Wiktionary:Word of the day

Wiktionary’s Word of the Day features interesting words, terms, and phrases on the Main Page. For Words of the Day in languages other than English, see Foreign Word of the Day.

Today’s Word of the Day

 

Word of the day
for March 23
hoar frost n
  1. Originally, any frozen dew forming a white deposit on exposed surfaces.
  2. (specifically, meteorology) Water vapour which has undergone deposition or desublimation (transformation directly into ice crystals without first turning into liquid water) when the air is cold and moist to form a white deposit on exposed surfaces.

  Today is World Meteorological Day, which is recognized by the United Nations to highlight the contribution that national meteorological and hydrological services make to the safety and well-being of society.

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Future Words of the Day

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Past Words of the Day

 

Alphabetical index


Chronological index

Frequently asked questions

See Wiktionary:Word of the day/FAQ.

History

Although there were several early attempts to begin a Word of the Day on Wiktionary, the first official WOTD was posted on 10 January 2006.

Considerable opposition to the now wildly popular WOTD was raised, as it was felt that one full year’s supply of terms should be prepared before it appeared on the Main Page. That took over a year to happen.

In 2007, the RSS feed was created, then an alternate feed (no longer operational) was later added. In July and August 2007, the WOTD was added to the Wikimedia Daily Article Mailing List.

Also in early 2007, the entries started being marked with {{was wotd}} to prevent duplicates, and an alphabetic index (which has since failed RFD) was added.

No voting process currently exists for deciding the terms that get featured as WOTD. The volunteers managing it use a set of criteria to ensure adequate variety for any given month’s batch of WOTDs. For details, please see “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations”. Before entries finally make it into the spotlight, they are vetted and tidied up to ensure they are properly formatted and referenced, have suitable quotations, and so on. Only then will they be awesome enough to show to the world!