Category Archives: features

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We want your lists!

As you may know, every day, along with our Word of the Day, we tweet a List of the Day, or LOTD. Sometimes we pick lists based on a theme, like words from Scottish culture for Scots Week, and words from Star Trek for Science Fiction Week. Other times we picks lists just because we like them, like this one on coin collecting terms or this one on smelly synonyms (and who could resist the title, Stink Different?).

Now it’s your turn. For the month of February, nominate your favorite list to be a List of the Day. This can be your own list or someone else’s. You can also nominate as many lists as you want. If we pick your list, you’ll get a Wordnik T-shirt.

Here’s what we need from you:

  • The link to your list
  • Your Wordnik username
  • Your T-shirt size (Men’s S, M, L, XL, 2 XL) (Women’s S, M, L)

You can put the info in the comments of this post or email it to wordnik@feedback.com with the subject line, “List of the Day nominee.”

Have yet to make a list? First you’ll want to signup for a user account (don’t worry, it’s free), after which just click on your user name in the top right hand corner. From the drop down menu, click New List. Then start adding away!

Here’s even more info on lists, a whole bunch of lists at once, and the Community page which has the newest lists.

We look forward to seeing your nominations!

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Words in Fashion

Sidewalk-Catwalk: Carmen Marc Valvo design

It’s Fashion Week in New York! To celebrate, we’re showcasing some of our classic collections – the most stylish and sartorial of our lists.

First up on the catwalk, in honor of the haberdasher, “a dealer in small articles of dress and in ribbons, trimmings, thread, pins, needles, etc.; a dealer in hats; a hatter,” we have the Haberdashery and The Worshipful Company of Haberdashers.

Next, we have some Sartorial Splendor (sartorial means “of or relating to the quality of dress” and comes from sartor, the Latin word for “tailor”); some clothing styles and subcultures; and some fashion elegance, oddities, styles, and cool garments.

We have apparel portmanteaus and other silly words (like jeggings, mandals, and skorts); eponymous fabrics and articles of clothing; and even more fabrics and fabrications.

Hats Off! to some hats (we’ll take a fascinator, a tuque, and a pork pie in blue), some headgear (don’t forget your toupee, scrunchie, or tinfoil), and kerchiefs, for the head or hand.  Plus, oh my God, shoes: shoe types, shoes parts, and color words for shoes.

You know the saying: no shirt, no service. So put on these T-shirt animals, these wordy T-shirts worn by Wordniks, or these imaginary tees. While you’re at it put on something below the belt as well.

Feeling dressy? Try one of these dresses, or some ties and neckwear. Chilly? Put on one of these many coats and jackets. And no outfit would be complete without the perfect bag and piece of jewelry. But whatever you do, don’t commit a fashion faux pas.

For even more voguish verbiage, keep up with our Fashion Week words and lists of the day via Facebook and Twitter.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Nekenasoa]

 

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Wordnik’s New Word Page: Lists

Continuing our walk through our revamped word page (last week we talked about the expanded Related Words section), today we’ll look at Lists.

Let’s use last week’s example, tree. Here’s the top of the word page:

Click on List and you’ll be taken to this section of the page:

On the left, you’ll see some of our favorite lists containing tree (determined by our own brand of interestingness).  To the right, you’ll see your own lists.  Toggling the check box on and off a particular list adds or takes away the given word from that list.

Click the check box to add word to list.

Click on the check box again to remove the word from the list.

If you hover over a particular list, you’ll see view to the right.

Click view and you’ll be taken to the page of that particular list.

Going back to the word page, scroll down a bit and you’ll see even more lists that contain that word, along with the number of words in each list.

Curious about our favorite lists? Check out this post celebrating the milestone of 25,000 user-generated lists, and follow us on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with our lists of the day.

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Wordnik’s New Word Page: Related Words

You probably noticed that last month we launched a redesigned word page, and that our new pages include an expanded Related Words section.

What do we mean by “related words”?  Synonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, words used in the same context, a reverse dictionary, and tags. But what does all of that mean?

