# Wiktionary

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Wiktionary and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend Wiktionary for its broad coverage of word meanings and for being a quick, usually reliable answer to word questions. Critics say it is not always accurate, and some entries contradict each other.

## Why people recommend it

- Broad coverage of word meanings (2 comments): "wiktionary is better for this usecase since it tends to have a richer coverage of various meanings" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47927365)) "Wiktionary is also often quite decent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48048169))
- Good enough for quick answers (2 comments): "that's usually Good Enough™ to find me an answer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46926878)) "Wiktionary was extremely helpful" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45992742))

## What people warn about

- Links can lead to contradictions (1 comments): "Following the links around on wiktionary may, in general, lead to self-contradictory results." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47106889))
- Some entries coded incorrectly (1 comments): "This whole cluster of words is coded into Wiktionary incorrectly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937924))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Wikipedia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wikipedia.md): 404 recommend
- [Grokipedia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grokipedia.md): 52 recommend
- [Local Wikipedia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/local-wikipedia.md): 45 recommend
- [Britannica11.org](https://hackerapproved.com/p/britannica11-org.md): 14 recommend
- [Wikidata](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wikidata.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Wiktionary", https://hackerapproved.com/p/wiktionary/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).