g. "Unenslaved by the foe let us die". These should probably be moved to unenslaved#Adjective. ~2026-22133-15 (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, because they have specifications with prepositional phrases—the agents via by as regular in passive constructions—that only work with a verb. Fay Freak (talk) 15:32, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am pretty sure you are wrong on this. Can other users chime in please? — There is a clear difference between being "unenslaved by X" (X never enslaved me: I am un- + enslaved) and being "unenslaved by X" (X released me from slavery: I am unenslave + -ed). OED would consider "enslaved" to be an adjective though we usually don't bother with such. ~2026-22133-15 (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

That’s where you see the original verb power of such “adjectives” even when they have derivations like adjectives. In original adjectives it becomes unidiomatic, unnative and unwieldy fast; like to say “I am enthralled by her”, “I am fascinated by it”, “I am chagrined by it” goes easier off the tongue than “I am horny by it” or “I am happy by her”. That being said some solidified as adjectives, e.g. addicted or tired, and all these unidiomatic constructions are no arrant grammar violations since this method of designation of the agents beside passives is ultimately loaned from other senses or usages by had. I just assess the probabilities of what lexeme the speakers felt to use, which is phenomenologically prior to logical systematization, as language in its natural habitat, intuitive native speech. Fay Freak (talk) 16:09, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

As @~2026-22133-15 said, it's wrong to say that agent prepositional phrases starting with "by" are only licensed by verbs. They can come after deverbal adjectives, as shown by the "very" test (we can't say *"They very unappreciate me" but we can say "I feel very unappreciated by them"). Another example is adjectives derived from verbs with the suffix -able, as in " uncurable by doctors". They can also come after deverbal or verbal nouns, as in "the destruction of the city by the Persians".--Urszag (talk) 20:06, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think the verb involved is enslave, with the intermediary changes in verbiage conflated Chuck Entz (talk) 16:13, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am inclined to agree with OP. It seems unlikely to me that the 1777 quote is saying the refuse of the earth has freed Europeans from slavery; it seems more likely that it wishes for Europeans to be not put by the refuse of the earth into slavery in the first place. Similarly, it seems to me very unlikely that the 1926 quote is saying, let us die having been freed from our prior condition of slavery by our enemies; it seems more likely that it is saying, let us die before we are ever put by our enemies into the condition of slavery in the first place. But I could be wrong, and perhaps more context surrounding the quotes would clarify. - -sche (discuss) 18:12, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Can anyone explain the formatting on 채우다 definition #4? I believe it's trying to say "(when used with 자물쇠를)." Is this standard formatting? I think it'd be much better to simply say "(with 자물쇠)" or "(of 자물쇠)." Msyds (talk) 15:39, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Diff added level as a synonym of steady in the sense Firm in standing or position; not tottering or shaking; fixed; firm. Is this right? No sense at level is particularly obviously directly synonymous with that sense of steady. There are certainly things to which you could apply either adjective (e.g. you could hold a ladder steady, or hold it level), but that doesn't mean they are necessarily synonyms. - -sche (discuss) 18:19, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps the relation would be best described as parasynonymy, then? }:D Msyds (talk) 18:41, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is fix to attestable in any form other than fixing to? It feels wrong. The usage note says "chiefly used" in the progressive tense. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I found two cites (Citations:fix to) and suspect a dedicated search could find a third cite... but as you say, this is not just "chiefly" but AFAICT "almost exclusively" used as "fixing to"; I would not argue with making fixing to a lemma again (not just an inflected form of "fix to"), as it had been for a long time. - -sche (discuss) 19:58, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I support that too. The progressive "fixing to" is common, but nobody says "fix to". Quercus solaris (talk) 04:14, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Am I crazy or does the audio say anti-American instead of anti-Americanism Inpacod2 (talk) 06:22, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The audio is definitely "anti-American", not "anti-Americanism", so I removed it. What is crazy is that we don't actually have an entry for anti-American. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hyphens are the same as spaces as far as sums of parts are concerned. Neither phrase should be included. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Only when the components on each side of the hyphen are free morphemes, not when one of them is an affix. The presence of a hyphen in anti-Americanism and anti-intellectual doesn't make them any more SOP than hyphenless forms like anticlimactic or antianxiety. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We could have had the rule that Vox S. states, but didn't. Enwikt might have been better off if we had. DCDuring (talk) 17:19, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

No, I don't think so. For one thing, if we treat anti-Americanism as SOP, that implies it's anti- + Americanism. But it isn't; it's anti-American + -ism. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:31, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Maybe so. DCDuring (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Both *ferhuz and *bernuz are u-stem Proto-Germanic nouns, and the inflection tables for both are generated by Template:gem-decl-noun, but the latter shows the (from my understanding, expected) raising of *e to *i before *i in declined forms (like *birniwiz) while the former doesn't (the table has *ferhiwiz where I'd expect *firhiwiz; compare *firhwijaz). Is there a reason for this, or is it a bug? If the latter, what's causing it (presumably some part of Module:gem-pronunc's i_mutation function)? Are there any test cases for this feature? Urszag (talk) 18:14, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Does this need to go to Grease Pit ? Leasnam (talk) 20:25, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Leasnam Yes, assuming someone who is confident about Proto-Germanic can confirm that this discrepancy isn't intentional. I decided to start a conversation here because I wasn't sure if I was missing some knowledge that makes this make sense (e.g. a special inhibition of raising before "rh" or some explanation like that.)--Urszag (talk) 22:34, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Gotcha. I don't see anything that should make it different to *bernuz, except possibly a vestigial w which might follow the h in the oblique singular forms (i.e. dative singular *firhwiwi) and whether that could possibly prevent mutation (keeping it **ferhwiwi), yet as you point out in *firhwijaz (derived from *ferhwą), that doesn't seem to be the case. Looking at *fergunją, we don't see mutation either where one might expect it, I think, due to the syllable weight/syllable count. I note too that in both cases, both w and the back-vowel u appear to be blocking umlaut Leasnam (talk) 05:02, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I just noticed that the Gothic descendant has ƕ (hw) in all cases of the singular. Was the Gothic re-analysed and re-formed to add the w back (?) Leasnam (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fixed. --{{victar|talk}} 05:47, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. @Victar What was causing the issue ? Leasnam (talk) 05:53, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Old typo. --{{victar|talk}} 05:56, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Urszag I have added senses under a new pronoun header recently that where broadly overlooked by other dictionaries, but I came to realize it might not reflect the morphosyntactic reality. Both senses stem from the inherent correlativity of unde, it either acts as a relative pronoun with nominal antecedent (instead of a pronominal one), where it is perfectly translated by means of a pronominal group (ex quo, de quo, etc.), the second sense derives from the first and acts noun-like as a fused relative (a place from where (whence) = a source from which = what is necessary to) followed by a verb, it will even head an ellipsed relative verbal clause ("scis bene esse, si sit unde [possis esse]"). My gut feelings tell me to categorize something I translate with pronouns/noun phrases as such but I know them to be treacherous. Saumache (talk) 20:50, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Saumache: In my opinion, such senses seem worth listing as definitions, but I don't feel convinced yet that a separate Pronoun header is appropriate. It is more of a "pro-prepositional phrase": while a prepositional phrase standardly contains a noun as its object, it isn't a noun itself, and I likewise don't think a pro-prepositional phrase is a pronoun itself. (Compare "Who took the trash out?" or "Who took it out?" and the response "I did": here "did" can be viewed as a pro-verb phrase, standing for "took the trash out", containing the noun "trash", but you wouldn't call "did" a pronoun because it stands for a phrase that contains a noun.) Wiktionary generally uses "Adverb" to refer to the part of speech of single words that carry out the function of prepositional phrases (e.g. see the vote Wiktionary:Votes/2021-08/Scope of English prepositions, although limited to English; or compare the POS of hodiē, quā, quācumque, quandō).--Urszag (talk) 22:44, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have updated the page, the 'adverb' pos is a real catch-all. Interesting enough is how these senses of Latin unde are paralleled (all but the "what is necessary" one, sense 3.2 a bit strange but used so in the past) by its French descendant dont, which is unmistakably a pronoun for its freer use, acting "pro-prepositionally" (from whom, of whom, etc.):

• de isto multo ornatius dicam quam ille ipse, unde cognorim
• je parlerai bien plus éloquemment de ceci que la personne dont je l'ai appris

= I will be found far more eloquent in delivering it than the one from whom I learned it Saumache (talk) 18:35, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Arabic فَخَّذَ (faḵḵaḏa) is defined as "to thigh", which I do not consider an English verb. Can somebody define in standard English? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:15, 11 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Cleaned up by Fenakhay. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think I may have heard the English verb "to thigh". So perhaps it's citable. At any rate the intended sense was "to rub one's penis between another person's thighs". It is a sexual practice that is often mentioned in Islamic law, because some schools think that this is allowed with wives under the age of nine... Yeah, well. The usual word is III-stem فاخذ, but II-stem is also found. I've added it as an alternative form; we already have the III-stem. ~2026-22405-75 (talk) 02:15, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Which order does transitivity work - does the man "thigh" his partner, or does the partner "thigh" the man? Either way, "to engage in intercrural sex as the [penetrative/receptive] partner" might be a clearer definition. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:38, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

In Arabic one says "he thighed her", so I suppose it's the same in English. I've done a little search of "thighing" and it's definitely citable, but apparently calqued on the Arabic (in Islamic context, as mentioned above). ~2026-22405-75 (talk) 23:22, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

TL;DR: do you agree that "ladder" isn't pronounced exactly the same as "latter" in American English? Perhaps "a" is a bit longer in "ladder"?

