Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

For the guideline sometimes referred to as "Wikipedia is not a democracy," see Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion (WP:PNSD).

Further information: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a slang, jargon or usage guide. The goal of this project is to create an encyclopedia. Our sibling project Wiktionary has the goal of creating a dictionary. It is the "lexical companion to Wikipedia," and the two often link to each other. Wiktionary welcomes all editors who wish to write a dictionary.

Both dictionary entries at Wiktionary and encyclopedia articles at Wikipedia may start out as stubs — stub dictionary entries on Wiktionary and stub encyclopedia articles on Wikipedia. Wikipedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic, but should provide other types of information about that topic as well. The full articles that Wikipedia's stubs grow into are very different from dictionary entries.

Each article in an encyclopedia is about a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc.; whereas a dictionary entry is primarily about a word, an idiom or a term and its meanings, usage and history. In some cases, a word or phrase itself may be an encyclopedic subject, such as Macedonia (terminology) or truthiness.

One perennial source of confusion is that a stub encyclopedia article looks very much like a stub dictionary entry, and stubs are often poorly written. Another perennial source of confusion is that some paper dictionaries, such as "pocket" dictionaries, lead editors to the mistaken belief that dictionary entries are short, and that short article and dictionary entry are therefore equivalent.

Overview: encyclopedia vs dictionary

In this section we compare Wikipedia and Wiktionary (as a concrete example of a dictionary), but the principle is that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, not simply that it is not Wiktionary.

Major differences

	Wikipedia	Wiktionary
Articles are about:	a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc. that their title can denote. The article octopus is about the animal: its physiology, its use as food, its scientific classification, and so forth.	the actual words or idioms in their title and all the things it can denote. The entry octopus is about the word "octopus": its part of speech, its pluralizations, its usage, its etymology, its translations into other languages, and so forth.
Articles whose titles are different words for the same thing (synonyms):	are duplicate articles that should be merged. For example: petrol and gasoline.	warrant different entries (e.g. petrol and gasoline).
Articles whose titles are different spellings of the same word or lexeme:	are duplicate articles that should be merged. For example: colour and color.	warrant different entries (e.g. colour and color).
The same title for different things (homographs):	are found in different articles. For example: a rocket vehicle, rocket: Eruca sativa a salad plant, and rocket engine.	are to be found in one entry. (e.g. rocket).

One test is that an encyclopedia article's name can usually easily take many different equivalent forms, whereas a dictionary as a linguistic work is about the words in the title, and cannot usually be easily translated.

Minor differences

	Wikipedia	Wiktionary
Inflections:	Per the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (verbs), single-word article titles are usually nouns or verbal nouns (i.e. participles or gerunds), such as greengrocer and camping. Per the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals), article titles are singular. Other inflections, if they exist at all, are redirects.	Every inflection of a word is an entry in its own right, potentially with its own illustrative quotations. For examples: walk, walks, walked, and walking are all separate entries. The suffixes for the inflections are also entries: -ed, -ing etc.
Adjectives:	Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (adjectives) adjectives are usually redirected to nouns or are disambiguation pages or simply don't exist	Every adjective is a word/entry in its own right.
Language used:	Article titles are in the English language.	All words from all languages are accepted.
Proper nouns:	An article with a family name or a given name as its title is usually a disambiguation article, which links to all of the articles on people who are commonly known solely by that name, all of the places commonly known by that name, and all of the things known by that name. For examples: Hastings (disambiguation), Benedict, Bush The article will use {{wiktionarypar}} to link to the Wiktionary entries on the proper noun and any common nouns that have the same spelling.	An entry with a family name or a given name as its title is an entry for a proper noun, giving the etymology, meanings, translations, pronunciation, and so forth of that proper noun. For examples: Hastings, Benedict The entry will use {{Wikipedia}} or interwiki links to link to the Wikipedia articles. Wiktionary is also case sensitive, so entries for (English) proper nouns are separate from entries for (English) common nouns. For example: Bush, bush

Not size

Note that dictionary entries and encyclopedia articles do not differ simply on grounds of length. A full dictionary entry (as opposed to a stub dictionary entry, which is simply where Wiktionary entries start from) or encyclopedic dictionary entry would contain illustrative quotations for each listed meaning; etymologies; translations; inflections; links to related and derived terms; links to synonyms, antonyms, and homophones; a pronunciation guide in various dialects, including links to sound files; and usage notes; and can be very long indeed. Short dictionary articles are artifacts of paper dictionaries being space-limited. Not all dictionaries are limited by the size of the paper. Wiktionary is not paper either.

The dictionary definition trap

Good definitions

Both dictionaries and encyclopedias contain definitions:

First, those who collaborate on this opus must oblige themselves to define everything, without exception

— Diderot

Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic (or a few largely or completely synonymous or otherwise highly related topics), but the article should provide other types of information about that topic as well. An encyclopedic definition is more concerned with encyclopedic knowledge (facts) rather than linguistic concerns.

