text:
Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/January

Where to put citations of variant forms
For example, User:Lbdñk moved this Dekkan citation to Deccan because Deccan is our "main entry" and Dekkan is a variant:. I dislike this because the citation is evidence for Dekkan and might be ignored/unseen if anyone challenges that specific form. On the other hand I am aware that the OED lumps everything together (but they go back many centuries). Is there policy about this? Or should there be? I feel that the Dekkan entry was much stronger and more defendable when it had a citation in it. Equinox ◑ 03:21, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This is a recurring issue, also discussed in the BP recently. Quotations says "inflected forms and alternative spellings can be cited as such, especially if their existence is in doubt, but it may be useful to gather their citations on the lemma's page." I think citations should (continue to) be allowed to be on the page for the spelling they attest, or at least on its Citations page, even if someone deems some of them particularly illustrative or famous and copies them over to the lemmatized spelling's entry. - -sche (discuss) 08:56, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I feel that it looks good and consistent when citations with alternative spellings are listed on the term's main entry. The readers can go through all the quotations together; and if citations with alternative spellings be spread through many pages (and especially in case of entries with many alternative forms) then there is every likelihood for the readers of missing those.
 * As I also wrote in the BP discussion, citations should go where they are the most helpful. That may indeed involve duplicating them. --Lambiam 12:55, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * But I think that the only purpose of having entries for alternative forms is to enable a reader reach the lemma. Otherwise, we could as well not have created entries for the alternative forms, but rather just have mentioned (i.e., without they being hyperlinked). We can give a citation in the entry for the alternative form of the term only in cases like  /  where they vary significantly in their meaning, spelling and usage: I find no problem with having citations of  in the  entry, and with the Dekkan entry remaining citation-less.
 * I mentioned before. Moving the citations from there to  would not serve to illustrate the senses or uses of the term; they are presented at the entry  solely for the purpose of attesting that this two-word spelling was indeed used.  --Lambiam 22:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd vote for requiring citations of alternate forms to be on the alternative form page or its citations page, with the alternate forms being optionally also usable as attestation of definitions on the main entry page, provided that there is some attestation for the definition in the main spelling. DCDuring (talk) 17:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Directing readers to the lemma is not the only reason we have alternative forms. I often look up the alternative form for information on that specific form's usage. Usage examples for a specific spelling sometime give clues to its geographical and temporal distribution. We don't always have that information on the alternative form page, but I think that would be the place for it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Where there is only a single sense, as is the case with "Dekkan"/"Deccan", it is not such a problem to put the quotations under the alternative form. The problem arises more when there are multiple senses. As mentioned at the linked BP thread, there is no way at the alternative form to differentiate the senses to which the quotations apply, short of repeating all the definitions there, which is a maintenance headache and inevitable recipe for definitions to randomly drift out of sync when there is actually no difference in meaning. Mihia (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

nim verb, derived forms
No offence Leasnam but I think we have another case here of some Old or Middle English being dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age, perhaps without backing citations. It says: nim (third-person singular simple present nims, present participle nimming, simple past nimmed or nam, past participle nimmed or nomen or num or numb). Is this interesting set of verbs really attestable post-1500 or wherever we draw the line? Equinox ◑ 03:28, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * My Macquarie Dictionary printed in 1992 has:

 * nim /nɪm/, v.t., nam or nimmed; nomen, nome, or nimmed; nimming. Archaic. 1. to take. 2. to steal. [ME; OE niman, c. G nehmem, Goth. niman]

 * So they certainly think it's attested in Modern English, despite being archaic. --Danielklein (talk) 12:07, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

 * We do not go by the authority of dictionaries but need actual attestations. --Lambiam 12:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I'm not RFVing it but I do feel that some of those forms are massively unlikely in Modern English. Equinox ◑ 13:45, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I would agree. I have not really encountered any past tenses like "nam", "nomen" outside of dictionaries, as mentions, or in Middle English itself. If this word is used at all today, I'm pretty sure the past would be "nimmed" (save for the odd, overly studious individual who, knowing the history of this word, may keep it strong). Leasnam (talk) 18:12, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the OED lists many past-tense forms in four groups, and the latest citation for a nam-like form, name, is c. 1540, early in the Modern English era (using 1500 as the dividing line), whereas the weak past-tense and past participial forms (including an interesting one, nempt) are all cited from 1606 and later. There are a few strong past participles that might or do qualify as Modern English: nummyn (before 1522), num (1566), nomman (1607). So the only strong form from the headword line that the OED confirms as Modern English is num, and numb is not found anywhere. — Eru·tuon 19:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The citation that has "nummyn" is also found in the Dictionary of the Scots Language and seems to be Scots. When I look at another edition of the work they're citing as having "nomman", it has "won", though perhaps some editions do have "nomman". (The 1933 OED that the Internet Archive has also seems to have one citation of numb'd, except that when I look at other editions, they all have nimm'd, nim'd, or nimmed.) And I can only find the one citation of num. I'm not actually sure the strong forms are attested, although it's possible. - -sche (discuss) 21:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * In the old A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, page 151, it says, "In most of its applications nim ... remained in common use down to the 15th cent. During the 16th there are few traces of it, but immediately after 1600 it reappears as a slang or colloquial word in the sense of 'to steal', and is very common in this use throughout the 17th cent." It provides a number of examples. -Mike (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

 * John Stephen Farmer and William Ernest Henley's Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: A Dictionary has a number of citations for the sense "steal", besides the citations of various senses that I added to the entry just now, but the only past tense form in their citations is nimmed (and variant spellings nimm'd and nim'd). I also didn't spot any citations (anywhere) of the sense "to take one's way; to go", and the only citation of "to take" is Middle English; I would suggest removing the former sense and folding the latter into "to steal", and removing the strong inflected forms, unless there are citations. - -sche (discuss) 18:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

caula
(Latin.) In 2015, it was requested at RFM that this be moved/merged to caulae because it's always plural. In 2017, the entry was recreated. Does it exist in the singular, in which case the singular should have a declension table and lose the note that says "always in the plural"(!), or should it be removed again? - -sche (discuss) 08:37, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Both Lewis & Short and Gaffiot only list the form caulae, so apparently no singular form is attested. ( writes cavile, but this appears to be a hapax legomenon. While L&S present this as a possible etymon of caulae, others think it is an ancient scribal corruption of caulae.) Rather than deleting the page, I suggest a hard redirect to . --Lambiam 12:11, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think we can use hard redirect for something like this that could be a word in another language. The fact that "Caula" is a name and "et Caula" is therefore found in non-Latin bibliographies makes searching difficult, but after it occurred to me to search with semantically related words, it seems like a word spelled this way may be mentioned and possibly attested in at least post-medieval Latin:
 * 1825, Lucius Apuleius, Apuleii opera omnia, ex editione Oudendorpiana cum notis et interpretatione accurate recensita, page 2045:
 * Est enim 'caula' quodvis sepimentum et cancelli. [...] Caula illa erat commoda ovium stabulationi, ut lib. III. p. 54.
 * - -sche (discuss) 17:56, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Are these uses or mentions? --Lambiam 22:25, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

on
The first definition at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/on#Preposition says:

"en"

- Positioned at the upper surface of, touching from above.

on the table; on the couch

The parrot was sitting on Jim's shoulder.

This definition is incomplete. "There is a fly on the wall and a spider on the ceiling." To me this is the same meaning of "on".

"Positioned at the surface of, touching." would be a better definition, however I'll leave it for others to do in case people think I'm mistaken. My print Macquarie Dictionary gives:

"en"

- contact with any surface

''the picture on the wall; the shoes on my feet

''

There is another definition here for which seems to overlap the first definition:

"en"

- Covering.

''He wore old shoes on his feet.

''

I'm trying to think of other examples for this meaning. Perhaps this meaning should be removed or incorporated into the first definition.

--Danielklein (talk) 11:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think you are right on both counts. Here is a nice quote showing that on does not imply the upper surface: “US tax law recalls the lumpy build-up of chewing gum on the underside of a school desk”. And “flip-flops on her feet” establishes that “covering” is not needed for covering the shoeing sense; rather, for most pieces of clothing, their nature is such that they will cover part of one’s body when they are on it, just like putting a table cloth on (the surface of) a table will cover it. So IMO this sense should be merged with the (generalized) first sense. --Lambiam 12:35, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The first sense is good and shouldn't be combined with any of these others. If you read down further, #7 applies to the fly, spider or picture. As to #3, another source gives 'to cover, overlie, overspread'. So that one is good but obviously incomplete. -Mike (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that definition one is the necessary starting point for the preposition definitions, because it is the core, typical meaning. Most (all?) other meanings seem to be extensions, metaphors, etc from that definition. DCDuring (talk) 02:03, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I can't see how one of these meanings could be exclusively "on top of" and not include general "touching". I can put a magnet on the table or the fridge. Assuming a wooden table, only one of these is "on top of", but the meaning seems the same to me: touching. Sense #7 seems to be mostly about hanging. The fruit isn't directly on the tree but is hanging by a stem. The picture is hanging by a hook or a string. Unless those examples are just way too narrow. The spider, fly, and magnet aren't hanging. --Danielklein (talk) 04:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

as ... as they come / as it gets / as can be
Worth entries? Canonicalization (talk) 14:14, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * We have an entry, which I think is the original form; I believe variants like “as sweet as it gets” are snowclones. The others appear to be truly variable (as clean/fresh/tough as they come; as near/small/wrong as can be) and entry-worthy. The prime example of the last one is of course Eeyore being “as happy as could be” playing with his birthday gifts. The current common version with the present indicative is probably derived from this earlier version employing the past subjunctive. Or should we consider this a different idiom? Here is one use as early as 1794: “as tame as could be”. --Lambiam 16:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Does as happy as could be contain the past subjunctive or the conditional indicative? As happy as it would be possible to be? It's not clear to me that this is subjunctive, but then the subjunctive is not often clear in English, other than with the past subjective of "to be".

