The word enlargeable is not valid for the game's dictionary.

The mini gold player's game? A lot of words are not there. A lot of words you wouldn't expect to be there are valid for that game.

I was just playing Word Wizard. I had the following letters. E A R V C I N M T P H Y.

I tried the following words. HERMATYPIC, HYPERMANIA, PARCHMENTY, PENTARCHY, NYMPHETIC, ARCHITYPE. Finally had to settle for PARCHMENT. Don't know what dictionary, thesaurus or lexicon is used as the source file for acceptable words, but I think it needs updated.

I accidently put this in the Who Am I forum. I tried to delete it but couldn't. Sorry.

I am so sick of some of the hair-splitting and just completely wrong answers for Word Wizard. Even worse is when more than one word absolutely fits the definition.
That happened to me tonight and I'd love to know how to make them fix it, but there's no "error report" for Word Wizard!!
Here it is:

"a senior clergyman and dignitary"

Your answer: cardinal
cardinal means "a variable color averaging a vivid red"
The correct answer was primate

Well I'm sure all those who are cardinals in the Catholic church would heartily disagree, since the definition fits them far better than the "primates" in the Catholic church.
Cardinals outrank primates!!! (On my team's board that was in all caps, because I am furious). In Catholicism, a primate is an archbishop. A cardinal outranks an archbishop. Unbelievable!!

I hope you feel better for venting, but as has been said many times on this thread the Word Wizard and Mind Melt games use an online "dictionary" which is not a part of this site, meaning we just have to live with its shortcomings. It is still a better source for the games Terry has built using it than any other source available at the time. And every so often I notice one of my most disliked definitions being amended.

In some Catholic countries, the term primate is used to refer to the bishop who presides over the oldest or most significant see in the country. They may be called an archbishop or they may be called a bishop. The primate is, in effect, the senior bishop. In other countries, it can refer to anyone who is at least as senior as bishop - and would include archbishops and cardinals, even cardinals who are not bishops before being appointed cardinals. The order of precedence laid down was at one time clearly stated to have cardinals outrank other prelates, but the 1983 revision did not include that statement, making relative ranks less clearcut than had formerly been the case.

The use of very abbreviated entries means that much of the subtlety of meaning is lost - and this is especially true when it may be the fourth or fifth definition that is being drawn on. My problem often lies in trying to consider alternative definitions - when I see primate, I think great apes first of all! However, I have played the game long enough to know that cardinal is almost always defined as the red color, not as the word is used for numbers, compass points, or clerics.

This is precisely why I stay away from the Feedback Forum. I love being condescended to. Do you think I don't know the various definitions of both "primate" and "cardinal"?
Never mind. Every single time I have put feedback on here, someone insults my intelligence. And i think that's completely uncalled-for.
So never mind. I will never post anything in the Forums again for any reason.

In the Anglican church the word primate is used to describe the most senior clergyman. The head of the church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the Primate of All England, and his deputy, the Archbishop of York, is Primate of England, so matching primate with the definition quoted seems fine to me.

There are many far more dubious definitions in the game but these are outside the control of FunTrivia, which was the main part of the explanation you were given. There is no correction button because FT can't make any changes.

Most of us consider these minor irritations.

It is a Terry made up dictionary. He included words that are unexpected in there. It does say some expected words won't be allowed.

Word AEROPLANES not found.
Of course not.

However, aeroplane is found. As it says on that page,

The dictionary is not on this site, so we cannot make additions or deletions (although it is possible for Terry to apply filters that remove classes of words) nor can we edit entries. It is what it is, with all its quirks and eccentricities.

I imagine I shall get the same treatment as GoodReporter, having been dealt with in similar fashion over the years, although I know there is no malice intended.

15. smoothen the surface of

Your answer: launch

I have searched and searched all the conventional dictionaries and thesauri, but cannot find this definition for 'launch'. In the Free Dictionary I found it right at the end as 'launch plaster', 6. launch - smoothen the surface of; "launch plaster". A Google search could not find any use of this term. It may be that another term for the float, which is used by plasterers, is a launch. It certainly does not describe the process of smoothing a surface.

Along with pillbox, defined in WW as "a little round lady's hat", I shall remain baffled.

Jackie Kennedy famously wore a pillbox hat. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillbox_hat

The Free Dictionary definition is exactly the one used in the game. It is quite possibly nonsense (certainly I have never heard of it being used this way - although there is a sort of tenuous connection in that the verbs float and launch can sometimes be used interchangeably), but since it is in a dictionary, it becomes fodder for the game. The Free Dictionary lists the source to be cited as: Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc. Maybe you have located the enigmatic source dictionary for the game, the one with all the slightly-off-target definitions, along with some that are just plain wrong.

Jackie Kennedy famously wore a pillbox hat. See:

Yes indeed, Samak, but she wasn't a little round lady!

Thanks, Looney Tunes. I do indeed know that the Free Dictionary is the one used in a few of the games. I gather that the biggest difficulty is that almost anyone in Princeton (or others given access) can make their own additions which are not vetted before going online. I understood that (at least some time ago) where a definition is found to be 'plain wrong' we could report it and eventually the powers that be could delete a collated list of incorrect definitions from the FT database. Perhaps I was mistaken. I find that I am often mistaken nowadays.

Ha ha. Nice one !

Terry can apply filters to remove classes of items - drug references, for example, or highly technical scientific terms - and has done so. Incorrect definitions do not get deleted or amended, as the game is actually accessing the offsite dictionary. Sometimes the dictionary itself is amended - a few of the entries that used to irritate me most did get fixed, but a lot of them remain.

Isn't this


15. use (purified cocaine) by burning it and inhaling the fumes

Your answer: free-base



The type of thing Terry would remove from the game and the real purpose of this thread is to report answers like this?

I hope FT wouldn't be so prissy.

13. sidetrack

give bad advice to
a gay feeling
wander from a direct or straight course
hold back to a later time
mesquite pod used in tanning and dying
mesquite pod used in tanning and dying

This happens occasionally. The one good thing is that Terry has told us that the correct answer will never be one of the duplicated answers. (It's been a long time since this last was stated, so its good that you brought it up for the newer members)

3. common_fennel

Your answer: aromatic bulbous stem base eaten cooked or raw in salads
aromatic bulbous stem base eaten cooked or raw in salads is the definition for "finocchio"

The correct answer was leaves used for seasoning

Perhaps it needs to be pointed out that an aromatic bulbous stem base eaten cooked or raw in salads applies perfectly to fennel (Yes, the ferny leaves are used too, but I prefer to use the bulb). Perhaps there is a way of preventing both answers appearing in the same question?

That one irritated me, too - finocchio the Italian name for fennel. But that's not how the source dictionary defines them. I am not sure how a filter could fix it, and whether it is worth the amount of time it would involve. I've been playing the game for a long time without having this unfortunate coincidence occur.

Thanks LooneyT, it appears that it is a total waste of time reporting anomalies, as we are told either to rejoice in the wrongness, or accept the fact that there will sometimes be two completely correct answers to the same definition.

The only issue I have ever had with Word Wizard is that words found in other dictionaries are not found in the "FAKE" dictionary used by Word Wizard. If it is real, name it, instead of just alluding to it. For example, "elutriate" is in the Free Dictionary by Farlex, but not Word Wizard. "The site cross-references the contents of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the Collins English Dictionary, the Columbia Encyclopedia, the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, the Hutchinson Encyclopedia (subscription) and Wikipedia, as well as the Acronym Finder database, several financial dictionaries, legal dictionaries and other content".