The full question:

On the entry ladder you can currently see:

(General American) IPA(key): /ˈlæd.ɚ/, [ˈlæɾ.ɚ] (Can we verify(+) this pronunciation?) (particularly: Shouldn't it be [ˈlæˑɾ.ɚ]?)

(...)

Homophone: latter (with flapping)

I'd say that "ladder" and "latter" aren't pronounced the same (so they aren't actually homophones) even in accents with flapping. They just sound a bit different for me. The [ˑ] symbol means that [æ] is a little longer. I'm inclided to agree with it; the [æ] part is what sounds a bit different for me.

I may as well be wrong here. I'm not a native speaker and I don't have perfect hearing. Perhaps more people could say whether "ladder" and "latter" sound the same in American English and if not, what the difference is ~2026-22399-86 (talk) 00:18, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Native AmE speaker, not Southern, strong flapping in my accent. (I live where a winter can sometimes be a real winner, lol, but at least a pen is not a pin.) If one is being etic and honest with oneself (a big if for many people), there's no consistent difference between ladder and latter in the accent of my region. "Should I bring you the ladder or the stepstool?" "Bring me the /læɾɚ/," lol, wink. I do allow that there are some utterances where ladder is a little bit drawn out. "I was on a ladder, so I couldn't answer the phone." But not consistently though. As is always true in my accent (regarding flapping and regarding vowel reduction), a merger can be defeated as soon as people start enunciating self-consciously to differentiate the words that are normally homophonous. But a merger is often total when they're not doing that and not thinking about it, though. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:07, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Native AmE speaker, General American, and I notice a slight difference between ladder (/ˈlæ.dɚ/) and latter (/ˈlæ.ɾɚ/). My dds tend to be heavier d sounds, whereas the tts are flapped. If I say "the former and ladder rain", it doesn't sound like I'm saying "the former and latter rain", though some of this distinction is due to stress (noun vs adjective). If I say "He's a wadder", then it's noticeable that I'm not saying "He's a water". Same with "He's a bedder" vs "He's a better (one who bets)". I suppose I flap the tts but I emphasise the dds in order to create a difference in those less common terms/uses in order to be more clearly understood. If I pronounce city like "siddy", as in "I want to go to the siddy" it sounds really strange, but you would still know what I meant. Leasnam (talk) 06:03, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Since Canadian raising doesn’t apply, those words are usually homophones in my idiolect. In carful speech, I might not flap, but then the most important distinction would be voicing (or aspersion or fortis/lenis or whatever you want to can call it) not vowel length. McYeee (talk) 17:26, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

They're homophones for me too if I choose to flap. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:34, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Perfect homophones for me too. AFAICT they're perfect homonyms in traditional American Newscaster English as well, but that seems to be becoming more diverse in the accents they allow. kwami (talk) 18:47, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

They are homophones in my dialect. (Northern California) BirchTainer (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I added "illegalest" to illegal as a reasonably common form. Sometimes jocular, but sometimes apparently not, so I didn't tag it as anything.

This started when I saw "illegaler" (most probably jocular) in a headline. But there are so many instances of the German word illegaler that I can't tell from a search whether the English word meets our notability requirements. Should it be included? kwami (talk) 05:58, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

yell at got removed a few months ago following an RFD that I was the only one against. After seeing yell with fresh eyes now I find it disagreeable on its face even if you weren't around for the original RFD.

The page for yell currently says that it can mean "to scold, to rebuke" both with and without "at", but the uxes and quotes don't support that:

• The uncle sending that email wasn't scolding his family members for changing the name of Fort Bragg themselves. (Seriously?)
• The metasystems quote is a Rorschach test (making it a bad decider for this question) because even in the original book there's no context, but considering that the 'Nobody' means they're referring to an experience they believe everyone undergoes frequently, I encourage you to search 'ASAP' in your inbox and see if anyone using it is scolding you.
• (I want to address "they sent another email yelling at us" and "they sent another email yelling about" in a reply to this message)

Not to mention that there's no way to claim that the 'informal' label applies to the use of "yelling" in the metasystems quote or the Fort Bragg one.

I'm making this post just to point out that the page is bad as is. I'll also revisit the RFD briefly in the reply I make to this message, but I didn't want to do that up here. (However, I do want to add briefly that "yelling at the screen" during a sports game or movie is a good example of an actual SOP of yell+at.) Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 09:00, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I also on a personal level am just disappointed in the resolution to the RFD. It was summarily allowed to proceed without evidence just because of two admins' instincts, one of whom wasn't even thinking about this verb specifically but rather an unrelated bugbear (see bottom of Talk:yell at). (I'm avoiding using names here because I think my misgivings stand on their own.)

For one thing, the reason the "email yelling" quotes currently at yell feel like they don't fit is that that was originally my own contribution to the debate, against the RFD, because the RFD was initially just saying (paraphrased) "yell at says 'usually with a raised voice' but to yell is necessarily to raise one's voice". The idea behind looking for yelling in writing is to poke at that last part and see if it holds, not to cinch an argument and certainly not to cinch the separate argument of whether yell at is SOP or not.

That's not to mention that that opening statement just doesn't make sense or doesn't understand what it's trying to say, meaning the RFD should have been dead in the water from the outset. It doesn't matter if a phrase includes a shade of meaning of one of its parts, I'm pretty sure that's unavoidable. If we accept that then we should also accept an RFD that says "stop short should be deleted just because it implies stopping". What actually matters is whether the new phrase adds a shade of meaning beyond just raising one's voice.

So then you can see the discussion switch tacks to deciding that yell at does not add a shade of meaning to yell because yell already can mean scold/rebuke. To me this is untrue but in order to try and have a more productive debate than "unsupported instinct vs. unsupported instinct" I stepped back and looked for objective evidence from a few angles, most importantly that there are other English speakers who see the difference as well. I won't revive that here but it's visible at Talk:yell at. Meanwhile none of the people in favor of the deletion similarly tried stepping back or even engaging with anything but their own instinct.

Finally it dies without reaching consensus after mostly only being interacted with by two people. To me there are a few directions you can go in from there, none of which involve unilaterally resolving it in your own favor and accompanying that with a rushed edit (rushed = missing the "informal" label, misusing quotes like the Fort Bragg one that don't match the sense they've been slapped onto) that moreover just intentionally shoves off the entire discussion. In other words the usage note and the "(or)" that are currently there at yell are personal opinions, and in a vacuum that'd be a harmless instance of sloppy editing, but in actual context they're purposeful rather than sloppy (ie they're one single editor resolving an RFD discussion by just ignoring the bits they don't agree with). What's the point of the RFD process? Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 09:58, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why not try to improve the entry for yell. You could look how other dictionaries handle it, find cites with yell followed by various adverbs and prepositions, shorten the definitions to cover more usages, etc. For example, MWOnline has for their transitive sense "to utter or declare with or as if with a yell". It might take a bit of creativity to similarly reword the intransitive senses to cover usages like yell silently or other 'virtual'/'metaphorical' instances of yelling. A not-so-creative example of a possible replacement would be "To utter a yell or otherwise communicate as if by a yell." DCDuring (talk) 17:06, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

For me it feels like a conflict of interest since my stated goal is just to recognize "yell at" as its own thing. I don't really have strong opinions on the pre-merger state of yell even though I can agree that the figurative meanings the RFD discussion unlocked point to an interesting gap... Still, when you think about it (talk · stalk) 22:49, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Syonym of equinox: either of the two points on the celestial sphere (the First Point of Aries and the First Point of Libra) where the Sun crosses the celestial equator.

Compare equinoctial circle for the celestial equator. JMGN (talk) 10:39, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I believe chickadee is mostly or entirely a North American word. It should be marked as such and most or all of the translations moved to tit. Is there any substantial use outside of North America? Do any of the translations mean the American species of Parus sensu lato distinct from other Paridae? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is one of a set of words that were substituted by American Puritan lexicographers and educators to avoid overlap with sexual terms: rooster/cock and donkey/ass are the other ones I can think of off the top of my head. My understanding is that those who use this term think of it as referring to North American birds, and the translations belonging to North American families such as Athabascan and Algic might be kept where they are- but translations like Lithuanian should definitely be moved. At any rate, the main table belongs at [[tit].