 * Raising the terrifying shadows of when we had "placeholder" entries like as X as can be... clearly these are as X as Y phrases and it's a bit unnatural to break them apart.  Perhaps something along the lines of Appendix:Snowclones is the best job, with redirects?! I don't know if I'm serious or not but I don't want to see either (i) those awful placeholder entry names again or (ii) entire idioms broken in half just to meet entry title rules. Equinox ◑ 04:35, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I made as they come and like no other FTW Indian subcontinent (talk) 08:29, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I added a brief definition to as they come but feel free to improve upon it by all means Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:59, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Old English
According to Ringe, this should have a plain velar rather than a palatalised one due to the former presence of a labiovelar consonant. Are there any dictionaries that corroborate this? Neither Köbler nor Bosworth-Toller make the distinction, so they're no help. —Rua (mew) 19:15, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I can find very little discussion of anything even quasi-related to this topic, but if it's of any use, this paper asserts in a footnote that "in West Germanic, the factitive *þrangwija- would, in any case, by the loss of w after ng, have coincided with the alleged iterative [...] This is comparable to the regular loss of w after nk in West Germanic, cf. OHG, OS sinkan, OE sincan vs Go sigqan [...] < Common Gmc *sinkwa- 'to sink' and the corresponding causative OHG senken, OS (bi-)senkian, OE (be-)sencan vs. Go. sagqjan [...] < Common Gmc *sankwija- 'to make to sink'." And On language: rhetorica, phonologica, syntactica : a festschrift for Robert P. Stockwell from his friends and colleagues (1998, ed. by Caroline Duncan-Rose), page 186, says: "(a-, be-)sencan 'to sink, submerge', (to-)stencan 'to scatter', [...] < Gmc. *-angjan or *-ankjan, pret. *-angida/*-ankida. The underlying structure common to all examples is of the kind ȧ + n [ŋ] + velar (g, k) + i + dental (d, t, þ)." Perhaps I need to rethink this after I get some sleep, but at a glance, this might support the idea that sencan has the same velar as sincan, or at least to give leads on some similar words whose pronunciation that could be checked (which this might also). - -sche (discuss) 18:55, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This doesn't explain Middle English (same meaning) which did show palatalization, implying that its ancestor  contained a palatal as well. Regressive palatalization crossing over non-palatal consonants between a velar and a palatalizing vowel is not unparalleled (cf. several descendants of  in the Slavic languages). Or Rua's hypothesis of labiovelars being stripped of labial quality in Proto-West Germanic could work as well. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 17:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

for more attention from the Old English community. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 17:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It seems a palatised variant did occur in Old English, as we have, (=besenċean, besenċeaþ) beside . Leasnam (talk) 18:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * But is there also any evidence confirming an unpalatalised variant? Palatalisation would be the default in a class 1 weak verb anyway. —Rua (mew) 14:46, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

The Earth's Plates: Techtonicity Ain't The Whole Story.
The word "tectonic," most commonly used to describe the Earth's moving plates, is derived from P.I.E. and then Greek roots meaning carpenter. Thus the emphasis of the word would seem to be on the plates' making-up or constituting Earth's structure. This seems a little odd: how are the plates more structural than, say, the mountain ranges where they crash into one another? More oddly, why do we always seem to refer to the plates with a word emphasizing their structurality when what's important about them, qua plates, is the fact that they scoot around and crash into one another? We don't notice their individuality when they're stable for us. It's the earthquakes, or rather Earthquakes, that make us aware that Earth's surface comes in floating bergs. Certainly, the fact that the Earth is a structure is important to us. We have to stand on something. What's important about the ground, however, is the fact that it's there, not the fact that it's made up out of plates which are hundreds or thousands of kilometres in extent -- or merely a few hundred kilometres in extent. I can't find a Proto-Indo-European root for "scoot," but Wikipedia does have one for carry:
 * bʰer- "to carry"	bear (< OE beran)	baíran "to carry"	ferō (ferre) "to carry"	pʰerō "I carry"	bʰarati "(he) carries"	Av baraiti "(he) carries"; OPers barantiy "they carry" NPers bordan "to carry" Kurdish birin "to carry, to take"	OCS berǫ (bĭrati) "to carry"	Lith berti "to pour non liquid"	OIr biru "I carry"; W beru "to flow"	berem "I carry"	bie "I carry"

Here's another one for convey:

 * weĝʰ- "to convey"	weigh (< OE wegan "carry"); way (< OE weġ); wain "wagon" (< OE wæġn)[28]	ga-wigan "to move, shake"	vehō (vehere) "to convey"	Pamphylian wekʰétō "he should bring"; Cypriot éwekse "brought there"	váhati "(he) drives"	Av vazaiti "(he) leads, carries"	OCS vezǫ (vesti) "to drive"	OPrus weztun "to ride", Lith vežti "to drive"	OIr fēn, W gwain (type of wagon) < *weĝʰ-no-; W arwain "to lead"		vjedh "I steal"		Hier Luw wa-zi/a- "drive"

How about beranic or perhaps weganic plates? The latter appeals to me more. The plates both move and carry, as wagons do.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 15:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

 * This page is meant to be a place to go for help on finding and discussing information about particular words, such as senses, pronunciation and quotations. It is not a place for proposing protologisms. In fact, none of Wiktionary is a good place for that. Wiktionary records language as it has been used and is being used. --Lambiam 16:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

 * There is Appendix:LOP, if you want to add these there. - -sche (discuss) 19:03, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

brother, etymology section
"Superseded non-native 🇨🇬 borrowed from 🇨🇬". That doesn't make sense, does it? Canonicalization (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Especially since the entry  doesn’t mention the sense ”brother”. --Lundgren8 (t · c) 17:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Added in diff. Perhaps it was intended to apply only to the 'fellow member of a fraternal order' sense? Certainly the continued used of the native word did not "supersede" a not-enduringly-adopted loanword. - -sche (discuss) 20:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * In the sense of "brother, member of a brotherhood, associate", the word brother (plural brethren) superseded it, since "friar" is not used in that sense. We use brother today. Friar only has use nowadays in a religious sense. If both brother and frere were used interchangeably at the same time, and one slowly gave way to the other, then one superseded the other. Leasnam (talk) 00:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

to
Preposition definition #3:

 * 3.
 * He devoted himself to education.
 * They drank to his health.

Coded as a "non-gloss definition" but seems not to be, but when considering changing this, it occurred to me ... is it just me, or do neither of the usage examples actually illustrate a meaning "for the purpose of"? Mihia (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yeah, either the usexes or the definition is not great. - -sche (discuss) 19:02, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I might not be totally accurate here, but I always understood this to be a to-infinitive, also called the "infinitive of purpose". So, to my mind it is NOT a preposition in this instance. A LGRIF  talk 21:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems more likely to me that it's either bifunctional, or a preposition. German uses a preposition ("[um...]zu") in these cases. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I would also agree with - -sche that the usex are not at all representative of this function - "purpose". Purpose answers the question "why?" an action was taken, and is communicated by "action verb followed by to infinitive verb." "I picked up the pen to write a quick note to myself." In other uses, the preposition would normally be for. A pen is used for writing. I'm not at all clear on how the usex -- to + noun -- could possibly be construed as purpose. -- A LGRIF  talk 18:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The "to"s in the usage examples are definitely prepositions. The definition "For the purpose of" is also prepositional in nature, so could not, as it stands, be a definition applicable to the to-infinitive, which is covered separately under "particle". Mihia (talk) 23:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I should have made myself more clear. Of course the "to"s in the usex are prepositions fronting a noun phrase. However, my argument is that it does NOT represent a purpose. He devoted himself to the purpose ??? of education. Hmmmm. They drank to the purpose ??? of his health. Hmmmm again. A LGRIF  talk  21:16, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

 * See also Tea_room/2020/February. Mihia (talk) 22:53, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

'a**' meaning 'ass'
Why was this deleted: a**? "a**" is pronounced as /æ[censorship beep]/ where the beep is usually not created by a human's mouth. The string "a***" has been used as a censored version of "ass" or "arse". "a***" is a typo if censoring "ass". I'd kind of understand if an entry for "a***" was deleted, but deleting a** is too far. --User123o987name (talk) 11:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

 * See also Requests for deletion/English. --Lambiam 23:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

notch
User:Zeimusu added a sense, which I reverted. I did so partly because it included a link to another website, and partly because it seemed like the sense: "To fit an arrow to a bow by means of the notch cut at the end of the arrow" would be better treated as "Alternative form of nock", since "nock" seems to be used more for this meaning among archers. It's hard to test this, but Google Book searches for "notching"+arrow and "nocking"+arrow show more hits for "nocking", in spite of all the hits referring to cutting notches in arrows for "notching". In hindsight, my revert was a bit excessive, so I thought I would get other opinions on the best way to handle this in the entry. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Fascinating. The sense does seem to exist. Certainly it and the (near?-)synonymous sense of nock should be linked. But I wouldn't call it an alternative form, per se, since it seems likely to be (thought by its users to be) derived from the noun notch and thus to have a distinct etymology besides a different pronunciation. I'm unsure whether it should be viewed as an erroneous/nonstandard synonym, or one validly derived from the noun notch (which could exist despite the verb nock also existing derived from the noun nock). (whale vs wale, and by extension whale on vs wale on, comes to mind.) - -sche (discuss) 22:18, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

 * According to the Online Etymology Dictionary this sense of the verb is from the 1630s, which gives it a respectable age. --Lambiam 02:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

someone is piss funny, ugly, etc
Two comments on Talk:piss alerted me to the fact that "[x] is piss funny" or "...are piss funny", or "...piss-funny" with a hyphen, is indeed attested, as are other phrases like "piss-ugly" (see that talk page for some citations). The commenters took "piss" to be an adverb, but I'm not sure that's the best way to analyse it. How should such usage be covered? - -sche (discuss) 22:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

