Wordnik
{{Short description|Online English language resource that provides dictionary and thesaurus content}}
{{Infobox website
| name = Wordnik.com
| logo = File:Wordnik-logo-300px.png
| url = {{URL|https://www.wordnik.com/}}
| type = Reference (dictionary, thesaurus, etc.)
| language = English
| registration = Optional
| num_users = 81,556 ({{As of|2012|01|20|lc=on}})
| owner = Wordnik Society, Inc.
| author = Wordnik Society Inc.
| launch_date = {{start date and age|2009|06}}
}}
Wordnik, a nonprofit organization, is an online English dictionary and language resource that provides dictionary and thesaurus content.{{Cite web| url=https://www.wordnik.com/about|title=Wordnik|website=Wordnik.com|access-date=2016-03-08}} Some of the content is based on print dictionaries such as the Century Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, WordNet, and GCIDE. Wordnik has collected a corpus of billions of words which it uses to display example sentences, allowing it to provide information on a much larger set of words than a typical dictionary. Wordnik uses as many real examples as possible when defining a word.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/business/wordniks-online-dictionary-no-arbiters-please.html|title=Wordnik's Online Dictionary: No Arbiters, Please|last=Eisenberg|first=Anne|date=2011-12-31|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-03-08}}
Wiktionary, the free open dictionary project, is one major source of words and citations used by Wordnik.
History
Wordnik.com was launched as a closed beta in February 2008{{Cite web|url=https://blog.wordnik.com/wordnik-is-becoming-a-not-for-profit|title=Wordnik is becoming a not-for-profit! {{!}} Wordnik|website=blog.wordnik.com|date=24 October 2014 |language=en-US|access-date=2018-06-23}} and opened to all in June 2009.{{cite web | url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/old-school-word-nerds-meet-the-digital-age/ | title=Old-School Word Nerds Meet The Digital Age | date=2009-06-08 | publisher=CBS News }} Cofounders of the site are CEO Erin McKean, editorial director Grant Barrett, and chief computational lexicographer Orion Montoya, and head of engineering Anthony Tam.{{Cite news|url=https://www.themuse.com/advice/dictionaries-lexicographer-working-in-tech|title=I Went From Working on Dictionaries to Tech|date=2018-03-14|access-date=2018-06-23|language=en|quote=In 2008 McKean founded Wordnik, the world’s largest online English dictionary (in terms of the number of words)}} McKean, Barrett, and Montoya all formerly worked in the US Dictionaries Department of Oxford University Press.{{cite web|url=https://blog.ted.com/erin_mckean_lau/|title=Erin McKean launches Wordnik – the revolutionary online dictionary|date=2009-06-08|publisher=TED Blog}}{{cite web | url=https://calgaryherald.com/life/Online+dictionary+lexicography+answer+Swiss+Army+knife/1688221/story.html | title=Online dictionary is lexicography's answer to the Swiss Army knife | date=2009-06-12 | work=Calgary Herald }}{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/08/AR2009070802728.html | title=Online Dictionary Site Wordnik Gets $3.7 Million Funding | date=2009-07-08 | newspaper=Washington Post | first=Rafat | last=Ali}} The startup company was originally headquartered in San Mateo, California.{{Cite news|url=https://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/10/26/the-webs-last-word-on-words/|title=Xconomy: The Web's Last Word on Words|date=2011-10-26|work=Xconomy|access-date=2018-06-23|language=en-US}}
In September 2009, Wordnik purchased the social language site Wordie.org. All Wordie.org accounts and data were subsequently transferred to Wordnik.{{cite web | url=http://blog.wordnik.com/wordnik-wordie-moving-day | title=Wordnik & Wordie: Moving Day! | date=2009-11-11 | publisher=Official Wordnik Blog }}
Wordnik's material is sourced from the Internet by automatic programs. It then shows readers the information regarding a certain word without any editorial influence. Wordnik does not allow for user-contributed definitions, but seems to assert that it may allow for this in the future.
In January 2011, McKean relaunched the company as Reverb Technologies, Inc. in Palo Alto, with Wordnik co-founder Anthony Tam.{{Cite news|url=https://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/03/12/if-you-like-jennifer-aniston-you-wont-like-this-article-about-reverb/|title=Xconomy: If You Like Jennifer Aniston, You Won't Like This Article About Reverb|date=2013-03-12|work=Xconomy|access-date=2018-06-23|language=en-US}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.mongodb.com/customers/reverb-technologies|title=Reverb Technologies|work=MongoDB|access-date=2018-06-23|language=en-us|quote=Reverb Technologies Vice President of Engineering and Technical Co-founder Tony Tam}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.infoq.com/articles/swagger-interview-tony-tam|title=APIs with Swagger : An Interview with Reverb's Tony Tam|website=InfoQ|access-date=2018-06-23}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.dandb.com/businessdirectory/reverbtechnologiesinc-paloalto-ca-34033400.html|title=Reverb Technologies Inc - Palo Alto, CA - Company Page|website=www.dandb.com|access-date=2018-06-23|quote=Founded: 2011. Location: Palo Alto, CA 94301. Contacts: Erin McKean. Employees: 5.}}
Under the name Reverb, they kept operating Wordnik.com, but also expanded its technology to other services and products, including "Reverb for Publishers" which was a plug-in for blogs to find related articles.
The company began a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 with the purpose of finding and adding a million words to Wordnik that had not yet been included in major English dictionaries.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1574790974/lets-add-a-million-missing-words-to-the-dictionary/description|title=Let's Add a Million Missing Words to the Dictionary|website=Kickstarter|language=en-US|access-date=2016-03-08}}
Statistics
{{As of|2012|01|14}}, Wordnik Zeitgeist reports that,{{cite web |title=Wordnik Zeitgeist |url=http://www.wordnik.com/zeitgeist |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110109111706/http://www.wordnik.com/zeitgeist |archive-date=2011-01-09 |access-date=2012-01-14 |publisher=Wordnik, Inc.}}
{{cquote|Wordnik is billions of words, 971,860,842 example sentences, 6,925,967 unique words, 231,628 comments, 178,718 tags, 121,432 pronunciations, 77,736 favorites and 1,022,649 words in 32,703 lists created by 81,138 Wordniks.|||Wordnik Zeitgeist}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official website|https://www.wordnik.com}}
{{Dictionaries of English}}
Category:Online English dictionaries