The whole issue of names for circumboreal species can get quite messy, with the American elk, closely related to the European red deer, receiving the name of the closest European relative of the moose. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:32, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is there regional bias for how frequently these terms are used in favour of one another? I have only encountered "cosec" in high school and was quite surprised when I came to realize that "csc" was much more common over the Internet. If this is indeed a regional difference, then I think it would be nice to have that data on the page for cosec, especially since there are other similar differences such as tg vs tan which do have the regions where "tg" is used listed on its page. M1n3c4rt-wiki (talk) 19:11, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Professional mathematicians writing for a mathematical audience will more commonly use the three-letter symbol ${\displaystyle \csc }$ in mathematical formulas, such as in the double-angle formula

${\displaystyle \csc 2x={\frac {1}{2}}\csc x\sec x.}$

The form ${\displaystyle {\text{cosec}}}$ is mostly found in textbooks on elementary mathematics. I don’t know what is more common in professional writing in the natural sciences and engineering.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:36, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

An IP editor changed the plural of Italian soldato from soldatessa to soldata with the comment "feminine is 'soldata', 'soldatessa' is humorous". Treccani says of soldatessa

soldatéssa s. f. [femm. di soldato], scherz. o spreg. – Donna dai modi bruschi e autoritarî, soldateschi.

So two senses, and derogatory or humorous. I could update based on this but better for an Italian to add the right labels. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:47, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

the entry and pronunciation list the General American pronunciation as being /kənˈkæ.tə.neɪt/, but I pronounce it as [kənˈkæ.n̩ˌeɪ(ʔ)] (with a syllabic /n/ and elided /t/s), with the former being hard to articulate (at least naturally)—can anyone else attest to it?

—aadenboy (talk|contribs) 19:59, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

In ordinary speech (Northeast American) I have a weak schwa and replace the final 't' with a glottal stop. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

seems like I sometimes pronounce the first vowel as [ɑ] instead of [ə] as well —aadenboy (talk|contribs) 02:47, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Aadenboy: The transcription you give as your pronunciation is just a narrower transcription of the pronunciation given at the entry. These aren't two different pronunciations, just two different ways of transcribing the same pronunciation. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:45, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

gotcha —aadenboy (talk|contribs) 01:32, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's probably closer to something like [kənˈkæ.ɾɪ.neɪt] for me, but I've heard older people say [kənˈkæ.ʔn̩.eɪt]. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 02:36, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Serendipity has always been my favorite word because it captures that magical feeling of discovering something wonderful when you weren't even looking for it. The way it rolls off the tongue is as pleasant as its meaning - happy accidents and fortunate surprises that make life delightful. I love how this single word encapsulates those unexpected moments of joy that brighten our days! ~2026-22598-10 (talk) 06:05, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Way ahead of ya! It was our Word of the Day in 2007Vealhurl (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Those are exactly the kind of words I hate in English :D Of course, there are worse ones such as "pusillanimous" or "infinitesimal". (This feeling has nothing to do with Germanic purism; it's just these long made-up words that don't connect with anything in normal vocabulary.) ~2026-22405-75 (talk) 02:31, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

miserable bugger! Jin and Tonik (talk) 07:42, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Philistine troglodyte!  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:58, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It seems like both definitions reference the same thing. Inpacod2 (talk) 07:53, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm confident enough that you're right that I edited to suit. If anyone can prove it wrong, feel free. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I’m not sure what label is right. The word каса́ (kasá) used to be a common way to translate “ray” in the beginning of XX century. Since then, праме́нь (pramjénʹ) has been firmly established in this meaning (it probably helped that прамень has no other meanings). I think most people nowadays would have no idea that каса́ used to mean “ray”.

However, when encountering a pre-WW2 text with this meaning, most speakers will have no problem understanding it: modern meaning “braids” and old meaning “rays” have basically no overlap, so when you hear “sun’s braids” or “light braids”, you understand that it’s about rays. Only the style gets lost. E.g. a classic poem Kurhan by Janka Kupała, studied at school, has words “Сонца днём распускае там косы свае” ‘Sun sends out its rays during the day there’. I used to read that as ‘Sun undoes its braids during the day there’ and still more or less got the idea.

So, which label is appropriate?

• obsolete, because modern speakers are unlikely to know this meaning,
• dated, because modern speakers have no problem understanding this meaning.

(I’m not considering “archaic”, because «каса» doesn’t evoke the idea “this text is so old!” when you hear it. It evokes the idea “the author uses metaphors so beautifully!”. So, it’s either obsolete or dated, and I'm not sure which one.) Хтосьці (talk) 10:59, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think usage here dominates and I'd go with obsolete.Vininn126 (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Obsolete, because they don't understand it correctly.

I also gloss Qurʔān words that way which no one save some German philologists like me parses in accordance with the original intent, such as قُسْطَاس (qusṭās) and إِبِل (ʔibil), though the expected understanding come not even close, in contrast with your “almost understood” example. Still the mismatch is in the denotation, that matters, not just connotation which is always somewhat different in different social environments of the original utterance producer and today’s recipient. There is some IP that goes around English Wiktionary (I think it is the same as the one in the thigh thread above and @Kolmiel, who like Equinox only forsook his identity to be pointy about his point of view not being respected by randomers on the internet) and contended that no word in the Scripture can be truly obsolete, by reason that the text belongs to the language community’s generally studied literary canon—yet common misinterpretation is how one gets around that, it is just conventional overconfidence in native speakers being always right.

You know those videos where they show rarely read Chinese characters to randomers on the street and these Chinamen pronounce them erroneously? Another argument may be seen from that. Fay Freak (talk) 15:51, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The page Altaians says that the word is a noun and is a plural form of Altaian. However, the page Altaian does not have a noun sense. How should this be handled? Intolerable situation (talk) 12:40, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Adding a noun sense to Altaian seems to be the way to go; see Altai people at WP. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:35, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I am only more confused by that Wikipedia entry because it says "The Altai people (Altay: Алтай-кижи, romanized: Altay-kiji, IPA: [ɐɫtʰɐ́ɪ̯ kʰɪʑí]) of the Altaians (Altay: Алтайлар, romanized: Altaylar, IPA: [ɐɫtʰɐɪ̯ɫɐ́r]) [...] ". So, what does "of" mean hear before "the Altaians"? Intolerable situation (talk) 23:49, 13 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Intolerable situation: I suspect it's a typo for "or", especially since it said "The Altai people, also the Altaians" until last November, when it was edited by an anon. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:08, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

"The final syllable was subsequently altered by analogy with the Anglo‐Norman and Old French suffix -or (as seen in loanwords like honour and labour)."

Does this apply to just the spelling or both the spelling and pronunciation? It's unclear since the ending is simply -/ɚ/ which is fairly generic. ~2026-95094-1 (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Probably just the spelling. Middle English herber already suggests the modern pronunciation. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:12, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

is that an actual word that people actually use? Nail123Real (talk) 16:19, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

If you doubt it, send it to rfv. Vininn126 (talk) 16:31, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

what's rfv Nail123Real (talk) 17:49, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

One of the most important and integral parts of the project. See WT:RFVE. Vininn126 (talk) 18:03, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Before sending anything to WT:RFVE – which is so to speak Wiktionary’s trashland — please try to do diligent and due research yourself whether the term can be attested – even in, perhaps, a different sense. ([10], [11], ?)  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:39, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, see WT:CFI for more information on attestation. Vininn126 (talk) 09:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

How did Irish Aoife come to be spelled so oddly compared to its simple pronunciation? The etymology says it used to be spelled Aife, which is closer. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

In what sense is Aife closer? The expected pronunciation of a modern Irish name spelled Aife would start with an /a/ instead of an /iː/; cf. Aibhilín and Aifreann.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:19, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Closer assuming letters represent sounds. I understand more or less why English is so badly spelled. I don't know why Irish isn't spelled like it sounds. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:40, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

For what it's worth, Irish pronunciation is typically predictable from the spelling, at least when talking about modern standardized Irish, it's just that Irish uses Irish norms for how to spell sounds, rather than English ones. Unlike English where ao can represent various sounds (gaol, Mao, chaos, ...), Irish ao in modern standard spelling can, to my understanding, reliably be read as /iː/ (regionally /eː/), as in baol, faobhar, saol, etc. Other letters can also reliably be read as /iː/, but (like English) Irish likes to maintain continuity with earlier spellings where possible, so spelling this word's /iː/ with ao rather than e.g. í maintains continuity with the Old Irish form of the name Aife and the possible source aobh, Old Irish oíph, oíb. An i is placed between the o and the f to indicate that this (spoken) word's /f/ is slender rather than broad, because the slenderness or broadness of consonants is indicated by what vowels are next to them: if the consonant next to the f had been o, it would be read as broad, but the i ensures it's read as slender. As a bonus, the resulting sequence aoi is even more consistently /iː/ (and not /eː/), as in daoine, naoi.
As an aside, another thing it can be useful to remember is that h often serves to nullify or weaken a letter. Want to keep the b of Latin liber in the spelling for etymological continuity, but indicate that it's no longer present in the pronunciation? Make use of h: leabhar /lʲVɾˠ/.) This can help when reading words like Samhain or Bláithín. - -sche (discuss) 02:02, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I was reading somewhere only a few months ago that modern standard Irish orthography is helpfully regular; but as a foreigner one must study it for a while before comprehending how and why that's true. I wish I could remember where I was reading it so I could look back at it now. The -aoi- trigraph is listed at w:Irish orthography#Vowels. HTH. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:18, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

modern standard Irish orthography is helpfully regular – well, yes and no. Dialectal variation can throw things off a lot; for example, word-final unstressed -igh, -adh, and -amh are pronounced quite differently in different Gaeltachts. Also, it's not unusual for words to be pronounced differently from how they're spelled, even assuming the usual Irish spelling-to-pronunciation rules. Aoife does follow the rules quite nicely, but almost no one pronounces deartháir (“brother”) and deirfiúr (“sister”) the way they're spelled. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:32, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