Here’s the top of the word page for tree:

Click on Relate and you’ll be taken here:

First up are synonyms, or words with the same or similar meaning, for instance, timber and sapling.

You’ll also find hypernyms, otherwise known as superordinates, or words that are more generic or abstract than the given word.  The prefix hyper- means “over, beyond, overmuch, above measure,” so you can think of a hypernym as a sort of umbrella over more specific words.  A hypernym for tree might be flora.

Hyponyms, or subordinates, are words that are more specific than the given word (the prefix hypo- means “under, beneath”).  Simal, coralwood, kingwood, and willow are specific types of trees (hey, that would make a great list!).  Same context refers to words that might be used in a similar context, such as wood, grass, garden, and branch. (One could argue that branch is also a meronym, or “a term that names part of a larger whole,” for tree.) We use the great resource WordNet for much of our hyponym and hypernym data.

The Reverse Dictionary section lists words that contain the given word in their definition. Tags are anything you might want to tag the given word and Tagging lists words that have been tagged with the given word.

We’d love your feedback as you explore our new Related Words section!

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Wordnik Mobile

When you visit Wordnik.com on a smartphone you now get a mobile-optimized version of the site, featuring definitions, examples, related words, and, new in this version, audio. The mobile site, http://m.wordnik.com, delivers the most commonly-sought information on Wordnik.com in a mobile-optimized design that’s easier and faster to use (and which iPhone users can easily add to their home screen). If you want more in-depth information you can click through to the full-sized (immobile?) site, and if you want to always get the larger site, you can opt out of the mobile version altogether.

Mobile traffic to Wordnik is growing—over twenty percent of visitors are using tablets or smartphones—and we strive to be the best source of language information, however and wherever you need it. Please let us know what we can do to keep making the mobile experience better.

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Improved Search: Wildcards and Lists

We’ve rolled out a handful of improvements to word search. There’s more on the way, but here’s a quick overview of two new features: wildcard searches and list search.

These can be used from our recently-added search results pages, which you can get to either from the ‘See all results for’ link at the bottom of the autocomplete results when you search from any page, or by going to http://www.wordnik.com/search directly.

The * wildcard matches any number of characters:
http://www.wordnik.com/search/*tacular

? matches any single character:
http://www.wordnik.com/search/f?t

Or you can limit single-character wildcards to just vowels or just consonants with @ and # respectively:
http://www.wordnik.com/search/f@rt
http://www.wordnik.com/search/#at

Searching without wildcards returns results similar to what you see from autocomplete, but includes results from lists, tags, and related words:
http://www.wordnik.com/search/cat

Or you can specifically focus on lists and see more results:
http://www.wordnik.com/search/lists/cat

Upcoming releases will allow regex-style searches and let you search other kinds of Wordnik content. If you’d like to see other search-related features, or have suggestions for how these should work, please let us know in the comments or through feedback@wordnik.com.

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25,000 Lists!

Congratulations, Wordniks and Wordies! This week we passed 25,000 lists*!

What is a list? A list is just a collection of words that anyone with a Wordnik account can create. The words may be related or not, real or not, common or proper, single words or phrases. It’s really up to you.

At Wordnik, we like lists so much that we share one every day on Twitter — our List of the Day. With more than 25,000, we have a lot to choose from!

There are lists that are weather–related, color–related, or that make us hungry. There are lists that play with words, describe words, and have fun with sound. There are lists that bring back memories, celebrate a holiday or an author (like Shakespeare). There are lists that are sporty, sleepy, scary, or spicy; vegetable or animal; hot or cold; naughty, naughtier, and naughtiest.

The Community page shows you what other Wordniks are doing with their lists, as well as recent activity, such as words that have been recently listed, the latest lists, and the most-commented-on lists and words. You can also find recently viewed words, the latest comments, recent pronunciations, and recent favorites.

Now go and make your own list. We know you want to.

*Special thanks to mollusque for bringing this awesome stat to our attention.