A definition aims to describe or delimit the meaning of some term (a word or a phrase) by giving a statement of essential properties or distinguishing characteristics of the concept, entity, or kind of entity, denoted by that term.

— Definition

A good definition is not circular, a one-word synonym or a near synonym, over broad or over narrow, ambiguous, figurative, or obscure. See also Fallacies of definition.

Wikipedia is not a usage guide

Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, phrases etc., should be used (but it may be important in the context of an encyclopedia article to discuss how a word is used).

Articles that have been heavily cut to avoid becoming usage guides include gender-neutral pronoun and non-sexist language. Articles with information on how a word is used include singular they, homophobia, sexism, and SNAFU. By a simple extension of the latter, Wikipedia is not a slang and idiom guide. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a hacker or a Cockney chimney-sweep; we're writing an encyclopedia. See meta:Knocking her dead one on the nose each and every double trey for a historical example. Some articles are encyclopedic glossaries on the jargon of an industry or field; such articles must be informative, not guiding in nature, because Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook.

Wikipedia is not a genealogical dictionary

There are special reference works known as genealogical or, more often, biographical dictionaries. These tend to focus primarily on the immediate family connections (parents, spouses, children and their spouses) of the article subject. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as such focuses more on the actions and contributions of an article subject. This means that many genealogical details may be omitted, for a better-flowing, more rounded article.

Biography articles should only be created for people with some sort of verifiable notability. A good measure of notability is whether someone has been featured in multiple, independent, reliable sources. However, minor figures may be mentioned within other articles (for example, Ronald Gay in Violence against LGBT people).

See also Wikipedia:Notability (people).

Neologisms

Template:See also

Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted, as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. You may wish to contribute an entry for the neologism to Wiktionary instead.

Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept we must cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept, not books and papers that use the term. An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy.

Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic, or use the term within other articles.

In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.

Handling problems

Fixing bad articles/stubs

A good encyclopedia article can and should begin with a relatively short but discrete explanation of what the subject of the article — the person, place, concept, event, or thing that its title denotes — is.

However, sometimes, a Wikipedia article (particularly stubs) will be badly written. Its introduction will say something such as "Dog is a term for an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus." or "Dog is a word that refers to a domesticated canine." Such articles are not dictionary articles. They are badly written encyclopedia articles, that should be cleaned up in accordance with our Guide to writing better articles. Simply replace the cumbersome phrasings such as "is a term for," "is a word that means," "refers to," with the very simple "is": "A dog is an animal with the binomial name Canis lupus." "A dog is a domesticated canine." (See: Writing better articles: Avoid using "refers to")

Sometimes, also, a Wikipedia article will be badly named. Its title will be an adjective or an adverb or an inflection of a verb that isn't a noun. Such articles are only dictionary articles if they can only discuss the word or phrase, rather than what the word or phrase denotes. If they discuss what the word or phrase denotes, then they should be renamed or merged to the title that adheres to our Wikipedia:Naming conventions. For example: "supermassive" is an adjective, and doesn't by itself denote an actual subject. “Supermassive black hole” is an actual subject.

Misplaced dictionary entries

Sometimes an article really is a mis-placed stub dictionary entry, that discusses the etymology, translations, usage, inflections, multiple distinct meanings, synonyms, antonyms, homophones, spelling, pronunciation, and so forth of a word or an idiomatic phrase.

If Wiktionary doesn't already have an entry for the word or idiom (which is unlikely), it can be copied to Wiktionary using the transwiki system, by marking the article with the {{Copy to Wiktionary}} template.

However, after copying, the final disposition of the article here is up to Wikipedia. If the article cannot be renamed, merged, or rewritten into a stub encyclopedia article about a subject, denoted by its title, then it should be deleted.

Pointers to Wiktionary

Template:Side boxA template can be used to point to a Wiktionary entry from a Wikipedia article which has encyclopedic content; for example, the code {{Wiktionary|dictionary}} produces a pointer to the Wiktionary definition of dictionary as illustrated here. For Wikipedia articles which could only ever be dictionary definitions and keep being re-created and re-deleted, or which could potentially be proper articles but are dictionary-like stubs at the moment, it is possible to salt them with a soft redirect to Wiktionary using code such as {{Wiktionary redirect|dictionary}}.

See also

• Wikipedia:Articles about words (User essay)
• Wikipedia:You are probably not a lexicologist or a lexicographer (essay)
• Wikipedia:Dealing with dictionary definitions (essay)
• Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists
• Category:Phrases - many phrase-related articles can be found in Wikipedia

External links

• "Shallow Page" on the MeatballWiki
• There is one exception to this rule - the Walloon Wikipedia is both an encyclopedia and a dictionary.

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