What in the world does the second definition mean ~2026-23040-09 (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

If I understood the first one (quod non), this might offer a pathway to grokking the second...  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:08, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

You can just post asking where to cop a piece and that's a W2C, but I didn’t rummage those places that often after 2022 to remember the delineation of the concept exactly, yet the definition reminds me satisfyingly. Lambiam not understanding this slang though is peculiar to him. Fay Freak (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

No it's not peculiar to him, most people don't understand what you write most of the time Hftf (talk) 23:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

As you did not this message, which was surprised about him appearing not to understand “cop” even with explicit fashion context, even though it be perfectly intelligible by objective standards. Fay Freak (talk) 06:38, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I've rewritten the def in English. ~2026-24212-34 (talk) 16:04, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The part of a missile's flight between its launch and reentry. JMGN (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Do you suggest this as a new lemma for a noun sense? Otherwise this is the transparent application of the general sense “happening partway through something” to the flight of a missile. Here it is used for a change happening partway through the mission of Lunar orbiter 5 – not a missile – on its way to the Moon , and here for a change happening partway through a mission of an undercover agent. If attested in a noun sense, we should investigate whether it is does not likewise mean, more generically, “the part of a process between its commencement and completion”.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:02, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We treat the Latin noun infarctus (defined as “1. infarction” (why not “infarct”?) or “2. heart attack”) as if it is a Classical Latin medical term. But it is not in L&S, Gaffiot or du Cange, so I suspect this is Late Latin, in which case the definitions should be labeled as such. (Also, is “heart attack” not just a hyponym of “infarction”?)  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:23, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Images at https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2026/02/iranian-kurdish-groups-unite-against-tehran-regime-as-iraqi-militias-threaten-kurdistan-region.php and https://farsi.anf-news.com/%D8%B1%D9%88%DA%98%D9%87%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AA_%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86/b-100299

Although this is from a meeting between Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in Erbil, Iraq, it does show something interesting

Transcription:
(ڕاگەیاندنی
هاوپایمانیی هێزە سیاسییەکانی کوردستانی ئیران
۳ی ڕەشەممەی ۱٤۰٤ - ۲۲ی فێورییەی ۲۰۲٦)

Instead of using the most commonly accepted name of February in the language, "شوبات (şubat)", it uses "فێورییە (fêwrîye)", which is borrowed from Persian فِوْرِیِه, which inturn was borrowed from French février, ultimately from Latin Februārius.

However, this is just one Latin month name. I haven't encountered other Latin month names being used in Central Kurdish aside from this one.

For reference, taken from Central Kurdish Wikipedia, here's a list of the most commonly accepted month names in Central Kurdish (which come from Levantine/Iraqi Arabic, inturn borrowed from Syriac.)
January - کانوونی دووەم (kanûnî duwem)
February - شوبات (şubat)
March - ئازار (azar)
April - نیسان (nîsan)
May - ئایار (ayar)
June - حوزەیران (ḧuzeyran)
July - تەممووز (temmûz)
August - ئاب (ab)
September - ئەیلوول (eylûl)
October - تشرینی یەکەم (tişrînî yekem)
November - تشرینی دووەم (tişrînî duwem)
December - کانوونی یەکەم (kanûnî yekem)
Adamnewwikipedianaccount (talk) 17:21, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ok after doing some research and some transcribing of month names from Persian/French/English to Kurdish and putting them to Google after some trial and error, here's what I could find of the Latin-derived Central Kurdish month names side by side by the Syriac-drived month nmaes

January - کانوونی دووەم (kanûnî duwem) - کانوونی دووەم (kanûnî duwem) (used in https://komala.co/%D8%A6%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D8%AF%DB%86%D8%AE%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%81%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B1%DB%86%DA%A4-%D9%84%DB%95-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%DA%AF%DB%8C-%DA%98%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%DB%8C%DB%95/)

February - شوبات (şubat) - فێورییە (fêwrîye) (already mentioned)

March - ئازار (azar) - مارس (mars) (used in https://www.zamenpress.com/Detail_wtar.aspx?jimare=3688)

April - نیسان (nîsan) - ئاوریل (awrîl) (used in https://www.instagram.com/p/CrnRqMJgH30/)

May - ئایار (ayar) - مەی (mey) (used in https://rukurdistan.net/articles.php?id=315)

June - حوزەیران (ḧuzeyran) - (couldn't find)

July - تەممووز (temmûz) - (couldn't find)

August - ئاب (ab) - (couldn't find)

September - ئەیلوول (eylûl) - سپتامبر (siptambir) (used in https://www.instagram.com/p/DOelB-kjBgf/)

October - تشرینی یەکەم (tişrînî yekem) - ئۆکتۆبر (oktobir) (used in https://komala.co/%D9%A5%DB%8C-%D8%A6%DB%86%DA%A9%D8%AA%DB%86%D8%A8%D8%B1-%DA%95%DB%86%DA%98%DB%8C-%D8%AC%DB%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%85%DB%86%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%8C-%D9%88%DB%95%D8%A8%DB%8C/)

November - تشرینی دووەم (tişrînî duwem) - نۆڤامبر (novambir) (used in https://www.kurdwomen.org/%D8%A8%DB%95-%D8%A8%DB%86%D9%86%DB%95%DB%8C-%D9%A2%D9%A5%DB%8C-%D9%86%DB%86%DA%A4%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%9B-%DA%95%DB%86%DA%98%DB%8C-%D8%AC%DB%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C%DB%8C-%D8%A8%DB%95%D8%B1/)

December - کانوونی یەکەم (kanûnî yekem) - دێسامبر (dêsambir) (used in https://komala.co/%D8%A8%DB%95-%D8%A8%DB%86%D9%86%DB%95%DB%8C-%D9%A1%D9%A0%DB%8C-%D8%AF%DB%8E%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%8C-%DA%95%DB%86%DA%98%DB%8C-%D8%AC%DB%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%81/)

I couldn't find the Latin-derived Kurdish month names of the 3 summer months, although I did find a Telegram result of "ئاگاست" in Kurdish, but I'm not sure if Telegram counts as a source on Wiktionary. Adamnewwikipedianaccount (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

What sense of the verb get fits this use?

• 1979, Bruce Springsteen, “The River”, in The River:

  Then I got Mary pregnant and man, that was all she wrote. And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat.

This is the same sense used in the transitive senses of get into trouble: get + object + adjective (including prepositional phrase). Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There are two senses:

sense 5 (labeled "copulative"!!!) "become" for "X got pregnant"

sense 6 "cause to become" for Springsteen's use.

Other senses may have influenced these, such as "beget" and "become ill with" (pregnancy). DCDuring (talk) 21:43, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our glossary definition of vulgar is:

Language considered distasteful, obscene, profane, or otherwise unsuitable for use in polite or formal speech. This type of language is avoided in children's media and can be used in colloquial language.

Sometimes, a dialectal or vernacular language, one that is spoken in a region as a first language. But also, instead, a language used commonly or popularly as a second language (See Vulgate). Specifically in the context of Latin, the European languages that developed in the late middle ages and early modern period, on the expense of Latin.