 * We categorize intensifiers like and   as adverbs; I see no immediate argument why piss should be different. It seems that a usage note may be in order stating that these adverbs are only used to modify adjectives and not verbs.  --Lambiam 02:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The "funny" one might conceivably be different, as indicated by this. It would be attributive use of the noun under that interpretation. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Hmm... should we also consider e.g. bright to be an adverb because of bright red/green/white/purple/etc? (Not a rhetorical question.) - -sche (discuss) 03:55, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * A better argument than that construction is surely shines bright etc. which seems entirely equivalent to suffixed . --Tropylium (talk) 16:21, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * True, modifying a verb is good evidence that bright is an adverb. Does piss also modify verbs? If not, the question remains/becomes, if it only modifies adjectives, is it an adverb? (I recently changed ghastly to use a clearly-adverbial, verb-modifying citation to avoid this very question.) I can also find e.g. "Nigel is hell funny" with that superficially looks like another vulgar noun, but may be better considered shortening of hella. (Our existing hell citation is not comprehensible to me.) - -sche (discuss) 17:30, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that's proof bright is an adverb. It seems close to, which is not an adverb, pace our entry: when we say The company was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century (an example sentence I've taken from Longman), we're not describing the manner in which the company is dragged, but the state in which it is while being dragged. Canonicalization (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yeah, "I stood amazed" (state: adjective; not a posture of standing) isn't the same as "I stood awkwardly" (posture). Equinox ◑ 20:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Bringing this back to the original topic, what part of speech is "intensifier" use of piss? - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * dirt-poor = poor as dirt; piss-poor = poor as piss, maybe? Mihia (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Viewing it as the noun makes sense to me. I've added it as a sense of the noun. - -sche (discuss) 04:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Latin adhoc
What is it? A mistake by the entry's creator, a misspelling or nonstandard spelling, a medieval spelling? It's not in L&S, and Gaffiot only has "ădhoc, c. adhuc [mss]." --B-Fahrer (talk) 10:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * So Gaffiot refers the reader to their entry adhuc while informing us that this form has been found in manuscripts, without giving further specifics – but Gaffiot typically does not include Vulgar or Late Latin, so these would be manuscripts in Classical Latin. --Lambiam 12:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

-ennial
A fairly clear case of a pseudo-suffix. Seems to be used in etymologies mostly only as a part of a supposed surface analysis; a possible exception is ). Do we really need this entry? If there are corner cases where a Latin original clearly cannot be attested, they might be describable as analogical.

(I am kind of of the opinion that only endings that are productive either currently or in "recent" past should be described as suffixes, but YMMV.)

The etymology is also definitely wrong, this is clearly not derived within English but simply extracted from the (Latin-borrowed), etc. --Tropylium (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * FWIW, and  are also attested (though many of the latter hits are from seemingly non-native speakers); I also see one hit for monoennial. There've been some arguments before over whether use of a suffix-like ending "extracted" from other words is (always) a suffix or not; Talk:-x (and Talk:-os) comes to mind, regarding cases where no French (or Hebrew, etc) etymon exists but the user of the -x-ified (or -os-ified) word in English thought one did (probably -os should be re-RFVed). As an aside, the etymologies of e.g. triennial surely need to be changed to reflect that the Latin etymon is not the noun triennium but the adjective triennialis. ( is also attested, where  is apparently not, but that one could still be viewed as the attested noun  + -al.) - -sche (discuss) 17:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

simony
I think the definition of simony is a bit too narrow. "The act of buying and selling ecclesiastical offices and pardons." This is contradicted by the example below the definition, regarding a monstrance rather than an office or pardon. Or in nonfiction we have a 2017 opinion of a New York judge: "The withholding of a Get to extort financial concessions from one's spouse constitutes simony, i.e., an exchange of supernatural things for temporal advantage." (A get, etymology 3, is a Jewish husband's grant of permission for his ex-wife to remarry.) Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Good point. Indeed, what the eponymous Simon himself tried to buy was not an office per se but an ability. Maybe something like "The act of buying and selling ecclesiastical or religious offices, property, pardons, or favours."? This includes the "get" and the power Simon sought, if one accepts that granting it constitutes a "favour", which seems tolerable but not ideal: I think there must be some better word than "favour" that could be used. - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the word is also used with regards to selling consecrated or blessed objects, as the monstrance would be in the quotation, so it's even broader than what you propose (unless you'd include that sort of thing under "property", in which case it would be narrower). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking at how other sources define this: How about: "The buying or selling of spiritual or sacred things, such as ecclesiastical offices, pardons, or consecrated objects." ? - -sche (discuss) 00:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia says it's "selling church offices and roles or sacred things"
 * catholicculture.org says it's "buying and selling what is spiritual in return for what is temporal"
 * Merriam-Webster says it's buying or selling "church office or ecclesiastical preferment"
 * Dictionary.com says it's selling "sacred things", or buying or selling "ecclesiastical preferments, benefices, etc."
 * Collins says it's buying or selling "sacred or spiritual things, as sacraments or benefices"
 * Urban Dictionary says it's "irrational love of mediocre Cubs first-baseman Randall Simon", which amused me
 * oxfordreference.com says it's buying or selling "ecclesiastical privileges, for example pardons or benefices"
 * Looks good to me! I think that nicely captures the range of meaning without being unwieldy. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:30, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

is go
This also exists as are go. Does it exist in other forms, and should it be moved to either be go or go (as a new adjective section)?__Gamren (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "is go" and "are go" should be deleted, and the relevant meaning should be covered at "go". Mihia (talk) 00:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There is also "are a go". All systems are a go (=all systems are being given the green light), with the indefinite article, but it is not mentioned on Wiktionary.
 * The sense of go in are/is a go would seem to be definition 4 of go. I don't know whether the sense of go in is/are go is an adjective or a noun. We don't have it as an adjective. DCDuring (talk) 12:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You are right that go may be adjectival there, but I'm English and I don't recognise "are go" apart from in US movies. English people are at various different stages in terms of adoption of US colloquialisms, but Google Ngrams does show that "are go" is used in British English too (arguably a borrowing from the US???), but it seems that "are a go", a minority variant in both types of English, is more common in the UK than in the US.
 * To me (UK) "is/are go" seems American in flavour, and I particularly associate it with space missions ("all systems are go"). The combination "are a go" seems unfamiliar to me. To me, "go" in "is/are go" seems entirely detachable in meaning from the "be" verb, but I also do not feel certain what PoS it is. It seems possible (less usual) to informally use certain other verbs in a similar way. For example, "all these components are fail" or "these boxes are all keep; the rest can be thrown away". Mihia (talk) 21:44, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Well, I have added it as an adj sense at go, and I will refer is go and are go to RFD. 18:40, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Lemma is . "How soon will X be go?" Equinox ◑ 18:42, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, if "go" is treated as an adjective (as per several other dictionaries), then there is no need for "be go" any more than "is go", "are go", "was go" or anything else. May I suggest that further discussion about the SoPness of this now takes place at the RFD entry that I have just created. Mihia (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

"moosak" as plural of moose?!
This is given as a non-std plural, but in Google Books I find zero relevant hits for "moosak are", "of moosak", "two moosak", "some moosak". Is it English at all? If removed, please also remove the related usage note, as it will no longer apply. Equinox ◑ 20:24, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Added in diff (and probably at other times, but that was the first addition I found while going through the history since my last edit to the usage notes). I've removed it again as it previously failed RFV: Talk:moosak. - -sche (discuss) 20:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

transience: why two senses?
(Yeah, I've realised that raising discussion in WT:TR is much more efficient than an RFV. Ha ha! Stop abusing it, Equinox.) So we have got two senses here: 1. "the quality of being transient, temporary, brief or fleeting", 2. "an impermanence that suggests the inevitability of ending or dying". 2 sounds a bit cute and poetic, like some random heartbreakee might have dropped it whitely and stickily from her overhead flight. Do we think these are really two separately attestable senses? I would like to imagine that shit like and  is real but please convince me. Equinox ◑ 04:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I get the feeling that you think the 2nd definition might be in a state of transience, and I agree. -Mike (talk) 17:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The quality of X and a state of X are generally the same to me. Ultimateria (talk) 23:03, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * They don't substitute into the same phrases. have the quality of X vs. in the state of X. One can punt by using "state or quality" in the definition. DCDuring (talk) 01:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Well-chosen example sentences might help to shed light on the semantic distinctions (if any). I think a sense is missing: the state of being a transient . --Lambiam 14:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

retection
Since I'm here (don't abuse it Equinox), retection etymology 2 is pretty damn curious. I am familiar with words formed from mistakes (ageing Usenet nerds will recall and ) but I wonder about the spread and uptake of this one. It's so specific. Equinox ◑ 04:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Someone commented on talk that the paper referenced in etymology 2 was not claiming a new definition, which suggests that even if other people have come to use it some mean something different (i.e. that the entry should have two senses), it's not a separate etymology. - -sche (discuss) 10:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've combined the etymology sections. - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Old English
According to Köbler's dictionary, this is a u-stem noun. Bosworth-Toller lists as dative singular both (a-stem) and  (u-stem). —Rua (mew) 11:05, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The only other declension attested other than the nominative/accusative and dative singulars in BT is the nominative/accusative plural, which is an a-stem plural. And the total a-mutation across all attestations heavily implies a-stem declension (Florian Baschke had also suggested that the genitive singular could have triggered a-mutation as well in u-stems that would be generalized across the paradigm). has a familiar problem - across the attestations listed on BT, 95% of the time the dative singular is a u-stem, but also 95% of the time the rest of the declension is an a-stem. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 20:02, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Recondit?
I have found quotations for the word reconditing, collected at Citations:reconditing, with the apparent sense "synonym of reconditioning". However, I can't tell what the infinitive form of the verb is – searches for recondit, recondits and recondited have not yielded appropriate results. Would anyone else like to try? — SGconlaw (talk) 18:48, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

