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Some entries in this dictionary cannot say which word they came from. This page explains why, and lists the specific edits that would fix it.

Yorùbá words are built from other words

ilé means home. ayé means life. Together they make ilé ayé, which means Earth.

Yorùbá does this constantly, and it is one of the most useful things a learner can see. So entries here show it in both directions. Open ilé ayé and its two parts are listed under Component words. Open ilé and every word built from it is listed under Used in.

Where that breaks down

To show it, we have to know which word a part came from. Usually that is clear. Sometimes it is not, because Yorùbá has many words spelled exactly alike.

Seven different words are spelled pa. They mean to kill, to tell, to rub, to gain, to be in a state, to be tight, and to be bald. Fifty-four words in this dictionary are built from one of those seven, and Wiktionary does not record which one.

When that happens we show the first, and the first is often wrong. It is why pàdé, which means to meet, currently appears here as built from pa meaning to kill.

What would fix it

Two pieces of information are missing, and both have to be written down on Wiktionary.

First, each of the seven meanings of pa needs a name. At the moment they are only "the first section", "the second section", and so on, which is nothing a word can point at.

Second, each word built from pa needs to say which of those names it means.

Neither piece is difficult. Both are one short line of text. What makes them a pair is that neither works alone: a name nothing points at has no effect, and a pointer to a name that does not exist has no effect either. That is why each page below lists both.

How the two lines are written

A name goes at the top of an etymology section, using the etymid template:

{{etymid|yo|kill}}

A word built from that meaning then names it, using id1, id2 and so on to say which of its parts it is talking about:

{{compound|yo|pa|kó|t1=kill, clear|id1=kill}}

The page for de is already done, if you want to see a finished one. Its five meanings are named tie down, deputize, wait, arrive and cover.

Choosing a name for a meaning

The name is yours to pick. It identifies one etymology section, so it does not have to describe every meaning in that section, and it only has to be unique within its own page.

• One or two plain words, lowercase. On de: tie down, deputize, wait, arrive, cover.
• Enough to tell it from the other meanings on the same page. On pa, kill and tell are enough. verb would not be.
• Broad enough for the whole section. The names suggested below come from each section's first definition, which is a starting point rather than a rule. Section 6 of ta covers "to shoot", "to sting", "to be spicy", "to kick" and "to pick" — shoot works, but a broader name would be better.
• Hard to change later. Renaming breaks every pointer aimed at it, and nothing warns you. Pick something that will still fit if the meaning is written up more fully one day.
• Read by other people. Wiktionary keeps lists of words that share a part — one such list is "Yoruba terms prefixed with a-". Naming a meaning splits that list by meaning, so words built from the nominalizing prefix sense are gathered separately from the others. Your name is what appears on the list, so read it back that way before you settle on it.

Checking the suggestions below

Where we can, we suggest which name a word should point at. Each suggestion says the same thing: this word records its part as meaning X, and section N of the target page covers X. Open both pages and confirm that.

Two things can be wrong with it. The meaning recorded on the word may itself be vague or mistaken — it was written by someone else and we take it at face value. Or the section may contain those words incidentally rather than actually meaning them.

There is a third case, which is not a mistake in the suggestion. Sometimes the recorded meaning matches no section at all. pàdé records its pa as "to do; action verb", and none of pa's seven sections says that. No pointer is right there: either the meaning written on pàdé is wrong, or pa is missing a meaning that ought to be listed. Both are worth fixing, and neither is the edit we suggest.

When you are not sure, leave it. A word with no pointer shows here as a gap. A word with the wrong pointer shows as a fact, and other tools will believe it.

Wiktionary's own documentation

These pages define what the templates do. Worth reading before a first edit.

• Template:etymid — naming a meaning. This is the one used below.
• Template:senseid — naming a single definition, for when one etymology section holds several meanings and a pointer needs to tell them apart.
• Template:affix — documents id1, id2 and their effect on category names. Template:compound takes the same parameters.
• Wiktionary:Entry layout — how numbered etymology sections are structured, if you have not edited an entry before.

This site has no Wiktionary account and makes no automated edits. Everything below is text for you to check and type.

A worked example: kọ

Seven different words are spelled kọ, separated by tone. Going through them showed two separate faults, and it is worth seeing both.

The seven meanings

kọ̀   to refuse, reject
kọ́   to build, construct · to learn, teach
kọ́   a negation particle
kọ́   to hang, suspend
kọ    to write
kọ    to stub, strike, hit
kọ    to recite

Fault one: words attached to the wrong meaning

Most words built from kọ are about writing — àkọtọ́ (orthography), àròkọ (essay), àkọọ́lẹ̀ (written record) — and those were already right.

ayékòótọ́, "parrot", was not. Its etymology records the component as meaning "to reject", which is kọ̀ — but it writes the component untoned, as kọ, and untoned kọ reaches only the write, stub and recite meanings. So it landed on "to write".

The fix is not a pointer. The tone mark is missing, and until that is settled there is nothing correct to point at. Cases like this are listed separately below, because adding a pointer would hide the problem rather than fix it.

Fault two: every meaning claiming the same words

Look at what each kọ listed under Used in before this:

to write            8 words
to stub, strike     the same 8 words
to recite           the same 8 words

All eight belong to to write. The other two meanings were showing a borrowed list, because words were being attached to a spelling rather than to a meaning. A reader looking up kọ "to stub, strike, hit" was told it builds àròkọ, "essay".

That one was ours, not Wiktionary's, and it is fixed. Six of the eight say clearly enough which meaning they came from. Those now sit under one meaning each:

to write            5 words
to stub, strike     none
to recite           kọrin, "to sing"

Empty is the honest answer. Nothing is yet recorded as built from kọ "to stub, strike, hit".

The other two — ayékòótọ́ and kọjá — could belong to any of the three. We do not guess. They are listed under all three meanings, in a second section headed Possibly used in.

That is deliberate. Picking one meaning for a word we cannot place goes wrong twice at once: the word shows up under a meaning it does not belong to, and it vanishes from the meaning it does. Listing it under every candidate goes wrong only the first way, and the heading tells you that is what you are reading.

Adding the seven names to Wiktionary is what moves a word out of that second list for good.

What is left on kọ

Six words can be pointed at a meaning straight away, once the seven names exist. One needs its tone settled first. One — kọjá, "to pass beyond" — records no meaning for its kọ at all, so it needs someone who knows the word. All eight are listed below under kọ.