Is the second paragraph, about the Vulgate, relevant to our use of vulgar in context labels, or can it be removed...? - -sche (discuss) 00:30, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The par. is relevant—not in context labels, but often in etymologies and alternative forms, and also as a noun “in the vulgar (which wording I am responsible for for example in عجرم and mandatieren, as for all mentions of “vulgar Turkish”, but I know others used “vulgar” to contrast against literary Ottoman)—, not the mention of the Vulgate, which is actually misleading since relatively to the colloquials it constituted a literary standard from which learned borrowings were made. Fay Freak (talk) 06:35, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

To me, it seems suboptimal to be using the same word to mean so many different things, and mandatieren, for example, would be less ambiguous if reworded to "...in the colloquial sense" or "...in the informal sense". - -sche (discuss) 11:46, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@-sche: that seems eminently sensible. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:08, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Because in e.g. -아지, "in the vulgar sense" is used to mean "in the sense that is vulgar", the second of the two senses, the one labelled vulgar. - -sche (discuss) 13:53, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Support — I agree. Not that the polysemy is "incorrect" but rather just that an optimal choice for the context of Wiktionary's metalanguage (in labels and etyms) is to avoid the ambiguity. Could say "vulgate" instead of "vulgar" when that sense is meant, and probably not cause any new problem by doing so (AFAIK). Quercus solaris (talk) 13:55, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

That’s neither informal nor colloquial, I did not claim a register—it’s you who, by a probabilistic model, try to translate a word (from English to English) that it is unwonted to you from a present perspective, but if it was the same I would have used the present less problematic word. (The neurotypicals like to skip steps and take shortcuts.) Here vulgar refers to the untechnical use which is used in legal German as well as people with few if any legal concepts, in fact what I meant is rather the landläufig usage of Auftrag. These are contextual nuances you probably cannot convey in a one-word label but only refer to if someone already knows (how the other word Auftrag is used, which is not at all advanced German, but it has an additional technical sense codified in § 662 seqq. BGB corresponding to Latin mandātum – yet the verb does not relate to it any more but basically making an attorney work for you, and the other examples in the corpora, which I labelled informal, sound like abuses by journalists/literati to me which you won't hear from common people). Fay Freak (talk) 14:05, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I agree regarding "skip steps" and "shortcuts". Where I said "agree" earlier/above, I meant that the English labels for en.WT should avoid using both senses of the word "vulgar" because many users will end up confused by it (even if they "oughtn't" be [from some viewpoints]) and probably "vulgate" will work fine when the "vulgate" sense of vulgar is meant. The "skip steps" and "shortcuts" topic is an interesting and important (and unfortunately also unending) problem — but something that the neurotypical world demands is that its neurologic style be adequately served, which entails TLDR-ing one's ass off constantly to serve the constraints (dare I say "limitations"); and honestly at the end of the day that's OK and not wrong, because (dare I say it out loud) it's valid for the same underlying reason why accessibility methods are valid for serving those with disabilities. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

After reviewing other uses of "vulgar sense" and seeing that they use vulgar in the usual way, I revised mandatieren. (I also updated the glossary.) We are still missing some labels/senses of Auftrag; compare e.g. de.Wikt's entry.
As for the other point... unfortunately, as game designer David Prokopetz put it once, people more autistic than anyone here have been trying for centuries to invent ways of communicating that prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations (etc), and have not managed it. (But certainly using a word like vulgar in a few entries in a way different from how most of our entries use it and lead people to understand it is not such a way of communicating.) - -sche (discuss) 17:34, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@-sche: I want to add the codified sense as “contract of mandate”, following descriptions of Roman law, not trying to compare it to anything in the native Anglo-Saxon laws, whereas I am clearly informed about the history of the Roman term and the derivation of the German sense from it, but we are still missing the English sense as well. I remember this is a common gap of en.Wiktionary, as in delegation. You might just go through such a Roman law book and find lots of omissions of Wiktionary, but unfortunately whether you can understand the concepts AND communicate them after penetrating the system is another issue. I’ll stick at continental law.

I do not see the justifications of de.Wikt’s administrative and military senses (which are applications of the general sense and which in themselves depend on each other, even if they are separate, given that soldier law is generally constructed in analogy to civil servant law, though I see the point as possible subsenses if we want a really heavy entry Grimm-style or DRW-style with fifty quotes—you see in Wörterbuchnetz both have it with additional historical nuances …).

The construction and cosmetic senses de.Wiktionary has are verbal noun of auftragen; in the construction sense auftragen misses something again, not particular to construction, but you can just carry something and put it onto something (e.g. bricks onto a wall), calling the action auftragen, not necessarily liquids or fluids as the entry implies. English equivalences suffer being overly specific and casuistic. Fay Freak (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

See diff. Is Jewtopia a humorous religious slur? If so, we should probably also label it an "ethnic slur" (since the sort of people who don't like Jews tend not to like ethnic Jews any better than religious Jews). - -sche (discuss) 00:51, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes, both, because ethnoreligious. I tweaked the labels to cover both. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:02, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

1. (slang, ethnic slur, offensive) A man of Asian ethnicity who is heavily influenced by hip-hop culture.
2. (slang, offensive, ethnic slur) A vulgar insult for a contemptible Chinese (or, more generally, East Asian) man.

Are these separate senses, and is it correct (given the ety Chinese + nigga) that sense 1 is scoped to any Asian while sense 2 is Chinese? - -sche (discuss) 11:44, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

"An extremely stupid person, especially one who causes harm." Is the "especially one who causes harm" part right, and supportable by cites? - -sche (discuss) 13:53, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Synonym of Fates (mythology)? JMGN (talk) 14:32, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This edit added the Old French section, but there is a label ("Insular French") with no corresponding sense. Can someone fix this? Should the label be moved to the earlier senses, or deleted? — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:50, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

What's with the obsession of keeping NSFW images on here? At futanari, I hid the image like how the images are hidden in the entry penis, but someone reverted them stating "Wiktionary is not censored". I really don't get it. Wiktionary is a dictionary, not an encyclopedia; people use it to find definitions and etymology (and I bet you most don't want to get flashbanged by dicks and tits while doing so). If some people want to keep pornographic images on here so badly, fine, I can live with that... but at least allow me to hide them. It takes literally half a millisecond to open the rectangle thing to view the picture if one is curious enough. Inpacod2 (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

But you don't open this entry by accident, so better own it. If you are flashbanged you remember the definition you looked up better. Not sure if it is “half a millisecond” for impaired people. What would be accidental is the preview on typing fut, but we already hide it. Fay Freak (talk) 17:08, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ok, it's fine I guess. 🫠 Inpacod2 (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Ideally, we'd have more images, including for non NSFW ones. As an informative source, I can understand the value. Vininn126 (talk) 18:17, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I support having one more (simple, easy) level of click or tap to reveal (unhide) dickpics or other photos (eg, other genitalia, or gore such as violent injuries). And I say that not because I am a prude (no) but rather simply because there is nothing unreasonable about it and some people feel respected when you politely show them this small and unobtrusive courtesy. The claim that providing this polite courtesy equals "censoring" or "censorship" is (1) incorrect/false/counterfactual (there is nothing being removed or deprived) and (2) (speaking candidly) childish. It is not indicative of the kind of professionalism that comes with holding down a skilled job as a functioning adult, for example. Wiktionary is more professional and grown-up (rather than amateurish and childish) if it provides this courtesy. There is a world of difference between (1) trying to deprive the user of anything (by removing it entirely) and (2) simply showing the courtesy of "click to see pictures" for genitalia or violent injuries. I am not convinced that the grownups in the room should have the amateurish and childish option dictated to them. I forget what WT does about voting versus not voting for decision-making, but I'd rather see a majority vote determine who wins this point, rather than it being settled by whoever might manage to be most obnoxious in edit-warring it. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hear, hear. We can keep the site SFW by folding potentially risque or disturbing content, and still have it in the entry for those who choose to view it. Heck, we do the same thing with our discussion fora -- when someone goes on a rant or tangent, that chunk of the thread is frequently folded away, yet kept intact for those who choose to view it.

FFS, this is a dictionary. Surely we can keep focused on the words? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 09:44, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I also support hiding graphic images behind a clickable drop down box. Having to click an additional time is obviously not censorship and I'd prefer not to accidentally traumatize someone who looks up Colombian necktie or get someone fired who innocently looks up pearl necklace. Horse Battery (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I like GRAPHIC images at Wiktionary and add them regularly. It's PORNOgraphic and other NSFW we want to have hidden and added with some restraint. DCDuring (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hilarious. Shlyst (talk) 00:47, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We had until today treated this as a plural-only noun. This doesn't seem supportable as property right (added today) occurs more than 10% as often as property rights. In UK and US law (and probably in many other jurisdictions) there are numerous "rights" that together make up property rights in real property, eg, air rights/upper rights, lower rights, mineral rights, ground rights, naming rights, water rights. Each of these can be subdivided, eg, by time, quantity (portion), specific activity, purpose. In addition, of course, there are rights in other forms of private property, eg, tangible personal property, intangible personal property (including intellectual property, securities, loans, etc).

There is at least one use of the term property rights that might be considered plural-only: the system of property ownership in general (not limited to private property, as governments or communities could own property even if there was no or very limited private property. Is that just my personal hallucination? DCDuring (talk) 21:47, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Should they be proper nouns? Inpacod2 (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't think it's plural only. All the quotes have "a Hot Wheels". Inpacod2 (talk) 17:10, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

You're right. It's descriptively a fact that the noun undeniably has (among its forms) a notionally singular form (e.g., "Mom bought me a Hot Wheels today") despite its invariantly plural morphological form (which the noun inherits from the brand name as proper noun, which Wiktionary's Proper noun section fails to enter yet). I'll fix this later. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:58, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hello! I'm looking for a word that describes the feeling of nostalgia mixed with anticipation - that bittersweet emotion when you're reminiscing about past experiences while simultaneously feeling excited about future possibilities that those memories inspire.

Is there an existing English word that captures this specific blend of emotions? If not, are there words in other languages that express this concept? I'd appreciate any suggestions or insights from the community.

