Waggle — Licences and Data

The definition database is offered under CC BY-SA 4.0

Waggle’s bundled definition database, definitions.sqlite, is an adaptation of WordNet 3.1 and of English and Scots Wiktionary, and is offered to anyone under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence — the same terms Waggle received the Wiktionary material under.

This offer covers the definition data only. It does not extend to Waggle’s source code, art, sound, or the word list, which are separate works merely aggregated with it.

Download the database

Download definitions.sqlite.gz (10.7 MB compressed; about 30 MB uncompressed). Decompress it with any gzip tool to get definitions.sqlite, a standard SQLite database. No sign-in or agreement is required; the data is yours to use under the licence above.

Changes made to the source material

CC BY-SA 4.0 requires that adaptations say what was changed:

• Senses were REORDERED. WordNet orders senses within a part of speech and nothing orders the parts of speech against each other; senses are re-sorted across parts of speech by the tagged frequency counts in index.sense, so the first sense shown is the common one.
• Glosses were SPLIT. WordNet packs a definition and every usage example into a single string; these are stored as separate fields and only one example is retained per sense.
• Redirects were CHASED. Wiktionary entries that answer with a pointer (“plural of aal”, “alternative form of argh”) are resolved to the target’s own definition, with the pointer retained as a note.
• Inflected forms were MAPPED to lemmas, using WordNet’s exception lists, the morphy suffix rules, and additional regular rules, so that every spelling in Waggle’s word list resolves without runtime guessing.
• Entries were SUBSET. Only material needed by Waggle’s word list is kept, and only the first few senses of a Wiktionary entry are retained.
• Glosses were REWRITTEN IN PLACE for 1,786 sourced senses. These cover pointers a player cannot follow, glosses that define a word through its own derivative, and wording ruled unsuitable for the sheet. The sense keeps its original source value, because it still answers for the source’s entry; the rewritten wording is Waggle’s and is marked as such in the authorship_note column.
• Usage examples were DROPPED for 674 senses and REPLACED for 77. Dropped where any honest example of the sense would read wrong in a family word game, or where the sourced sentence sneered at a group of people, arrived spliced, or was misspelled; replaced where a family-friendly sentence could show the same sense. A replacement sentence is Waggle’s, not the source’s. Note that authorship_note records rewritten glosses only, so the database does not by itself mark which 77 example sentences are ours.
• Sources were LAYERED. WordNet answers wherever it has an entry; Wiktionary is consulted only for what WordNet cannot answer, and the Scots dump only for what English Wiktionary cannot.
• Definitions were ADDED that no shipped source supplied — see “Waggle’s own glosses” below. They are marked waggle in the database’s source column, so an adaptation of this data can tell them apart from the sourced ones. A small number stand in for a sourced definition Waggle declined to ship; the replaced senses remain in the database, marked hidden.

Waggle’s own glosses

Some words in Waggle’s word list resolve to definitions written for Waggle. Most cover words that appear in none of the sources above; a small number stand in for sourced definitions Waggle declined to ship. All are marked waggle in the database’s own source column and are released under CC BY-SA 4.0 along with the rest of the definition database. They are the only definitions in the product that no third party has vouched for.

Each also carries an authorship_note recording that it was written for Waggle rather than adapted from a source, and the date it was reviewed. A further 1,786 senses keep a source of wordnet or wiktionary but carry a note saying the gloss was rewritten in place for Waggle. To separate our definitions from the licensed material, read authorship_note: every sense whose note is set has a gloss worded by us, whatever its source says. The column speaks for glosses only; see the dropped and replaced examples above. The source column records where the sense came from, not who wrote the line.

Third-party notices

WordNet 3.1

Copyright 2011 The Trustees of Princeton University. All rights reserved. wordnet.princeton.edu

WordNet is the primary source and supplies the definition for the great majority of words. Its licence is permissive and asks only that this notice be retained:

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 MERCHANTABILITY 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.

Wiktionary (English and Scots)

Text by Wiktionary contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, used via the wiktextract dataset at kaikki.org. en.wiktionary.org

Two dumps are used. The English one does the work; the Scots one answers a further set of words, because the Burns vocabulary Waggle’s word list carries as English is filed by Wiktionary under Scots.

ENABLE / Re-Enable word list

Public domain. The ENABLE list was placed in the public domain by Alan Beale and M. Cooper; Re-Enable is the maintained descendant. No conditions.

SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists), 2020.12.07

Copyright 2000-2020 Kevin Atkinson. Used as a source of candidate words only, each reviewed individually. SCOWL’s licence requires this notice be retained:

Copyright 2000-2020 by Kevin Atkinson

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell these word lists,
the associated scripts, the output created from the scripts, and its
documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided
that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both
that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no representations about the
suitability of this array for any purpose. It is provided "as is"
without express or implied warranty.

The word list, separately

Waggle’s word list, words.txt, is built from Re-Enable (public domain, ENABLE’s maintained descendant) plus individually reviewed candidates from SCOWL. It is credited here because SCOWL asks for its notice to be retained — not because it is share-alike. The CC BY-SA offer above covers the definition database only, not the word list.

Contact

For licence questions, email [email protected].