What is Wordnik?

Wordnik wants to be a place for all the words, and everything known about them.

Our goal is to show you as much information as possible, as fast as we can find it, for every word in English, and to give you a place where you can make your own opinions about words known.

Traditional dictionaries make you wait until they've found what they consider to be "enough" information about a word before they will show it to you. Wordnik knows you don't want to wait—if you're interested in a word, we're interested too!

By "information," we don't just mean traditional definitions (although we have plenty of those)! This information could be:

• An example sentence—we have tons of examples and gobs of other data for most words. But even if we've only found one sentence, we'll show it to you. And we'll show you where it came from.
• Related words: not just synonyms and antonyms, but words that are used in the same contexts. Cheeseburger, milkshake, and doughnut aren't synonyms, but they show up in the same kinds of sentences.
• Images tagged by our friends at Flickr: want to know what a pout looks like? We'll show you.
• Statistics: how rare is tintinnabulation? Well, we think you'll see it only about once a year. Smile? You might see that word many times, every day.
• An audio pronunciation—and you can record your own!
• Something YOU tell us! Use the "Contribute" links to tell us something—anything—about a word.

Who is Wordnik?

Wordnik is Erin McKean, Grant Barrett, Orion Montoya, Tony Tam, John McGrath, Kumanan Rajamanikkam, Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Russell Horton, Robert Voyer, and Tim Allen, with help from Stan James, Andy Stanberry, Jim Pitkow, Chris Dixon, Brian Singerman, Doug Shore, David Lewis, Heather Rivers, David Wu, and Steve de Brun. More information is available on the team page.

We would like to especially thank Mark Olsen at ARTFL.

Who are the investors?

Our fantastic investors include Roger and Ann McNamee, Steve Anderson of Baseline, MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, Maples Investments, Radar Partners, and SV Angel.

How can I get in touch with you Wordnikers?

All questions and commments should be sent to feedback@wordnik.com.

If you have to send us something in the postal mail (and frankly, we love getting postal mail) you can address it to our P.O. box:

Wordnik
c/o Alphabeticall, Inc.
P.O. Box 1774
Burlingame CA 94010

Media and Press

All media and press inquiries should be sent to feedback@wordnik.com.

You can see some things others have written on the mentions page.

Is there anything else I should know?

You might enjoy our FAQ.