Thank you! ~2026-23867-69 (talk) 17:34, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I wrote the Wikipedia article, Errand, and had adapted from Wiktionary that the word "derives from Old English ǣrende, which in turn comes from Proto-West Germanic *ārundī"; however, today an IP added to the article: "Errand" comes from the Scandinavain word "ærlig", meaning honorable. The term errand is closely linked with the Scandinavian word "ærend", which derives from doing something one has to do. Specifically "honourably" (ærlig-) and "has to do with it" (-lig). Is this right? bd2412 T 20:43, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Gut reaction: that (new IP claim) seems like the kind of error I have seen AI generate. - -sche (discuss) 00:52, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. I can find nothing at all in any source that draws this connection. bd2412 T 02:00, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is diff correct? My impression is that English use of the French term is mostly humorously self-referential, in contrast to French use of it. Collins just defines it as "a term used in France for an English person" with humorous self-referential cites from British papers. - -sche (discuss) 01:05, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There's still no page for Djavla or Djevla https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%C4%91avla&redlink=1 https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=djevla&redlink=1

Meaning of Djavla and Djevla ~2026-23680-08 (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Serbian Noun (nominative) đavol  “devil”, Genitive‑singular form đavla, Source Wiktionary entry for đavol (shows the full declension table) – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/đavol

Croatian Noun (nominative) đavao  “devil”, Genitive‑singular form đavla, Source Croatian language grammar table (declension of masculine nouns) – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/đavao

Bosnian Noun (nominative) đavo “devil”, Genitive‑singular form đavla, Source Bosnian declension overview – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/đavo

Serbian (Wikipedia) Noun (nominative) đavol “devil”, Genitive‑singular form đavla, Source (genitive singular)Wikipedia article “Serbian declension” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_grammar#Noun_declension

Croatian (Wikipedia) Noun (nominative) đavao “devil”, Genitive‑singular form đavla, Source (genitive singular)Wikipedia article “Croatian declension” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_grammar#Noun_declension

All of these sources list đavla as the genitive singular of the noun “devil.” The transliteration djavla is simply a Latin‑script rendering of the same Slavic form (the “đ/đ” sound is often written as “dj” when the special character isn’t available).

And Djevla is also a genitive plural of Djevlar https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/djevul

Djavla is the genitive form of the word for “devil” in South‑Slavic languages. Its meaning depends on the base noun it derives from:

Base Noun đavol / đavao / đavo (singular “devil”), Form djavla (genitive singular), Meaning “of the devil”

Base Noun djevul (singular “devil”) → plural djevlar (“devils”), Form djevla (genitive plural), Meaning “of the devils”

So, in most contexts djavla translates to “of the devil,” but when it refers to the plural noun djevlar it means “of the devils.”

Example sentences with djavla (Latin‑script rendering of đavla)

Genitive singular – “of the devil” (from đavol/đavao/đavo), Language (Latin script) Serbian / Bosnian / Croatian

„U crkvi nema djavla, pa je mirno.“ “There is no devil in the church, so it is peaceful.” „Zavijam se od djavla kad čujem njegove laži.“ “I tremble at the devil when I hear his lies.” „Ovaj put je djavla iznenadio sve prisutne.“ “This time the devil surprised everyone present.”

Genitive plural – “of the devils” (from djevul → djevlar), Language (Latin script) Serbian / Bosnian / Croatian

„Strah od djevla me prati svake noći.“ “The fear of the devils follows me every night.” „Pričamo priče o djevla koji su napali selo.“ “We tell stories about the devils who attacked the village.” „Sveti se moli za djevla, tražeći oprost za sve grehe.“ “The saints pray for the devils, seeking forgiveness for all sins.”

• In the singular examples, djavla = genitive singular of đavol/đavao/đavo → “of the devil.”

• In the plural examples, djevla = genitive plural of djevlar (plural of djevul) → “of the devils.”

And the transliteration of Đavla to Djavla, could also just defualt to being the transliteration of Djävla instead.

The entry for uppermost claims it's not comparable, but the entry for upper claims it's a superlative. It doesn't seem like those can both be correct, so which is it? We also claim lowermost is not comparable, but define it as "lowest". We see something similar with easternmost and eastern. We define leftmost as "superlative form of left: most left; furthest to the left", which is inconsistent with the other entries. I don't think the entry at -most really clears anything up either. McYeee (talk) 20:11, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Interesting. So some terms have two ways of forming comparatives and/or superlatives. To simplify things for some of these we might use Google NGrams to see which forms are in current use as superlatives (rather than in some other sense, related etymologically, of course). For example, Ngrams shows leftmost to be non-existent before 1825 or so, but now more than 100 times more frequently used than leftest. Lowercase lefter seems ten times more common than leftmore. (Lefter is a proper name.)

I suspect that each such case has to be handled individually. It is highly likely that one or the other of the est and most superlatives and the er and more comparatives will be obsolete or archaic or at least much rarer in current usage. And we have to make sure that the most and more forms are actually superlatives and comparatives rather than having meanings that are now separated from the meanings of the base terms.

There is something a bit strange about the relationship among upper, uppermore, and uppermost. For one thing upper is etymologically a comparative. For another we can say "something is uppermost in their consideration", but not "... upper in their consideration." The full trio of forms seems to work only for spatial and possibly for nearly spatial senses of upper.

But, to your main point, nothing I've seen so far suggests that the most and more forms could not be superlatives and comparatives. It does seem tricky, perhaps tedious, to sort this out properly. DCDuring (talk) 21:42, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Shame there's no simple answer here. McYeee (talk) 04:45, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I made an edit at uppermost#Adjective that seems valid to me. If anyone sees a hole in the argument behind it, feel free to change. It does accord with the declined forms given at upper#Adjective. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:10, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Why do we say "superlative form of upper: most upper" in two separate places on that page? McYeee (talk) 16:10, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I had missed changing that in my edit; I changed it now. If anyone disagrees, they can revise, but I am having trouble seeing why any change would be needed. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:32, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I just realized that Wiktionary is currently claiming that bottommost is not comparable but (meanwhile) lowest is a superlative form [only]; and the same regarding topmost versus highest. I will study all these more soon, and maybe revise my edits. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:05, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

? Superlatives are not comparable, the base adjectives are. Saumache (talk) 14:59, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

A bit surprising but also very sad that such basic errors remain after so many years. DCDuring (talk) 18:07, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

For example ⟨£⟩ and ⟨L⟩ (in £sd) both mean the pound sterling. Compare homoglyph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph#Related_terms JMGN (talk) 21:57, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:20, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Recently I've come across this word as kind of jocular and quasi-intentional misspeling of arrogant where the starting letter a is changed with e. Kinda portmanteau-ish(?) combination of error & arrogant.
Tho meaning what I've been told and searched for is: "a someone who's absolutely wrong about something, but are sure about their statement"; something in that kind of sense.
Also from searching, maybe it can as an alt form of Scottish dialect for arrogant(?). And I found this mention dating back to September 2008 on Twitter.
And also-also I've seen a similar-ish usage as in forms of errorgance & errorgant in The Way of Kings (2010) book by Brandon Sanderson (I guess that those two words are coined by him).
Pan1blG (talk) 23:16, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our entry notes that the "very good" sense derives from peach, but how? Plenty of fruits popular for their taste don't have such a derivation (for example, appley, orangey, and grapey exist, but none has a general meaning of being very good), so how did "peachy" come to have this sense? bd2412 T 23:39, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Probably because "peach" has a sense "A particularly admirable or pleasing person or thing", while the other fruit names don't have anything like that. That would mean that "peachy" in the "very good" sense wouldn't be literally referring to the fruit, but to the figurative entity named after the fruit.

As for why the other fruits don't have such a sense, I would chalk it up at least partly to the timing of the arrival of the various species in Europe- too long ago, and they're boring and ordinary. Too recent, and they're still foreign and alien. There's no doubt a lot more to it than that (for one thing, peaches are fuzzy), but that way leads to random idle speculation. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:12, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'll accept that answer. I suppose "peachy" is also easier to say. bd2412 T 01:54, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I noticed a user add chigga to Category:English swear words, and I see that the category contains n*gga, but not the spelling with -er. Is chigga a swear word? Is the n-word, should it too be added to the category?
For the most part the category seems to contain only words that someone might swear (exclaim, even in isolation), and this seems to be in line with the category description, that it is for "terms that are used to swear, such as to express strong anger or frustration". But there are also other terms (most of which are not currently in the category) that contain swear words, for example, fuckery, Fuckerberg, fuckwad, and shitting match: should these be categorized as swear words? As far as I know, people don't exclaim "fuckery! shitting match!" to swear, the way they use "fuck" and "shit", but I suspect a TV show (etc) that asked guests not to swear would still flag them. But if we include them, is the category still useful or is it swamped by the approximately 380 terms from fuck#Derived_terms_2? - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It is true that "words that escape people's minds semiautomatically under duress [and thus often also escape their mouths under duress]" (=swear words or swearwords, in the narrowest sense of that term) and "words that are dirty words" (=vulgar words, in one sense of the adjective 'vulgar') are sets with huge overlap on a Venn diagram. There is no bright line for which ones belong to the latter set but not to the former set; the line is fuzzy albeit not nonexistent. Wiktionary should definitely have a category whose scope is the latter set (regardless of that category's exact name, for which there is no One Right Answer but rather various reasonable answers); whether Wiktionary should have a category (at all) for the former set is a reasonable question, given that the set's boundaries are as fuzzy as they are. I'm leaning toward 'no' for that answer, because of that fuzziness. I acknowledge here that many English speakers mean the latter category even when they say the term 'swear word' or 'swearword'; the term has looseness/polysemy. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The usage note at "Category:English swear words" says "English terms that are used to swear, such as to express strong anger or frustration", which suggests an attempt to limit the category to vulgar terms which are interjections. I suppose we could enforce that as a definition specifically used here at Wiktionary. However, if it's felt that the term swear word is inherently vague and not limited to interjections, then "Category:English swear words" is redundant to "Category:English vulgarities" and we should probably just delete the former and use the latter. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:07, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Beer Parlour/2026/April.