 * If there are only a few citations like this, it seems plausible (likely, even) that reconditioning was meant and a syllable was simply deleted in typing/writing. (I recall something like that coming up on RFV recently, though I can't find it offhand.) Alternatively, if you could find recondite(s) in this sense, it might be another sense of that string of letters, perhaps a back-formation from recondition pronounced something like /ɹikəndɪʃ(ɪŋ)/. - -sche (discuss) 22:34, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * given the different quotations over a number of years it doesn’t seem like a mistake, but an intentional contraction of reconditioning. It also occurred to me that it’s possible that the word developed independently and there are no other inflections (*recondits or *recondited, for example). Wonder if I should move it to the entry page? I agree with you about the likely pronunciation. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:36, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, a handful of authors making the same typo is not rare. And, looking at the citations, I see that the first quote you cite is from a work that seems to use "reconditing" just once(?), but uses the expected spelling "reconditioning" fifty or sixty times (Google finds slightly differently numbers in this copy vs this one). The second work you cite likewise seems to not just use the expected spelling "reconditioning" elsewhere in the work, but even, in other editions, use reconditioning in the very sentence you cite. It's clearly just a typo in some editions. I think sometimes editors (including me) have blinders, in thinking we've found citations of something, and don't remember to check that it's not just noise. (I once found three cites of the reverse phenomenon, spurious addition of letters to a word resulting in licencise, which however looks [or looked in 2012; I haven't re-checked for citations] also like an error, for reasons discussed back then at Talk:licensize.) - -sche (discuss) 12:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, will leave it at the citations page for now, pending further evidence. Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * When I do a Google search for "reconditing", I am asked, “ Did you mean: "reconditioning"”. I think it is safe to replace Synonym of by Misspelling of and remove the label . --Lambiam 15:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how indicative Google's spelling suggestions are. You tend to get them whenever lesser-known words and phrases are searched for. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Hyponyms at long
Is (for example) "hour-long" really a hyponym of "long"? An hour-long event is really quite short, on the general scale of things. I'm guessing this large section was Sae's doing, since I have seen him do similar things with combining terms like "English-based" from "based". Should we change them to Derived Terms maybe? Equinox ◑ 21:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think so. That's certainly not what I think of when I think of hyponyms. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * See also Tea_room/2019/December. Allegedly "derived terms" are "morphological derivatives". Is "hour-long" a "morphological derivative" of "long"? Mihia (talk) 00:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

put someone in their place
Why two different senses? I don't see a distinction, and other dictionaries apparently don't either. Canonicalization (talk) 12:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Putting someone in their place always implies a put-down; I don’t think there is a neutral use of the phrase. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sense 2, "To bring somebody down; to humble or rebuke", has the usage example "His quips at the party aimed to put the CEO in his place". Sense 1, "To remind someone of his position", would not fit that example, since his position as CEO would elevate him. My guess is that the contrast is supposed to be that sense 1 would apply to e.g. a boss talking to a minion. I'm not certain whether this justifies two senses though. Mihia (talk) 23:40, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

take the plunge
I don't see the first sense ("To get engaged to be married") as different from the second, generic one ("To begin any major commitment"). I'm not fond of the wording of that second sense either, by the way: I think it's missing something. Compare those definitions: Canonicalization (talk) 12:12, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Lexico: "Commit oneself to a course of action about which one is nervous"
 * Collins: "to resolve to do something dangerous or irrevocable"
 * Longman: "to decide to do something important or risky, especially after thinking about it for a long time"
 * Macmillan: "to finally do something important, difficult, or dangerous after thinking about it"
 * Cambridge: "to make a decision to do something, especially after thinking about it for a long time".

in hospital
Is the US sense real and distinct from the preceding sense? (Is it not just an sense?) I can only recall hearing this phrase [without "the"] from Britons and space-saving headline-writers, and on the talk page, Backinstadiums raises the additional question of whether the two senses are distinct. - -sche (discuss) 12:37, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the entry as a whole may warrant a deletion discussion. In or at followed by a place always implies being at that place to do something related to the place. I’m not sure it is useful to have entries like at the restaurant (“having a meal in a restaurant”) and in school (engaging in a course of study at a school). — SGconlaw (talk) 12:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is a useful place to highlight one of several prepositional phrases that have the zero determiner. This particular one also is typically used only in the UK branch of the language. Other nouns that have the null determiner with certain prepositions (eg, to, from, at, in, for) are, ''home, school, church, work, play, town, court, chambers. DCDuring (talk) 11:04, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't recognize sense two as US. DCDuring (talk) 11:08, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, seems pretty British to me. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:44, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure whether sense 2 exists separately in BrE either. In BrE "in hospital" is normally used of someone staying in a hospital as a patient, as in sense 1. If someone said "I met a friend in hospital", for instance, it would imply that they were a patient. It would not be said if they were present in the hospital for some other reason. Because of this restricted use, and also per DCDuring, I believe that sense 1 at least is sufficiently idiomatic to keep. Mihia (talk) 23:30, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Just noting that I removed/merged the second sense and the entry now has only one sense, which is labelled as chiefly British. If it's also used in Ireland, Canada, Australia, NZ, etc, please add that. - -sche (discuss) 18:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

speak volumes
I don't see a difference between senses 2 and 3. Canonicalization (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Ultimateria (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

say it all
Our definition ("To express the essential characteristics of a person, thing, or situation in a concise, well-crafted turn of phrase or in some other pithy manner") isn't quite similar to that of other dictionaries, which sound synonymous with :
 * Collins: "If you say that something says it all, you mean that it shows you very clearly the truth about a situation or someone's feelings"
 * Macmillan: "used for saying that something shows very clearly what someone’s feelings are or what a particular situation is really like"
 * Merriam-Webster: "to completely express (a meaning, emotion, etc.) without using words"

Add a second sense? Canonicalization (talk) 13:50, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Sure; the current lone sense does not cover the idiomatic use in phrases like “the look on his face said it all” or “his grin said it all” .  --Lambiam 15:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

turn up one's nose
Again, I don't see a difference between senses 2 and 3. Canonicalization (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that the elaboration “especially in conjunction with the gesture of raising one's nose” for the figurative senses should be omitted; compare the definition of sense 2 of the verb. Also, I don’t think it makes sense to use the literal translation of an Ancient Greek verb (ἐκμυκτηρίζω) to attest this English idiom. --Lambiam 15:52, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The difference is subtle, but the target of the nasal upturning for sense 3 is necessarily something offered, while for sense 2 it can be almost anything, such as, for example, a cultural trend. (And even if the target is an offer: one can regard an offer with contempt yet not refuse it, say for political expediency, which fits sense 2 but not sense 3. However, as I understand the idiom there has to be some ostentation about it, so a use fitting such a hypothetical case is unlikely to be found.) Maybe there is a formulation that unifies these senses, but I do not immediately see one.

CLAF
I don't understand how this passed RFV (Talk:CLAF). There's only one citation given (on the Citations page) and it isn't for either of the senses listed in the entry! Equinox ◑ 00:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yeah, it is a bit curious to say in the same breath that it passed RFV and that it is up to RFV to decide whether the available cites suffice. IMO moving this from RFD to RFV (at a time these exact same cites were available!) was not a good idea to start with. My preference remains to delete this. --Lambiam 10:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Even better, it passed RFV yet its RFD remains stagnant. I think I'll RFC it to, just to get more tags on the top of the page. --Yesyesandmaybe (talk) 13:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As mentioned in the RFV discussion, Lambiam linked to some uses in the RFD discussion, but for some reason they weren't added to the entry or its citations page.... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:16, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Having links to Google should not be enough to close an RFV, since Google is notorious for removing free access to things (Maps API) and killing services altogether (Buzz, Wave, Orkut). Equinox ◑ 22:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Also, in the uses I linked to the initialism did not stand for “ Change Look And Feel”, at the time the only sense and still present as the def of a sense classified as a verb, although in the uses (like here) it is used grammatically as a noun phrase. --Lambiam 12:25, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

long-standing
I think neither of our definitions covers adequately the collocation long-standing friend. Canonicalization (talk) 11:05, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "Of long duration" would cover all collocating nouns, wouldn't it? DCDuring (talk) 11:14, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it would be better, yes; we wouldn't have to resort to splitting, it seems to me. Canonicalization (talk) 11:31, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

holocaust
Just came across this in an opinion article:
 * It might seem bonkers that some of the worst climate-change deniers seem committed to blaming "greenies" for the holocaust on the eastern seaboard. (John Birmingham, Brisbane Times, )

It struck me that although the second definition at is the closest fit, "near or complete annihilation" in it could make the applicability arguable. Especially if you read "(near) annihilation" as "killing/death of (nearly) all members of a set". Is the current definition of 2 too specific? Other dictionaries have "thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life" (MW), "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale" (Ox.) or "great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life" (American Heritage), all also naming fire in particular. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  13:52, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * This is a good point. The word does not seem to be limited to near or complete annihilation, but can include annihilation of a vast amount, like the other dictionaries recognize with "extensive" or "on a mass scale". I've revised the definition. Revise further if necessary. - -sche (discuss) 05:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

trig
In informal entomology, a trig is a type of cricket. The name appears to be a shortened form of the family name Trigonidiidae. The family name is, by the rules of nomenclature, formed from a genus name Trigonidium. That name apparently comes from Latin trigonus or Greek τρίγωνον. I'm not sure how to add this sense to the definition. Is it a new etymology? Does it belong in the same etymology section as the abbreviation for trigonometry, which has the same classical root? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I would give it a new separate ety, as a clipping. Equinox ◑ 14:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It's definitely a separate etymology- Trigonidium and trigonometry themselves have different etymologies. There are common elements, but they're not the same. "Trigonidium" was evidently coined by adding the diminutive suffix to, then converting it to Latin. I don't have time this morning to sift through the original description to figure out what the "little triangle" is, but it has nothing to do with "measuring of triangles", which is what trigonometry derives from. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:51, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

