Adding words to WR dictionary?

UltiMATE jugador

UltiMATE jugador

Senior Member
Madrid, Spain
English-US (New Jersey)
Hello,

How do I add a word to the WR Spanish-English dictionary? I don’t find any “add word” or “suggest an entry” button or link anywhere on WR, nor any sub-forums on adding new entries. And my google searches “Word Reference add word to dictionary” similarly yielded no results…

Thanks!
 
    • If you would like to suggest another translation for a word that is already in the dictionary, you can also look for this in the dictionary entry for that word, just under the first set of definitions/translations:

    Is something important missing? Report an error or suggest an improvement.

    Clicking that phrase from a dictionary page will open a new thread in the forum PaulFromItaly mentioned - it's a shortcut method.
     
    UltiMATE jugador said:
    I don’t find any “add word” or “suggest an entry” button or link anywhere on WR,
    Click to expand...

    Please see also Mike's comment in the "About" sticky at the top of the Dictionary Error Reports & Suggestions forum that PaulfromItaly mentioned. :)

    mkellogg said:
    We generally are not looking for new terms to add. It doesn't take much for me to create a list of terms missing from the dictionaries that people actually search for. Having said that, we will read what you write and possibly add a term or two if we feel we should make an exception.
    Click to expand...
     
    Hello @Paulfromitaly sorry but I want to point out something contradictory.

    You say that to suggest a new word, I should go the “Dictionary error reports and suggestions” sub-forum and post it there. However, once I go to that sub-forum, and click to “post thread”, it states the following guidelines:

    • Thank you for taking the time to suggest an improvement to the WordReference dictionaries.

      For best results:
      1. Title: the word or phrase in the dictionary
      2. Write in your native language
      3. Give examples

      Guidelines:
      No profanity. You will be banned from using the forums.
      No new words. Only corrections to existing dictionary entries.



    So it clearly states “no new words”. Do I follow these guidelines, and disregard your advice? Do I have permission to disregard the guidelines because you, a moderator, have said I should post my new word there? Are these guidelines old & in need of updating?

    I’ll await your clarification.

    Thank you.
     
    Paulfromitaly said:
    What you can do it post a thread in this dedicated forum and report that an entry is missing, inaccurate or incomplete.
    Click to expand...
    That's what I said :)
    You cannot suggest new words.
    You can make a report about an existing dictionary entry and point out something that you believe is missing, inaccurate or incomplete.
    We have a dedicated team of dictionary editors who take care of this
    Dictionary editors

    Please wait until one of them posts a more detailed answer, thank you.
     
    bearded said:
    Sorry, Paul, but what is the difference between "reporting that an entry is missing" and "suggesting" that a new word be added to the dictionary?
    Click to expand...
    If I look up the verb "to get" in the English-Italian dictionary for example, there are probably more than 20 different meanings and translations, however there might be still an uncommon use of the verb to get that has no translation in Italian. I can report that, in my opinion, one of the many translations of that verb is missing.
    I am NOT suggesting a new word. I'm reporting that a dictionary entry is missing, inaccurate or incomplete.
    No new words. Only corrections to existing dictionary entries.
     
    Thanks for your reply, Paul. Maybe a misunderstanding arises from the use of the word 'entry'. Usually, each of the 'words/vocables' listed in a dictionary is called an entry, and the term doesn't normally indicate phrases contained inside of the explanation/illustration of each word - as far as I know.
    Therefore, the reader of the sentence "report that a dictionary entry is missing" can easily (mis?)interpret it as "suggest the addition of a new word" to the existing dictionary.

    Paulfromitaly said:
    I'm reporting that a dictionary entry is missing
    Click to expand...
     
    Last edited:
    Yes, to me (as a native English speaker), I understand an “entry” in a dictionary as a word, and if it is “missing”, that means it doesn’t exist.

    If WR, which I have always viewed be to as a superior dictionary due to it being at least somewhat crowd-sourced, has no recourse for users wishing to point out a missing word from one of its dictionaries… well, that really baffles. But alas, that seems to be the case :(
     
    The word "entry" can certainly mean different things to different people. On the topic of "missing" content, perhaps the following clarification will help:
    1. Please do report missing senses and usage for terms that already exist in the WR dictionary. WR might have a translation for the literal meaning of a term, but be missing a figurative sense, or a regionally-specific usage.
    2. It is not absolutely prohibited to say "I looked up term XYZ and it wasn't there at all; please add it." But this sort of suggestion is mostly a waste of time -- both your time, and the dictionary editors' time. That's not intended to be rude! Please see the explanation that follows.
    Once again, please let me refer you to the information that Mike Kellogg, owner of WordReference, posted in the sticky threads at the top of the Dictionary Error Reports & Suggestions forum. ;)

    mkellogg said:
    We generally are not looking for new terms to add. It doesn't take much for me to create a list of terms missing from the dictionaries that people actually search for. Having said that, we will read what you write and possibly add a term or two if we feel we should make an exception.
    Click to expand...

    Here is what I understand:

    When Mike is ready to devote resources to adding new terms to a dictionary, he doesn't need people to tell him which terms are missing, because he already knows.
    • It sounds like he has server logs -- and even if he doesn't, Google has search data! -- so it's easy to compare what terms people are looking for against the list of terms WR already has, and see what's missing.
    • Ranking terms to decide which ones to include in any given (resource-constrained) project is standard lexicography work. So transforming the list of missing terms into a ranked list, grabbing a batch off the top, and adding them to the dictionary to get fleshed out and translated is easy! No manual reporting required.
    • Mike seems to be saying that every once in a while, a compelling suggestion on the Dictionary Error Reports forum will make the lexicography team decide to bump a particular term up into that top batch, even though it wouldn't otherwise have made the cut for the next round of additions. But for the most part, it sounds like he has a procedure he's happy with for identifying terms that need to be added, regardless of whether anyone requests them.

    In contrast, identifying a missing sense or usage via automated methods is much, much harder! If you look up a word that exists in the WR dictionary, but you don't find the translation you need, you are the only one who knows you came up empty handed. No quick comparison of search lists vs. term lists will reveal the shortcoming. So it's extremely helpful when you report these missing senses and usages for terms (headwords) that already exist in WR. :)
     
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