Currently the page for assault rifle features both a standard and colloquial definition, the latter seems satisfactory but the former leaves something to be desired. It may be more layman friendly but it's not very accurate, "a shortened rifle caliber round or lower-power smaller-calibre round" doesn't properly communicate that they are in between traditional rifle cartridges and pistol cartridges and could easily include pistol cartridges and "high-capacity magazine" is not one of the generally accepted criteria, a detachable magazine is. The previous definition "A rifle or carbine that is capable of selective fire, has a detachable magazine, and fires an intermediate-power cartridge." works better.

Here's a decent attestation: https://www.forgottenweapons.com/enough-nonsense-what-is-an-assault-rifle/ a bit of an anti-gun-control bias but generally level headed and well informed. Autumn-thePyromaniac (talk) 05:53, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Regarding The previous definition "A rifle or carbine that is capable of selective fire, has a detachable magazine, and fires an intermediate-power cartridge." works better: I support restoring that sense. Most likely, whoever wrote that def had more knowledge of the subject than whoever decided that that def needed tinkering. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:37, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The meaning is obvious in context. The phrase seems to be commonly quoted as a bit of a joke (like e.g. lines from Star Wars), thus something for KnowYourMeme really. I don't know that our entry says much of use. ~2026-24212-34 (talk) 16:02, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Really formed in Middle English as claimed? What public transportation had a "ridership" in Chaucer's day? ~2026-24212-34 (talk) 16:54, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fixed. J3133 (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The Late Middle English term referred to "the office of a mounted forest ranger" (see “rīdership, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007), which became obsolete but was then revived in the 19th century with a different meaning—@J3133 has now added this to the entry. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:59, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have a source that lists a "gimblett-maker", and can find history forum discussions saying that a gimblett is a tool, like an auger or awl, suggesting it could be an archaic form of gimlet.

But the surname Gimblett makes it hard to search for. Suggestions?

We don't list an etymology for Gimblett; might one be relevant? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:09, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Pigsonthewing: OED reports that gimlet was spelled gimblet between the 17th and 19th centuries. There is also an obsolete word gimlet (gymlett, gymblett) meaning a large, shallow tub for salting bacon or other uses. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:52, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thank you; and yes: at gimblet. Should gimblett be created also?

The bacon device does not fit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:18, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Pigsonthewing: only if you can attest gimblett, I guess—the OED does not list it as a variant spelling though it is surely plausible. — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

To express something in speech or writing (formal). JMGN (talk) 20:52, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Could give mouth be followed by anything other than to? If not, then [[give mouth to]] might be a better entry. DCDuring (talk) 21:15, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have give it mouth, which probably should be give (something) mouth, with an appropriately different definition. DCDuring (talk) 21:19, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring At least it seems it used to be possible ([... your convinctions, you must give them mouth]). JMGN (talk) 21:20, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

That seems to correspond more to our give it mouth. DCDuring (talk) 21:23, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

There's another word for this. Webster 1913 defines it as "A word having more than one form of the root." —User:Vealhurl (talk 22:37, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Good question. Heteroclitic (heteroclisis) seems to refer to a similar concept, but I'm not sure if it's the same thing.

Webster's def of metaplast is too vague to be of any use. NED defines the term as "A noun of which the cases are formed from different stems", but the modern online OED instead defines it as a word that declines by "change to letters", whatever that means. Old Ancient Greek grammar primers use the term, but they are too hard to make sense of if you don't know Ancient Greek grammar. This, that and the other (talk) 06:04, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It's occurred to me that allure (the verb) is almost never used with a person as the subject. Google Books seems to confirm that: "she allured" is all old results, while "beauty+allured"&oq="beauty+allured"&aqs=heirloom-srp.. "beauty allured" gets modern ones. More general googling mainly turns up dictionary-type sites for "she allured", while actual uses more often have an abstract subject. There are some exceptions, but it does seem to be a pattern. Do you have the same impression and do you think this is worth noting? ~2026-11487-24 (talk) 07:44, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

google books:"she allures" and google books:"she allured" and google books:"she was alluring" (she was [participial adjective]) each get plenty of GBS hits. Hard to say how many, because GBS nowadays gives a false pretense by providing a fake hit count while failing to actually give a real one. But none of these collocations is rare on the scale of scrounging for handfuls of attestations, though. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:53, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I have doubts regarding the correctness of this word (and 𐌀𐌍𐌉𐌀𐌗𐌄𐌑 too); namely, I believe that 𐌗 should be replaced by 𐌙. I looked the word up in the Pittau's dictionary and the transliteration is "aniaχ", just like in the article. But "χ" is, if I'm not wrong, the transliteration of 𐌙 (see also: Appendix:Old Italic script). I'd be most grateful for somebody to either confirm or disprove my suspicions. ErdaradunGaztea (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Can someone please create this page? Unihan data:

https://util.unicode.org/UnicodeJsps/character.jsp?a=𠐿&B1=Show

It has a Japanese reading コウ and Mandarin reading hōng. Jaspers Blade (talk) 00:49, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

At alleged#Adjective we have (i) "asserted but not proved", (ii) "supposed but doubtful" (without citations to distinguish the two). At allegedly we have (i) "according to someone's allegation", (ii) "according to someone's conspicuous impressions (which could subsequently be alleged)". The intended distinction is not clear to me, as I don't think something is alleged unless somebody at least says it. Merriam-Webster also seems to make a distinction (three ways!) and it's also not very clear to me: [12]. ~2026-24622-84 (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Citations, citations, citations, 3 for each definition. BTW, OED makes no such distinctions.

We could also stand to update [[allege#Verb]]. DCDuring (talk) 13:27, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

It is a bottle made of glass. Should this be turned into some kind of translation-hub entry? ~2026-24622-84 (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is it SoP? Anyways, it's in urgent need of a cleanup. Inpacod2 (talk) 14:43, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Partly cleaned up. I believe this was created as sneaky SEO spam, since there was a link to a pest exterminator (I've removed it). ~2026-24622-84 (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! Inpacod2 (talk) 14:54, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

ūnum sū̆rum sū̆rus ferre, tamen dēfendēre possunt. (Ennius, dactylic hexameter) can't be scanned with sū̆rus being either read as sūrus or surus, how do dictionaries even get their vowel length for unattested/poorly attested words? Add to that that L&S and Gaffiot have its derivative as surculus but Elementary Lewis and Georges as sūrculus. Saumache (talk) 19:16, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The adverbial term not even is given this non-gloss definition:

1. Introduces or constitutes a more emphatic negation or exclusion than "not".

I think this is wrong or misleading. In the first usex – Not even I knew that. – the meaning is not that the speaker was strongly unaware of some fact. Instead, the implication is that if anyone had known whatever that is, than certainly the speaker would have been in the know. Some more examples that show this is not a “more emphatic negation or exclusion than not”:

• Not even Jamie Oliver - let alone his parents - could persuade my grandson Bron to touch a vegetable^[13]
• Its pull of gravity is so strong that nothing – not even light – can escape.^[14][15]

I cannot think of a good definition. But does this juxtaposition of two adverbs actually constitute a term in its own right? Note that we can reorder the words in these examples so as to get:

• Even I did not knew that.
• Even Jamie Oliver could not persuade my grandson Bron to touch a vegetable
• Its pull of gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape.

