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Nothing in AltF Lexicon is written by us. Definitions and word relationships come from Princeton’s WordNet, pronunciations from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, and commonness bands from a published frequency list. This page states what each source covers, what it does not, and reproduces the licence terms we are required to carry.
Coverage is uneven, and pretending otherwise is how a dictionary loses trust. Where a field is missing on a word page, the page says which source did not have it rather than filling the gap with a guess.
| Field | Source | Entries | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definitions and senses | WordNet | 207,235 | Every one of the 147,478 entries has at least one definition. |
| Part of speech, semantic field | WordNet | 147,478 | Taken from the lexicographer file each sense is filed under, not inferred from the text. |
| Synonyms, antonyms, broader and narrower | WordNet | — | Synonyms are the other words in the same synset. Antonyms are recorded per word pair, not per meaning group. |
| Usage examples | WordNet | 34,261 | 23% of entries. Verbs and adverbs are far better covered than nouns. |
| IPA and respelling | CMU Pronouncing Dictionary | 35,490 | Entries with a recorded pronunciation. Everything else shows a syllable line only, and says so. |
| Syllable division and stress | CMUdict, else spelling rules | 83,117 | Every single-word entry. Multi-word phrases carry no phonetics. |
| Commonness band | OpenSubtitles frequency list | 64,164 | Entries with a measured frequency rank. The rest fall back to how many senses the word carries. |
| Irregular inflections | WordNet exception lists | 4,099 | Lets a search for ran find run, and mice find mouse. |
Two of these licences require their notice, conditions and disclaimer to travel with any copy of the data — including a derived one such as ours. They are reproduced verbatim below for that reason.
WordNet Release 3.0 This software and database is being provided to you, the LICENSEE, by Princeton University under the following license. By obtaining, using and/or copying this software and database, you agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with these terms and conditions.: Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply with the following copyright notice and statements, including the disclaimer, and that the same appear on ALL copies of the software, database and documentation, including modifications that you make for internal use or for distribution. WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. THIS SOFTWARE AND DATABASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT- ABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, DATABASE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. The name of Princeton University or Princeton may not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software and/or database. Title to copyright in this software, database and any associated documentation shall at all times remain with Princeton University and LICENSEE agrees to preserve same.
The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary Copyright (c) 1993-2015 Carnegie Mellon University. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. The contents of this file are deemed to be source code. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. This work was supported in part by funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the United States Department of Education. The contents of this file do not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY NOR ITS EMPLOYEES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
ISC License Copyright (c) 2015 Zeke Sikelianos <zeke@sikelianos.com> Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Commonness bands are derived from the 2018 English frequency list of the OpenSubtitles corpus, published as hermitdave/FrequencyWords. That content is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and the filtered list we ship is redistributed under the same licence.
We deliberately do not use the frequency list most often reached for in this situation. It traces back to a corpus distributed under an agreement that forbids commercial redistribution of the data; the open licence on that page covers the accompanying code, not the word counts.