Help
How to search, how to read an entry, and what the labels mean. If your question is not here, send it to us.
Using the dictionary
How do I look something up?
Type into the search box at the top of any page. Suggestions appear as you type, and pressing Enter runs a full search across headwords and definitions. You can also press the forward slash key from anywhere on the site to jump into the search box.
Search finds the word inside definitions, not just headwords. Why?
Because most people arrive describing a thing rather than naming it. Searching for a material, a process or a symptom will surface the entries that mention it, which is often how you find the term you did not know.
Does search understand word endings?
Yes. The index is stemmed, so searching for grind also matches grinding and grinds. Exact headword matches are pushed to the top of the results.
Can I browse instead of searching?
The entry list covers all 5,000 headwords alphabetically. You can also browse by trade, which groups entries into the 26 disciplines the dictionary covers.
Understanding an entry
What do the labels under a headword mean?
The first label is the part of speech. The second is the trade the sense belongs to. Any label after those is a register label, describing how the word is used rather than what it means.
What is a register label?
It marks a term as slang, informal, dated, regional, obsolete, colloquial, idiomatic, rare, archaic, figurative or jargon. It tells you about audience. A slang term may be perfectly clear to colleagues and unsuitable for a specification or a contract.
Why does one word have several entries?
Because the same spelling can be a genuinely different thing in a different trade. Each industrial sense gets its own entry, with its own trade label and its own source.
Why is the definition so short?
Entries define the industrial sense and stop. They deliberately leave out etymology, quotations and unrelated everyday meanings, so the answer arrives quickly. The source link goes to the full record.
Sources and corrections
Where do the definitions come from?
Definitions are selected from English Wiktionary through the Kaikki.org Wiktextract exports, and every entry links to its source page. Only senses explicitly carrying an industrial topic label are considered.
I think an entry is wrong. What now?
Tell us through the contact page and include the headword and what you believe the correct sense is. Corrections from people who use the term at work are the most valuable messages we receive.
A term I use every day is missing.
Send it in. Include the trade, roughly where the term is used, and what it means. Regional and shop specific vocabulary is under recorded everywhere, and that is exactly the gap this dictionary is trying to close.
Can I reuse the definitions?
Yes, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Credit Wiktionary contributors, identify Kaikki.org and Wiktextract as the extraction path, keep a link to the source, mark your changes, and license your version compatibly. The licence page has the detail.
Safety
Can I use an entry as a work instruction?
No. This is a terminology reference. A definition that says what a tool or a process does is not a safe work procedure and does not tell you how to do it safely.
What should I use instead?
The manufacturer's current instructions, your site's approved procedure, and the laws and standards that apply where you are. Use them before operating, servicing, lifting, energising, cutting, entering or isolating any equipment.