main page
I just noticed that (the mainspace entry) redirects to the wiki's main page at Main Page. Is this the best idea? Special:WhatLinksHere/main_page shows that we are linking to main page from entries like and ; those links are evidently intended to go to a dictionary entry for the phrase main page, and not to the wiki's main page. (It seems a rather SoP phrase to me, but anyway...) Equinox ◑ 14:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You're right, a hard redirect is a very bad idea. A user clicking on the link would expect to find lexicographical information. I think deletion is preferable to a redirect. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  14:29, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. Canonicalization (talk) 22:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I find it useful when searches for e.g. "tea room" or "help desk" give me some route to the editorial pages. This is especially helpful for new contributors. "main page" seems slightly more marginal in its usefulness, but some route to the Wiktionary main page may not hurt. Mihia (talk) 23:48, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. To Mihia's point, the main page isn't particularly useful, and can be accessed at all times by clicking on the Wiktionary logo. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * But anyone attempting to reach the main page by typing "main page" in the search box would presumably not be aware that one can reach it by clicking on the Wiktionary logo. Mihia (talk) 21:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should create redirects to support ignorant misuse. Where would it end? Someone might type "facebook" in there so we should search the Web too? Equinox ◑ 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It would end at the boundaries of Wiktionary. In my opinion it is unfair to refer to a new user's not knowing that clicking on the logo will lead to the main page, and trying typing "main page" in the search box, as "ignorant misuse". Do you also disapprove of the link "For Wiktionary’s discussion room, see Tea room" at tea room, for instance? Mihia (talk) 21:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean "unfair" in the common pejorative sense of "ignorant". In the plain sense of "not knowing", of course that is correct. Mihia (talk) 00:45, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Keep - Dentonius (my politics | talk) 14:27, 4 October 2020 (UTC) Abstain — Dentonius 18:22, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Delete. J3133 (talk) 14:32, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete There is a link called "Main page" that links to the main page in the sidebar, which is present at all times. This is in line with Web-wide practice AFAICT, though most websites have a horizontal layout of such links, either at the top or the bottom of the page. DCDuring (talk) 02:45, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The page isn’t editable or deletable even by administrators. Maybe a bureaucrat has the authority to do it. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What page are you referring to? J3133 (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * . See the discussion at "Talk:main page". — SGconlaw (talk) 17:16, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I linked the talk page below. What do you mean by “do it”? If you mean “delete it”, it was deleted and you protected it. J3133 (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * er … yes? By "do it" I meant to delete the page. I'm aware it was deleted and I then protected it. You were the one who just asked me what page I was referring to. (Why are we having this conversation about a page that was deleted back in January??) — SGconlaw (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Because you started the conversation with an odd reply which is “maybe a bureaucrat has the authority to [delete it]” when it was deleted in January. I am confused. J3133 (talk) 17:25, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * no, my remark was made on 4 January 2021 in response to the preceding comment by DCDuring dated 5 October 2020. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * After I wrote the last message (before your last reply), I looked at your first message again and realized it was made on 4 January; I found an edit to this page on my watchlist and apparently forgot or did not realize I clicked to see the previous edit, then thought you posted it today. J3133 (talk) 17:32, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Sarcastic.gif — SGconlaw (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

 * RFD-deleted on 1 January 2021; see Talk:main page (Metaknowledge counted RFD and Tea room votes; the page was deleted by Chuck Entz on 5 January). J3133 (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

laugh from the teeth outward(s)
Worth an entry? Canonicalization (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of it. Probably. DTLHS (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

speak/know/learn from experience
Worth an entry? Canonicalization (talk) 14:51, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No way. Looks 100% SOP from where I'm standing. --Yesyesandmaybe (talk) 21:58, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not really. Ultimateria (talk) 19:22, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

authority figure
Isn't this also a synonym of ? Canonicalization (talk) 22:56, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No, although they often overlap in patriarchal societies. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * All right, but I feel our definition isn't equivalent to that of other dictionaries, which, imo, make it sound close to :
 * Merriam-Webster: "a person who has authority over another person" (with the following usage example: "A child needs an authority figure in his or her life.")
 * Collins: "a person whose real or apparent authority over others inspires or demands obedience and emulation" (with the following usage example: "Parents, teachers, and police officers are traditional authority figures for children.")
 * Macmillan: "someone who is or seems strong and powerful"
 * Should we add a second def? Or am I simply misreading our def? Canonicalization (talk) 23:40, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I hadn't read our def at authority figure. It's misleading and subtly, but critically, wrong, and ought to be rewritten. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of replacing our definition with a request for definition. If you feel like it, please fulfil the request. Canonicalization (talk) 13:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

The only word that you have listed as ending in "caves" that is accepted by Scrabble seems to be "concaves".
I've entered all of the 5, 6, and 7 letter words ending in, "caves" into the Scrabble dictionary box, the only one it accepted was, "concaves".

 * encaves and incaves are valid in the (slightly dated) SOWPODS dictionary that I have. There are many real words that aren't yet valid in Scrabble. Equinox ◑ 03:31, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Scrabble is a game first and a dictionary second. DTLHS (talk) 03:49, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Is wonder transitive
I wonder if the sense "To ponder; to feel doubt and curiosity; to wait with uncertain expectation; to query in the mind" is really transitive? The Language Learner (talk) 09:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Some grammarians would say that reported speech or clauses introduced by that, if, or a wh-subordinator are nominals that are the 'object' of wonder. Century 1911, MWOnline, AHD, Macmillan follow those grammarians and label such usage as transitive; MW 1913, Oxford and Cambridge online do not. Transitive and intransitive are merely labels that can be used differently. We have good company using that transitive label, but would have pretty good company if we didn't. DCDuring (talk) 17:23, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I've wondered this too. (That looks particularly transitive, doesn't it?) Certainly "if it will rain" in "I wonder if it will rain" shows subordination in a way that "I stay home if it rains" doesn't. Equinox ◑ 18:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That clarifies the grammatical point. However, this, that, or some other similar word refers to a proposition, ie, a clause or sentence. I suppose once could contrive examples that were not clearly referring to propositions, but I can't see such contrivances at the moment. DCDuring (talk) 19:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You’re not the only one; the existence of such examples has been wondered by many grammarians. --Lambiam 21:57, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I edited it to say "transitive, intransitive" i.e. it can be either, adding Equinox's good example of more clearly transitive use. - -sche (discuss) 22:01, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Whether it can be transitive is what I have been wondering. Mihia (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * For even more clearly transitive use, btw, I put four cites of "wonder(ing|ed) that question" on Citations:wonder. - -sche (discuss) 22:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

trade secret
Do we need two different senses? Canonicalization (talk) 14:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * We probably don't need two verbose definitions. I believe that in US law a trade secret is a kind of intellectual property that is distinct from a patent (or other IP). Common usage is much more sloppy and often refers to things like customer lists which are not actually secret, though they can be difficult to obtain and may be used to include patents, which are specifically not secret. DCDuring (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I combined the two senses. I was particularly amused by the parenthetical "to prevent theft (where the country's law recognises theft) of that trade secret". - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * We have this in the EU too at the latest since the, which has been transferred into German law in 2019 as (GeschGehG). Seems like it is an intellectual property right now too in Germany, after having lain unregulated and merely as a fact compared to patents. Most clearly seen in its § 10 Abs. 1, where it states that a culpable infringer is liable for damages arising from his infringement. Infringement being defined via § 2 Nr. 3. Fay Freak (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If I lawfully find out about someone's trade secret, ie, not by theft, bribery of employees, etc., then I believe that both the original holder and I can have trade-secret protection from the courts. I don't know what happens if, say, six competitors have the 'secret' knowledge. I think overhearing something 'secret' in a public space or discovering a secret by picking through a company's garbage (in a public space) are not unlawful.
 * Collins and Cambridge at least, among OneLook dictionaries, have two definitions, one seemingly legal and another more casual sense that seems to include things that would not enjoy legal protection, like an employee's knowledge of how to get a job done in less than the allotted time without the employer finding out and allotting less time. DCDuring (talk) 16:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

sitting pretty
Apparently, it's also a term used in dog training? Canonicalization (talk) 19:19, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * But is that any other than sit + pretty? Ie, does it appear in a dog-training terms glossary as something uniquely referenced by the term that is not SoP? DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The definitions should be at sit pretty. It should be considered a phrasal verb, see Merriam Webster. -Mike (talk) 21:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

sit up and beg
Same, a term used in dog training? Canonicalization (talk) 19:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Surely the idiomatic portions are sit up, and beg. - -sche (discuss) 22:05, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

the X of it all (of it all?)
Worth an entry? , when you wrote to Geographyinitiative "", what exactly did you mean?

See also those threads. In the second thread, someone writes that " refers to life and its meaning". Is this interpretation correct? Canonicalization (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Can’t speak for Chuck, obviously, but I think “it all” is basically synonymous with “the whole thing”, whatever that may mean. Yes, it can mean “life and its meaning”, like here “the absurdity of it all” expresses an existential angst, but it can equally well just mean “the actual situation someone finds themselves in”, like here the same phrase refers to writing on a laptop in the desert. Likewise, the subject of the phrase “the whole thing was so ridiculous” can refer to almost anything. It is a form of economy of communication; you trust your interlocutor or audience to understand what you are referring to without having to describe it more specifically. --Lambiam 22:28, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Thank you. And do you feel these - and  - deserve entries? 31.173.82.188 21:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not against adding these it if someone can provide good definitions, which, I fear, will not be easy. --Lambiam 23:16, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

to perform an act of
The slang meaning of the verb ghost is defined as: “To break up with someone without warning or explanation; to perform an act of .” The second part seems circular to me, definition-wise. Sure, to sing is to perform an act of singing, to jump is to perform an act of jumping, and so on, but does it tell us something new? So why this addition? Then, the link to ghosting is actually orange for me, apparently because I have OrangeLinks enabled and the wiki code is actually. The documentation of label does not mention an  parameter. Is this supposed to do anything? Item wikidata:Q21050182 is about ghosting in this slang sense, and it does not link back to Wiktionary. Shouldn’t it link to our ghosting entry? --Lambiam 21:52, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think the noun is linked-to because it has the fuller def (including some bits that should be copied to ghost, like that, to ghost someone is to not speak to them further after the breakup). By contrast, in jumping the situation is reserved; the definition there is very basic and links back to jump. - -sche (discuss) 22:09, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with just revising the verb def a bit and only linking ghosting as a related term, though. - -sche (discuss) 07:07, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Quatre-vingt-onze audio
It sounds like the speaker is saying, "quarante-et-vingt-onze". --Infinitum11 (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed; and this is not a valid French numeral, but the mistake of substituting quarante for quatre in quatre-vingt(s) is not unheard of (in this case literally). --Lambiam 07:37, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi! My bad, I made a mistake while speaking. I have removed the file from Wikimedia Commons. This number wasn't making any sense in French. --Arthur Crbz (talk) 11:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

in het klein/in het groot, in die kleine
These are Dutch and Afrikaans expressions meaning "at a small scale" and "at a large scale" respectively. Are they idiomatic enough to be included? I saw that at least one Dutch dictionary "solves" this with a definitionless noun section that only contains this expression followed by a gloss, which is incredibly hacky and doesn't deserve imitation. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  09:54, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