So is this is a case of SOP, or what is going on?  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:48, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Currently there is only one Spanish word given as a translation of English danger, which is discrimen. This word is said to be archaic by its Wiktionary entry. If discrimen is archaic indeed, what presently common translation of danger should be added? Should it be peligro, which was removed in this edit? Intolerable situation (talk) 23:35, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I undid that edit. This is basic vocabulary that is covered in any first-year Spanish class. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:14, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Brawlio, any particular reason you removed peligro from the translation tables in danger? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:48, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

my thinking was that it fit under peril, so with the aim of decluttering the translation tables of these synonyms, i figured a link to peril's translation table would suffice｡ but if y'all prefer to keep peligro under danger, then that's fine too｡ Brawlio (talk) 09:22, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jmsj1882/11/9/11_9_394/_pdf/-char/ja seems to give ペイヌハワツカ. However, as pointed out by https://x.com/porotop_gakuin/status/2047048645988761882 , I believe the original intent was ペイ又ハワツカ, employing 又は ('or') to list two words with similar meanings. (The translation of 高山, two columns to the left, says ヌプレヌハチヤチヤニ; it might be adequate to also parse this as ヌプレ又ハチヤチヤニ.) Either way, ペイヌハツカ does not seem like a valid representation of the entry/entries given in the source. Hsjoihs (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

agree that would appear to be 又ハ from context, ヌ and 又 seemingly not being typographically distinguished in the source document. ヌプレヌハチヤチヤニ also should be addressed, and these seem to be the only (pairs of) words so affected. Innotata (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

The reference link provided in the entry goes to https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jmsj1882/-char/ja, which is the wrong year (1922) and wrong volume (41) and does not include the given title, 「北海氣象瑣談」 (Hokkai Kishō Sadan, “Hokkai Weather Trivial Talk”). Digging around, the link to the correct volume should be here: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jmsj1882/11/9/_contents/-char/ja, that's volume 11, published 1892. The article is in issue 9 at https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jmsj1882/11/9/_contents/-char/ja, with the specific article at https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jmsj1882/11/9/11_9_394/_article/-char/ja. That includes a link to a PDF at https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jmsj1882/11/9/11_9_394/_pdf/-char/ja, where finally on page 2 of the PDF, 三九五 or 395 of the volume, we get a word list that includes this putative term.

Given the age of this document and the typographical standards in place at that time, and cross-referencing with other Ainu materials, I am reasonably certain that both ペイヌハツカ and ヌプレヌハチヤチヤニ are mistakes -- as you both have noted, the ヌハ here is almost certainly 又ハ (mata wa, “or”).

For that matter, our entry is at ペイヌハツカ, which would have to be romanized as something like peinuhatuka -- but the source document has ペイヌハワツカ (peinuhawatuka). Instead of just blindly accepting that, if we think things through a little more, given that the use of small kana was not standardized yet in the 1800s, and given what we know about Ainu vocabulary, we can extrapolate that the ワツカ (watuka) on the end should be interpreted as ワッカ (wakka, “water”). Thinking things through even further, we recognize that Ainu is not given to long strings for simple concrete everyday concepts, so we would have reason to doubt that ペイヌハワツカ (peinuhawatuka) would be the word for "water", and we might notice that the typography of the time makes it likely that the apparent kana ヌハ (nuha) should be interpreted instead as 又ハ (mata wa, “or”).

FWIW, I note that Batchelor recorded a word pei as meaning "bubble" or "water-bladder" in the Ainu language spoken closer to Sapporo, as shown here on page 342 of his dictionary, left-hand side: https://archive.org/details/ainuenglishjapan00batcuoft/page/342/mode/2up. I wonder if this might be the same term as the one in Mizushina's word-list? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:24, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our ペイヌハツカ entry has been touched by two other editors, @AsPJT and @PulauKakatua19. Can either of you shed any light on this? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:26, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Eirikr Thank you for the ping. I also believe that the correct reading is "ペイ" 又ハ (or) "ワツカ", and that "ペイヌハツカ" is an error. Similarly, for "ヌプレヌハチヤチヤニ", I think it should correctly be interpreted as "ヌプレ" 又ハ (or) "チヤチヤニ". AsPJT (talk) 13:21, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Emoticon of a heart? Similarly the smiley face (-)). JMGN (talk) 07:20, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

We have it: it's at Unsupported_titles/`lt`3. For emoticons with the greater than or less than signs, technical limitations mean we need a workaround with the page name. See Wiktionary:Unsupported titles. Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:47, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

As in No more cows to be ropened (My Rifle, My Pony and Me, by Dean Martin) JMGN (talk) 19:02, 23 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wrong, old or US version of macaroni ? Basnormand (talk) 04:33, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm finding a good number of instances at bgc, but they're all relatively old (pre-World War I). I think it used to be an {{alternative spelling of}}, but now it's probably just a {{misspelling of}}. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:15, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I reckon we're missing a sports definition of shoot, along the lines of "to throw an object by hand". The "launch" definitions of the verb talk about projectiles and weapons, but not something handheld like a basketball. The closest current entry is the gambling sense of throwing dice.

Perhaps shoot hoops is needed as well? -Stelio (talk) 09:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

"By hand" doesn't capture it. For example, one can shoot a hockey puck into the net. Similarly for soccer/football, lacrosse, jai alai. I don't know how many sports use shoot, but I think quite a few. If our definition-drafting skills lead to a separate definition for each sport, we're failing to deliver value to our users.

Throw wouldn't work for a more inclusive definition. "Cause an object to proceed to a goal or target" is something more inclusive, though the wording ("proceed" and "goal or target") need improvement. DCDuring (talk) 14:23, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Please see https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3Aspyrja#j-less-ness ~2026-24427-22 (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

What does "An analogy of the Papiamentu word nòmber "name"." mean? - -sche (discuss) 15:52, 24 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

(i) Sense 6: change "highly derogatory" to "derogatory". We can't rate these things on a scale. There are ruder words than this that do not say "highly" in the entries. (ii) Senses 10 and 11: remove "possibly now offensive". These are obsolete and wouldn't be used today anyway, and have no connection to anti-gay sentiment (compare the still current UK sense for a meatball). ~2026-25257-51 (talk) 09:40, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sorry to burst your bubble, but we do not delete entries solely because they are obsolete. SVG-image-maker (talk) 16:14, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

(I think the suggestion was to remove the label, not the sense.) - -sche (discuss) 17:30, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Correct. Snotty bubble-burster above is a poor reader, unfortunate on a dictionary project. ~2026-25257-51 (talk) 17:32, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary won't let me insert the text anywhere due to dirty words. The contents are here: [16]. ~2026-25257-51 (talk) 14:37, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Done! Inpacod2 (talk) 14:48, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Since 2014, we've presented the Latin suffix -uus as "Originally forming the perfect active participle". But I can't find a source that backs this up. There's a similarity to the PIE participle ending *-wṓs, but that is an athematic ending; Sihler 1995:619 specifically says that the only plausible continuation of this suffix in Latin is memor. (Apparently, Sabellic shows a continuation of Proto-Italic *-wōs as a passive participle ending.) It seems reasonable to say that Latin thematic -uus/-vus goes back to PIE thematic *-wós, but this doesn't obviously form perfect active participles (e.g. *gʷih₃wós (“alive”) doesn't seem to fit that description). The "perfect active" interpretation of the Latin examples also seems dubious to me; however, @Redeemed Angle Dust has been adding -uus adjectives as participle forms in the inflection table of Latin verbs, such as succido, divido, attingo, so I wanted to check if anyone knows of a source that supports this. Urszag (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I confess that I was also shocked to learn that adjectives ending in -uus were reminiscent of a perfect active participle in non-deponent verbs, but I wasn't the one who started this and I can explain myself.

I started adding these participles because some deponent verbs had an apparently irregular participle ending in -uus, one such example being "morior" with the participle "mortuus," which I previously thought was just an adjective.

So I went to the page of Latin terms suffixed in "-uus" and discovered that most derive from verbs without a supine root nor a perfect root, which led me to conclude that in reality these adjectives were the perfect active participle of these verbs, which were actually deponent and not defective verbs, like "morior", just as many of these adjectives had the meaning of participles or attributives.

So I think the same convention of suppletion that places "mortuus" as a participle of "morior" should also apply to these verbs, especially since it's very strange that there are so many of these verbs without a passive or perfect. Redeemed Angle Dust (talk) 16:51, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

I created a list-in-progress of languages underdocumented in Wiktionary. See the page in question for explanation. This aims to be a project to improve coverage of other languages. In particular, many languages have only 1 or 2 lemma entries.

I have gone through the listing the languages beginning with A and those beginning with B. The remainder still needs to be listed.

Here is the list in question: Wiktionary:Languages underdocumented in Wiktionary

You can share your thoughts below. SVG-image-maker (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

See Talk:shitass. ~2026-25257-51 (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Does our separation of senses 1 and 2 (and 3) make sense? Other dictionaries have only one sense. Cambridge has "a situation that causes a lot of problems for you when you start to deal with it", Dictionary.com has "a source of many unpredictable or unexpected problems", MW defines it as "Pandora's box" ("a prolific source of troubles"), Collins says "If you say that someone is opening a can of worms, you are warning them that they are planning to do or talk about something that is much more complicated, unpleasant, or difficult than they realize and that might be better left alone." - -sche (discuss) 17:29, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

At Proto-West Germanic *werran the etymology shows the term comes from an earlier *werʀan, but shouldn't the entry properly be moved to *werʀan ? Same for *werru (to *werʀu) ? Leasnam (talk) 18:53, 25 April 2026 (UTC)Reply