Sources & licences
Every definition served here is public domain or openly licensed, and is shown with its source and year. Where a licence requires attribution or share-alike, the required credit is below and travels with every API response. Each row records the SHA256 of the exact file that was imported, so the licence claim is provable against the bytes that shipped.
| Source | Licence | Credit | Origin | Source SHA256 · imported |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) 1828 · early · 72609 entries |
Public domain (text); repo carries no licence file | Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), public domain. Parsed text: kayson-argyle/websters_1828. | github.com/kayson-argyle/websters_1828@c1d8bccb763a |
03e649200309c1a60d3ba0ea588160f920da4ff0dd93c4245248741ef051b80e2026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Mayhew & Skeat, A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (1888) 1888 · old · 11350 entries |
Public domain (text, Project Gutenberg EBook #10625); repo carries no licence file licence / source text |
A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat, A Concise Dictionary of Middle English (1888), public domain, from Project Gutenberg EBook #10625. StarDict packaging: spudrucket/A-Concise-Dictionary-of-Middle-English. | github.com/spudrucket/A-Concise-Dictionary-of-Middle-English@be9201a746b4 |
f9abc56977082ba30f0a835c2684ebdf869c5592bc2224e5b34282081ef13bf62026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Bosworth-Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898, with the 1921 supplement) 1898 · old · 58157 entries |
Public domain (dictionary data, Germanic Lexicon Project); MIT (repo code) licence / source text |
Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898), public domain. Digitised by the Germanic Lexicon Project; packaged in madeleineth/btc_anglo_saxon. | github.com/madeleineth/btc_anglo_saxon@aacb5db5d210 |
510c6e527f84b35c93df2d03e5097ccfb64f196adb99bbc6b91e151fd016cbdb2026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 1913 · classic · 117824 entries |
Project Gutenberg License (dictionary.txt, EBook #29765; underlying 1913 text public domain in the US); MIT (JSON + code) licence / source text |
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), public domain, from Project Gutenberg EBook #29765. JSON: ssvivian/WebstersDictionary (MIT). | github.com/ssvivian/WebstersDictionary@e3f886c2c552 |
968bfcd4ed436f2878fcb3b68d12dd555325ead6e8a47899df7e706dbf8df02f2026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Wordset Dictionary 2025 · modern · 115543 entries |
CC-BY-SA 4.0 (Wordset, Inc.) + Princeton WordNet 3.0 License (underlying data) licence / source text |
Wordset by Wordset, Inc., CC BY-SA 4.0 - definitions may be adapted and are shared under the same licence. Based on WordNet 3.0, (c) Princeton University. | github.com/wordset/wordset-dictionary@4503bfafbe45 |
2fb3824584e6594afb09d16768aa53160a9f7d449b8c81e80f077827d11421462026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Open English WordNet 2026 · modern · 136000 entries |
CC-BY 4.0 (Open English WordNet) + Princeton WordNet License (underlying data) licence / source text |
Open English WordNet, (c) 2019-present The Open English WordNet Team, CC BY 4.0. Derived from Princeton WordNet, (c) Princeton University, used under the WordNet License. | github.com/globalwordnet/english-wordnet@bff3181fe5c8 |
b96249273ce90d219ca9fec6f01e183ae21d9704c608abd8702370434390ffb42026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
| Wiktionary (English), via kaikki.org 2026 · modern · 806273 entries |
CC-BY-SA 4.0 / GFDL licence / source text |
Definitions from Wiktionary, by Wiktionary contributors, via kaikki.org (wiktextract). CC BY-SA 4.0 / GFDL. | kaikki.org/dictionary/English/ | 723553acc5d1fae729c343d052c2ae6342f77497c3e5c6e89484fa3af78faf282026-09-18T23:16:51.677Z |
What is not here, and why
- GCIDE (the GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English). It is the
1913 Webster plus later additions, and the dictionary itself is GPL-3 data. The plain 1913 text is
the same dictionary without those additions, so that is what is served. For the same reason the
WebsterParseroutput is not used — its input is GCIDE — and 13 entries of the Gutenberg text that carry a GCIDE addition tag are dropped. - The Middle English Dictionary (University of Michigan). Not openly licensed. Mayhew & Skeat's public-domain Concise Dictionary of Middle English is its stand-in.
- Johnson's Dictionary (1755). The only structured copies found were a partial scrape of a funded transcription project whose terms had not been read, and an API with no data. Neither is loaded.
- Skeat's Etymological Dictionary. The copy found was an index of words to page numbers — no definitions to serve.
- Webster 1844. The only copy found was scraped from a university website.
- No AI-written definitions, and no AI fallback when a word is missing. Every sentence here has a year and an author.