 * In the context of programming, in the small and in the large are commonly understood scale indicators (see ); this use in English seems confined to programming. I suspect it may have been a calque from German (Programmieren im Kleinen vs. Programmieren im Großen), as one of the authors who coined this is a native German speaker; in German you can also apply this to, e.g.,, the production of peach wine  or even practising a sanctimonious cover-up . The sense of “small/large scale” of these adjectives used as nouns appears limited to the combination im + -en, and thus is probably idiomatic. It is likely that the same holds for the analogous expressions in Dutch. Is it possible that the Dutch was calqued from German?  --Lambiam 11:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Analogously formed German adverbs are and . You can also say, which we don’t have but can be found at the German Wiktionary, together with im Allgemeinen, im Einzelnen, im Folgenden, and im Wesentlichen.  --Lambiam 19:55, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The WNT has 17th century cites at klein (A, II, C, I, 2; yes, the layout is not user-friendly), but borrowings from High German are basically possible in any period, so it could be. But perhaps they derive from a common source, like Latin in parvo/in magno. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:16, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As to a possible common Latin origin, I don’t know of cites where these terms refer to the scale of some operation, rather than the issue itself being minor or major, as in Augustine’s qui in parvo fidelis est et in magno fidelis est. --Lambiam 16:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

(and a) pony
Can the word in the sense of "something that one unrealistically desires to have" be attested? It's typically encountered in political contexts in the sarcastic phrase and a pony and portrays the desirer as childishly naïve, like a child asking for a pony as a present. One cite can be found here, but the context makes it a bit problematic for clear attestation: Another one here functions like a subheading and lacks context:  ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  10:18, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * In that case the author wants you to envision an actual pony, and is emphasizing the absurdity of the subjects desires. So it isn't really a new sense, just a particular kind of usage of the term. -Mike (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd bet yes. It's like unicorn, for which we lack the sense "something unusual, rare, or unique", and instead have two or three specific instances, which would better be subsenses. DCDuring (talk) 23:34, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

(Panty)hose
The Wiktionary entries indicate that hose is uncountable (for 2. A stocking-like garment worn on the legs; pantyhose) while pantyhose or its synonym tights are plural only.

Yet, Collins Concise English Dictionary shows both hose, hosen as the plural forms of hose.

According to Microsoft® Encarta® 2009, (panty)hose is a plural noun itself as is tights or oats (the e and unlike, say, "sheep (plural sheep)" or hose in its meaning of "flexible tube", which shows the usual plural hoses.

Currently all this information is at odds --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:27, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Can one not have "an oat"?
 * And Collins' plural is weird -- I've never encountered hosen outside of German or pseudo-German contexts. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:04, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I meant, and you know, the "seeds of the cereal plant "oat" used to make foods such as oatmeal, as livestock feed". Check the entry for hosen --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:20, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * So did I. In my mind, the statement "I have a lot of oats" is like "I have a lot of trees", and implies that I have a lot of the individual things called "an oat" or "a tree".  I think Encarta is incorrect in saying that "oats" is a plural noun that has no singular -- even in reference to the seeds of the oat plant.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:22, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Re:, I should have clarified that I mean in modern usage. The citations at  are all either old, or deliberately archaic, or noticeably Germanic (the one about rural Pennsylvania).
 * (That last citation also seems to have broken English; perhaps the transcriber accidentally left out "a"?)
 * ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:26, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not just Encarta. Check oats: (plural only, uncountable) --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:29, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ... that's kinda why I'm bringing this up -- I don't think that's correct. And we don't use our own entries as evidence for anything beyond the current state of our own entries.
 * As a non-Wiktionary example entry, see Merriam-Webster's entry for oat, and note also that their URL for oats redirects to their oat entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:40, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * it all depends on the criteria used: etymology, orthography, grammatical properties, etc. Amyway, that's an easy one because the plural -s is transparent, but what about (panty)hose? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:01, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I note that the garment (panty- or otherwise) in general English usage is often referred to as "a pair of hose", similar to "a pair of tights".  Since only countable things can come in pairs, it stands to reason that these are still countable nouns.  That said, syntactically, we never say "a pair of hoses" to refer to the garment, nor do we call a half of a pair "a hose" or "a tight".  I wonder if this usage of  represents a fossilization of an older grammatical construction where "a pair of something" may have used the singular for the "something".  I see what appears to be (maybe archaic?) examples of this in German where the noun appears in the singular dative, such as ein paar Pferd ("a pair / a few of horse"), ein paar Blume ("a pair / a few of flower"), or ein paar Tage ("a pair / a few of day").  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:38, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The term pantyhose may take either a singular or plural verb. The same is true for hose (of either sense). So I would think that defining it as "plural only" is incorrect. Also both pantyhoses and hoses exist. These exist in various contexts; you can find examples by doing some creative searching in Ngram. -Mike (talk) 22:26, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

muh
The Bathari entry muh says "transliteration needed", but how is that possible as "muh" is clearly a string containing only Latin alphabet letters? Also, the title of the page appears in a different font than most pages. Why is that? Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Entry added by . The only script we have for Bathari is Arabic script. Either this entry needs to be moved, or Latin script should be added as an option. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge the language is natively unwritten (at the time I added it, we had [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Module:languages/data3/b&oldid=46998288 no script] specified), like even its more numerous neighbor/relative Mehri/Mahri is said to be, but documentation exists in Latin (and, I'm told, Arabic) script. I have added Latn as an additional script (it's used in the documentation I've come across), along with several alt names. - -sche (discuss) 07:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

monopsony
I'm not convinced the second sense is warranted. Canonicalization (talk) 22:02, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * My what awful wording. "Disproportionate" to what?
 * What do you think of the term shared monopoly, defined in an OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms as "anticompetitive behaviour by firms, normally an oligopoly, in order to secure monopoly profits for the firms as a group"? Talk about extension and metonymy. DCDuring (talk) 23:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That OECD definition completely does away with the and sounds more like a .  Or, more colloquially, a  or even an .  They even use that latter term, but fail to distinguish any difference between their bastardized definition and .  Thumbs down from me.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * When a cartel operates on the market as a monolithic entity, it is effectively a monopoly or monopsony from the point of view of an economic analysis of the market. --Lambiam 09:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don’t see we need a separate second sense. The first quotation fits the first sense perfectly. The second quotation implicitly admits that its use of the term does not fit the usual textbook definition perfectly by immediately explaining the (quite commonly) slightly relaxed sense in a parenthesis. What we can do is add a relaxation to the first sense: “... only one buyer for a product, or a buyer with such disproportionate power that it can effectively set the market price; ...”. We can also look at the way is defined; the defining characteristic is market domination by a party.  --Lambiam 09:57, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Just chiming in to point out that the OED differentiates between the general state of market domination and "a consumer in this position". Also, the 1978 and 2014 quotations seem to use the word in the latter sense rather than the former sense. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If we keep this as a second sense, then the clause “; also, such a buyer” should be removed from sense 1. Some of the usexes at sense 1 should then also move to sense 2. The recommended relaxation remains applicable. --Lambiam 00:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

noa
The entry noa needs some revision. At the moment it has a Māori-specific definition, but the example sentence and the source concerns Nordic languages, so there needs to be a definition which covers the example. In Nordic linguistics, the word  is often used for that which is used in order to avoid a taboo, i.e. in a way the opposite of a taboo word, e.g.,. Is this used outside of Nordic linguistics too? --Lundgren8 (t · c) 12:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've seen it used at least once in the context of American Indian cultures in California. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:49, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

thou'dst: Contraction of thou hadst
For what meanings of have was thou'dst possible? 'd reads "Contraction of had (marking the pluperfect tense). 2. (some dialects) Contraction of had, possessed. " --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is almost the same as for (you)’d: “1. . 2. , thou possessedst.” The difference is that case 2 (the contraction for the possessive sense) is not only retained in some dialects that retain thou but also occurred non-dialectally when thou was not yet archaic. Case 1 is easily attested: ; ; . For case 2: ; ; .  --Lambiam 19:38, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Plural of carriage and pair
What is the plural of carriage and pair? --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is carriages and pairs . --Lambiam 16:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

wan'
"wan'" from "wanna", is to be added, like gon' (gun') < gonna < going to. --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

countable
Regarding its grammatical meaning, "Freely usable with the indefinite article and with numbers, and therefore having a plural form", the term countable is at odds with words such as the garment pants (or even scissors according to some style guides), which is not freely usable with numbers, as in two/three pants. Am I right? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It is speaker-dependent. Some speakers find this acceptable as a plural form . Others will switch to . The latter group will probably also balk at “a pants” and use "a pair of pants” instead. --Lambiam 23:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Spanish walk and walk Spanish
Curious terms. There has got to be some connection between this two? --Yesyesandmaybe (talk) 10:28, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

 * You can read about various theories here. For the highly stylized horse gait, there is little doubt that this style originated in Spain ; hence its name. So the question remains: is the slang sense for a walk forced upon a person (usually male) derived from the dressage term? Apparently this is unknown; it is just one theory. BTW, there are plenty of attestations of Spanish walk as simply referring to the typical style in which Spaniards (Homo sapiens) strut about. --Lambiam 13:57, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

dialectal distribution of flan as a tart vs custard dessert
The dialect labels on these senses seem woefully incomplete and perhaps unnecessary (if the word is not actually dialect-specific). Is the first sense, flan as a baked tart with sweet or savoury filling, not used in Australia, Canada, Ireland, or New Zealand? Is the second sense, flan as a custard dessert, not used in the UK, Canada, or other places at least when referring to Latin American cuisine? (English-born Australian uses it in Yummy, Easy, Quick: Around the World, and  seems to find other examples.) Is it not used in India? The very picture we're using is a flan from India(!), and Googling "Indian flan" suggests it is indeed known there. - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

face up, verb
"To confront an unpleasant situation." Is this ever used without to? If so, how? (We've got as a separate entry.) Equinox ◑ 22:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

concept
What is the difference between senses 1 and 2? Sense 2 is very wordy and unclear to me. Equinox ◑ 15:11, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sense 2 was the original definition when the entry was created in 2004. It started out as a multi-paragraph essay on the philosophical dimensions of the idea, and was distilled into something resembling a definition. The first sense was added in 2015, presumably because the contributor couldn't figure out what the original definition meant and decided it was better to add a definition that made sense rather than to replace everything.
 * I'm not so sure we need to include a philosophical exploration of what a concept can be. Our readers are people who want to know the meaning of the word as used and how to use it, not philosophers. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:14, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Freedomite
Would a Russian speaker kindly check the etymology of and the translations to ensure that the words ' and ' have been correctly indicated? Thanks. (Freedomite is appearing as WOTD on 22 January 2020.) — SGconlaw (talk) 06:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think the entry should mention that they later renamed themselves as Сыны Свободы (Sons of Freedom). On Wikipedia, redirects to . The article  on the Russian Wikipedia has a redlink displaying the text  Сыны Свободы, linking to the non-existing page  Свободники. Their disambiguation page  has a line “ ●  Сыны свободы , свободники, Sons of Freedom, Freedomites, христианские радикалы I пол. XX в.”. The redlink here links to  Сыны свободы (Канада) .  is indeed the feminine equivalent of , but the Russian uses I saw referred to the group as a whole, using the male (and thus generic) plural.  --Lambiam 14:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

