| ←Policies and guidelines | Style guide |
| This style guide outlines Wiktionary's formatting conventions and guidelines. This page summarises the conventions and links to in-depth style guides for particular page types.
Note that the style guide is very much a work in progress; it will probably be complete and ready for the final proposal within a month. |
While the style guide presents widely-supported standards, it is not a set of rigid rules. You may experiment with deviations, but other editors may find those deviations unacceptable, and revert those changes. They have just as much right to do that as you have to make them. Be ready to discuss those changes; if you want your way accepted, you have to make the case for that. Unless there is a good reason for deviating, the standard should be presumed correct. Refusing to discuss, or engaging in edit wars may also affect your credibility in other unrelated areas.
Wiktionary provides a variety of information in all languages together on the same pages. A very specific layout has been standardised to maintain useability and aesthetics. Languages are identified in alphabetical order, with English first. Each language section is subdivided into sections for each type of information presented. Data about the word itself is placed first (etymology and pronunciation), followed by definitions divided alphabetically by type (abbreviation, noun, verb, et cetera), followed by data about the Wiktionary entry (references, see also, derived terms, et cetera).
There is no consistent consensus yet. This will be developed as part of this unified style guide.
Words are categorised by language, part of speech (noun, verb, ...), etymology, and topic (numbers, animals, ...). Templates automatically categorise by language and part of speech; for example, {{abbreviation|English}} and {{en-noun}} respectively categorise to English abbreviations and English nouns. These are not yet standardised, but will be in the future.