 * not entirely sure if it is relevant to mention the renaming of the group, since that seems encyclopedic and is already covered at Freedomites. Essentially, here we are primarily concerned with the etymology of the word Freedomite. If the Russian word doesn't generally appear in the singular form, then perhaps we can indicate that that Freedomite is a back-formation from Freedomites, a calque of Свободники. Should we provide the singular masculine and feminine forms as translations? — SGconlaw (talk) 15:36, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I found one GBS hit in which one Fedor Petrovich Ryazantsev is called a “духоборный свободник” (Doukhobor Freedomite): and another hit of “духоборный свободник” in a book by the same author, not visible in the snippet presented: . The scarcity of attested singular uses is likely due to the (semantic) fact that authors are more likely to write about the sect than about individual members. It seems unnecessary to me to invoke the phenomenon of back-formation. Another issue is that (at least according to Wikipedia) the Freedomites split off from the Doukhobors – in fact, were banned by the spiritual leader of the Community Doukhobors. But the way our entry defines the term, most readers will be led to think that Freedomites were (still) Doukhobors.  --Lambiam 18:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * All right, in that case shall I leave the etymology as it is? I hope I indicated the Cyrillic correctly in both the etymology and translations. As for the definition, it was indeed my impression from the English Wikipedia article that the Freedomites were simply more militant members of the Doukhobors. How do you think the definition should be changed? Should we say the Freedomites have in some way split away from the Doukhobors? — SGconlaw (talk) 19:18, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I suggest: “A member of a Christian zealot sect that split off from the in the early 20th century and was involved in protests against ...”. Disclaimer: the total of my knowledge in the historical aspects of the matter derives from the two Wikipedia articles  and .  --Lambiam 21:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

arc verb: are the forms arking/arked really OK?
I'm suspicious of these forms. I've seen arcked but never arked for this sense. We have one citation claiming to support it ("His mother, her eyes raised to heaven, hands arked before her, moving, made real for John that patience, that endurance, that long suffering, which he had read in the Bible and found so hard to image"): could this not be some other sense, like shaped like an ark / Noah's Ark? Equinox ◑ 04:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Even if they're real, surely they'd be forms of ark, not arc (hence, not forms to list on the headword line of arc). - -sche (discuss) 08:07, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I don't think that "surely" is warranted. Presumably, the editor who added the spellings "arking" and "arked" to the page for arc was thinking that the word might replace C with K in certain forms to avoid using C to represent the sound /k/ before E or I (contexts where the letter C usually represents the sound /s/). Since the simple form "arc" doesn't have an E or I after the C, there wouldn't be the same reason to use a K spelling for this form.--Urszag (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think they got it wrong though. arcking yes, picnicking yes, picniking no (looks a bit Russian, perhaps a picnik could be a photography enthusiast?). Equinox ◑ 04:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The 1913 Webster’s has arcked, arcking. Dictionary.com also has these forms as well as arced, arcing, while indicating these are all pronounced with a /k/. The American Heritage has only arced, arcing, but likewise makes clear these are pronounced with /k/. Wordsmyth also has only arced, arcing.  I saw no dictionaries that recognize the spelling arked/arking, so I’d guess these are understandable, but rare, misspellings.  --Lambiam 23:54, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I've removed the form. For the last few years, we've been moving very rare/obsolete/nonstandard inflected forms from the headword line down to usage notes or elsewhere (see previous discussions of low as a form of laugh, etc), so even if these were attested not as typos and in conjunction with arc rather than ark as the lemma, they are still probably too rare to be on the headword line. - -sche (discuss) 01:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Translation tables of expand
I just changed the first Finnish mathematical translation of expand from sieventää to kertoa auki, as that's what I've always heard used as a specific expression for a rewriting of the style (a+b)^2 t --> a^2+2ab+b^2. Now that I look at the page, it has two translation tables labelled "(intransitive) algebra: to rewrite as an equivalent sum of terms", the latter of which contains the Finnish translation laventaa, which does not mean the same thing as the two-word expression kertoa auki, as it means 'to multiply both the numerator and the denominator of a fraction by the same natural number yielding a fraction of equal value' (I added that specification to the page laventaa as well). However, since I don't know what the other translations in each of those tables mean, I'm hesitating to change the labels of the translation tables. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 09:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You can change the labels and then mark existing translations as to be verified by changing transclusions of to  and  to . — surjection ⟨?⟩ 16:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * How do you say “this is really messed up” in Finnish? “Tää on todella sotkenut”? The translation gloss “(intransitive) algebra: to rewrite ...” does not make sense; it started its life as an incorrect gloss for a sense “to be rewriten [sic] as an equivalent sum of terms”, i.e., semantically the passive of “(transitive) algebra): to rewrite ...”, which occurs higher up. (I think “(transitive, algebra) to rewrite ...” is better.) It came with an example of use: “The expression $${(x+1)}^4$$ expands to $$x^4 + 4x^3 + 6x^2 + 4x + 1$$.” This sense was later removed with the edit summary duplicate – which I think was an error of judgement. However, the corresponding (mislabelled) translation table was not removed. I think the deleted sense should be re-added, with the table relabelled as “(intransitive, algebra) to become an equivalent sum of terms”, but emptied of all its current inhabitants, none of which is appropriate. What is missing is a table for sense 5: “(transitive, arithmetic) to multiply the numerator and denominator of a fraction by the same number”. The editor who added this sense forgot to add a corresponding table to the Translations section. If has that meaning, we have a good start for this missing table.  --Lambiam 23:09, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * It's surprisingly hard to find good translations for messed up. Maybe "tämä on todella sekaisin", but it depends on the context. The closest to your suggestion would be tämä on todella sotkeutunut. The Finnish laventaa is in fact transitive, meaning 'to multiply the denominator and the numerator with the same number'. Thus I removed the Swedish and Norwegian translations and created a new translation box for the intransitive uses. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 10:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

immunoreceptor
I marked the site for deletion because the definition is not correct. "Immunoreceptor" refers to a family of receptors, not to a site on an antibody. The site where antigen binds to an antibody is called antigen-binding fragment (Fab). I couldn't find any references where this site of an antibody is called immunoreceptor. I could change the definition, but I am not sure if the entire entry even belongs into the dictionary. There are articles about the antigen-binding fragment and immunoreceptors on Wikipedia. --Huhny (talk) 15:56, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I moved this from RFD, since the definition being wrong is not really a reason to delete the entry. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 15:59, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Would this work? “A receptor that plays a role in the immune response, found in the plasma membrane of leukocytes .”? --Lambiam 23:21, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yes, this is the correct definition. As "Immunoreceptor" is a biological name I was questioning whether it should even be an entry in the wiktionary. --Huhny (talk) 23:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

 * If the term is used in English, it should be included; see Criteria for inclusion. --Lambiam 00:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I am really curious about this statement. You think there are technical scientific words (not brand names, or new inventions, or even slang) that shouldn't be in a dictionary? Why? The whole point of a dictionary is to find out what words mean. Equinox ◑ 04:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Apologies - that was just a general enquiry, not a suggestion. This is not a common term and it is only used in a small field of biology (and there is a debate about whether the receptor family should be renamed) therefore I was not sure whether it meets the attestation criterion. But if it belongs to the wiktionary, the definition should be correct - I will fix that. Thanks everyone! --Huhny (talk) 05:47, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

lower extreme, upper extreme
SoP? These are framed as set-theoretical terms from mathematics, but really they are just extreme values that are lowermost or uppermost. One could equally talk about the upper extremes of, I dunno, temperature in Mexico since 1940. Equinox ◑ 07:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Indeed, given sense 2 of the noun (“each of the things at opposite ends of a range or scale“), one of these “things” will be the lower one, and the other the upper, which makes this definition a SoP. Applied to temperatures in Mexico since 1940, these would presumably still be numerical extremes in a data set of measured values and thus fit the given maths def, but here is an example with a range of observed numbers that would normally not be considered a data set: . And here we have a use where the values concerned are not data in any sense: .  --Lambiam 12:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * SoP, IMO. DCDuring (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if these are mathematical set-theoretical terms. Any technical meaning should be covered at extreme. I'm sure it would be possible for someone with the proper background to come up with qualifiers other than upper and lower- positive? negative? Chuck Entz (talk) 15:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If the average January temperatures in, range from lows of −10.2 °C to highs of −1.9 °C, the upper extreme is still negative, so / do not work as qualifiers. But I think / are already clear enough (and if the entries are deleted as SoP, the issue is moot). --Lambiam 21:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/頔
The pronunciation "溪清三合 上去潁" (/kʰwiᴇŋX/) is incorrect. It's the Middle Chinese pronunciation of, a varient form of. See 𩓏 on Guangyun (volome 3, page 46) and 頔 on Guangyun (volume5, page41). --沈澄心✉ 12:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

--沈澄心✉ 12:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Thanks for pointing this out. I've removed it from Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/頔 and created Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/𩓏. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:26, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Meaning of "el capador"
Is it accurate to to say that "el capador" means a pan flute, (or some other wind instrument) from 16th century Spain or Mexico?Ineuw (talk) 13:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

 * According to the Spanish Wikipedia, the is a type of pan flute of indigenous origin from Colombia. It is said to have been developed before 100 BCE.  --Lambiam 18:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/秃
Please move this page to Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/禿. is the simplified form of. See 禿 on Guangyun (volume 5, page 5). --沈澄心✉ 03:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

voor zover bekend, ooit nog, telkens weer, het hele jaar door
These all seem rather SOP to me. What do you think, should they be RFD'd? ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  09:29, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree they should. Morgengave (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Some evidence these are SOP: “voor zover beschreven ”, “ooit weer ”, “telkens opnieuw ”, “ de hele dag door. --Lambiam 13:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

mars
What is the text  doing at the end of the Finnish section of the source code of the page mars? 188.238.36.86 14:58, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is waiting for a meaningful response from someone who knows Finnish. Since the translation is the English imperative of the verb march, it is not unreasonable to believe that mars is also a verb form. DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Like in Dutch, it is an interjection, borrowed either directly from the French marching command en avant — marche ! or from the German version im Gleichschritt — marsch! (with variations like vorwärts — marsch!; see the article in the German Wikipedia). In these languages, which borrowed the term as an interjection directly or indirectly from French, the imperative of the verb meaning “to march” is polysyllabic (in German: ) and therefore less suitable for setting a company into synchronized marching, aka . Also found as interjection in ; Vasmer mentions, German and (directly) French as possible donors.  --Lambiam 19:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It occurred to me that it is actually more likely that the Finnish interjection was borrowed from (where it is also used as an interjection, as in framåt — marsch!) or else from Russian, in which the term is first attested in 1710.  --Lambiam 20:03, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Unless it is a shortening of an imperative of the Finnish verb marssia, the etymology of which we lack. DCDuring (talk) 22:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It could be either - is an irregular imperative form of . Either way, this should not be a verb form, since it is not a regular verb form and has developed into an interjection of its own. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 22:36, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

cut one&
We have cur one's teeth as a figurative expression. It is derived, I believe, from something like cut new teeth ("teethe") and is synonymous with the rare dentize and the older breed + teeth, for which we have an appropriate sense of breed with breed teeth in a usage example.

I don't see that any sense of cut covers cut new teeth.

At other dictionaries' entries for cut:
 * AHD has intransitive [sic] verb "To grow through the gums. Used of teeth." and intransitive "To have (a new tooth) grow through the gums."
 * MW has (transitive) "to experience the growth of (a tooth) through the gum" and an entry for cut a tooth: "of a baby, to have a tooth begin to come through the gums"
 * Lexico/Oxford has and entry for cut a tooth: "(usually of a baby or child) have a tooth appear through the gum."
 * Cambridge Advanced Learners has a run-in entry for cut a tooth.

I suppose we need an additional definition at cut as well as an entry for cut a tooth. Redirects for cut teeth and cut new teeth seem advisable. Why wouldn't we have an entry for breed teeth? DCDuring (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

鸳鸯火锅
鸳鸯火锅 and 鸳鸯锅 are synonyms, right? We only have the second one. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:24, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Because 鸳鸯火锅 is not usually said. It's like 清汤锅.--QIU Ao (talk) 06:18, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding usage example to sytkyttää
I have two in mind: Am I right with the translation at 2? And what does 1 mean? MGorrone (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) One is from Ievan polkka and goes «Sain minä kerran sytkyyttee», where I believe sytkyyttee is dialectal for sytkyttää, though I'm not exactly sure what it means;
 * 2) One I found in this online dictionary, where the word is defined as «Harvatahtisesta moottorin äänestä» (Google Translated to «From the occasional engine noise») with this example: «Venemoottori käydä sytkyttää», apparently «The boat engine goes vroom vroom» (or «chitty chitty bang bang» if you will).

About number 1, I found this, where we read «"Sytkyyttee" tarkoittaa samaa kuin sytkyttää, jota käytetään "harvatahtisesta moottorin äänestä". Laulussa on siis kyse kahden aikuisen välisestä rytmikkäästä fyysisestä aktiviteetista.», which, when the words sytkyyttee and sytkyttää are restored in the Google translation, gives « "Sytkyyttee" means the same as sytkyttää, which is used for "occasional engine sound". So the song is about a rhythmic physical activity between two adults.». So basically the sentence means «I got to bang once». MGorrone (talk) 23:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, in the first case, it's a variant of, which is then used figuratively due to the meaning describing the engine sound, which I would describe as somewhat regular but still infrequent. The term already has a definition fairly close to that. Generally, these types of descriptive verbs usually have a fairly wide and hard to define range of meanings, particularly since many of them are also used figuratively. — surjection ⟨?</tt>⟩ 08:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

container sense of
I searched through the senses of for the one used in glass of milk or teaspoon of cinnamon and didn't find one. A usage note and a trans-table gloss (but no definition) use the word "contain", but that's it. I think it must have been separated from a sense that covered too much, but wasn't made into its own. Is there another sense that covers these examples, or are we missing this sense? Ultimateria (talk) 01:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a container, it's a quantity: you could just as easily say "three yards of fabric". My first thought was it might be partitive, but then I found a of the difference between partitives and this type of construction, which the article calls a quantitative (don't bother looking at our entry for quantitative- we don't have a noun sense). Chuck Entz (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I recall that has done a lot of good work fleshing out this entry. He may be able to help sort out how these constructions (glass of milk, yards of fabric) are, or should be, handled in the entry. I see one sense has lot of nonsense as a usex, which seems comparable to yards of fabric (certainly, something like Charlemagne ordered that each knight be given two lots of silk would be comparable). - -sche (discuss) 05:39, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

 * If the word preceding of denotes a container, it is not merely a matter of quantity. If someone tells you, “he always gave me a basket of flowers on Mother’s Day“, you know these flowers came in a basket, not in a bucket. For containers, it is usually also an indication of the amount; “half a glass of milk” is not a bisected glass-containing-milk. If someone is said to have drunk half a glass of milk, you expect they drank half the amount of milk that a drinking glass will comfortably accommodate, and you expect they drank it out of a glass. In general, it is not always a matter of quantifiable units, like when something is said to “take a great deal of courage”, or as in “a gaggle of geese” and “a confederacy of dunces”. --Lambiam 10:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

seeing is believing
I don't think we need two senses. Canonicalization (talk) 10:47, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think sense 2 can be removed altogether. Ultimateria (talk) 05:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The second "sense" describes one possible situation where the phrase is used. Usage note instead? Equinox ◑ 12:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

עט
Hey all! First time posting to tea room, so sorry in advance haha. I'm asking about the Yiddish interjection עט. Does anyone know if it's pronounced "et" or as some kind of click? I went through the same problem with "טע-טע-טע" and I've never heard anyone say et with disdain, though I have heard a lot of disdainful tounge clicks. Any native yiddish speakers want to help out?

quickie
We have: "1. Something made or done swiftly. 2. A tryst of short duration. 3. A brief sexual encounter." What is the difference between 2 and 3? I feel that they are aiming at the same thing, but the writer of 2 was being a bit more coy in describing the sex act. (However, I note that the Finnish translation is given as pikatreffit, which is apparently "speed dating". Some confusion here?) Equinox ◑ 08:58, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think sense 2 can be deleted. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Ultimateria (talk) 17:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I think the Finnish translation is wrong (and could cause embarrassment if used!). Equinox ◑ 12:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Guess someone may have misunderstood what means (or taken it too literally). Feel free to remove the translation as you make the changes to the definitions. — surjection ⟨<tt>?</tt>⟩ 12:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I've removed sense 2. If other changes are needed, please make them. - -sche (discuss) 21:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think this is sorted now as the translations appear to have been worked out too. Equinox ◑ 23:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

gizzing
This is defined like an infinitive ("to grin and laugh" etc.) but the infinitive should be : "you are gizzing at me". However, I can't find attestation for that. What to do? Equinox ◑ 09:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure if it helps, but whoever added it may have gotten it from:
 * 1865, The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist, page 159:
 * Gizzing. To be always grinning and laughing.
 * There seem to be some Google Books results for "gizzed", but I don't think the definition fits them. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 10:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

result
"2. The fruit, beneficial or tangible effect(s) achieved by effort. ... 6. (by extension) A positive or favourable outcome for someone." What's the difference really? Equinox ◑ 12:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * By extension of the sports sense? I bet it's a synonym for e.g. "personal victory" or "personal win". From GB: "I got Matthaus's shirt at the end, which was a result for me, and I had it signed and framed." Definitely distinct from sense 2. Ultimateria (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

smurf verb sense
According to a Boston Herald article the use of "smurf" as a verb describing structuring monetary transactions to stay below reporting limits has expanded to include structuring marijuna purchases to stay below purchasing limits. I don't know if the sense is widespread enough to add as a definition. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:21, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

One or more serving too much of alcohol
The entry for one too many reads " One or more serving too much of alcohol", yet serving is not uncountable, so I think it should be reworded as "one or more servings too many of alcohol", shouldn't it? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yes. ✅ Equinox ◑ 14:38, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Appendix:Snowclones/X is the new Y
This entry has a "Statistics" section quoting Google search results. I don't know if Google's results were the same for everyone in 2010, but today they can be wildly different, even in incognito mode. Also Google search results are not an example of a quality reference. Google books/ngrams might be better. Should this whole section be removed or is it salvageable? --Danielklein (talk) 23:57, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I think it should be removed. The results include uses like “What is the New Age?”, “Is the new policy relevant for us?”, “The owner and publisher of the New York Times is The New York Times Company”, and so on. This may account for the vast majority of the hits. --Lambiam 13:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The definition also leaves something to be desired. "Fifty is the new forty" doesn't mean "Forty is being replaced by fifty", nor does "Sitting is the new smoking" mean "Smoking is being replaced by sitting". —Mahāgaja · talk 13:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

 * I've removed the Google link and the litany of example phrases, keeping only a few as usexes. I also revised the definition to "Used to state that X is now fashionable (or common, etc), where Y was before." This could be improved further, but is at least better than the old def. - -sche (discuss) 02:17, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/January