Open Dictionary
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Synonyms at the Open Dictionary

In a dictionary-file entry, there may be any number KEYs for the same URL. These are called synonyms, and they are said to form a synonym group.

The purpose of synonyms is to improve search results in the Open Dictionary. If there are two or more phrases for referring to the same context, it is best to list all of them so that searches can match exactly in all cases. It is also an effective way to support both acronym's and their expansions.

There is a special vertical-bar syntax for specifying synonym groups:

    KEY = Superstring Theory | String Theory | Superstrings
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

is equivalent to

    KEY = Superstring Theory
    KEY = String Theory
    KEY = Superstrings
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

or even

    KEY = Superstring Theory
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

    KEY = String Theory
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

    KEY = Superstrings
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

Note that to get a vertical bar into a KEY, it must be quoted with backslash, e.g.,

    KEY = Super\|Strings
    URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/

The same goes for the forward slash ('/').

In general, the synonyms should be ordered from longest (or clearest) form, to shortest (most cryptic) form. Below are some examples (contexts suppressed):

    KEY = Prilosec | Omeprazole
    URL = http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/cgi-bin/az_pi.cgi?product=prilosec&country=us&inFrame=no

    KEY = Taylor Series Expansion | Taylor Series | Power Series
    URL = http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/euler/TaylorSeries.html

    KEY = Weierstrass Approximation Theorem | Polynomial Approximation
    URL = http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/euler/Appendix_D_Weierstrass.html

    KEY = Feedback Delay Network | FDN
    URL = http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/cfdn/Feedback_Delay_Networks.html

Presently, only the first form is displayed in the Open Dictionary browser, but this will change in the next release.

A URL submitted for a synonym group will be rejected if it already exists under an identical synonym group. If there are any differences in the submitted synonym group, considered as an unordered list of KEYs, a new entry is entered corresponding to the new synonym group. Thus, a synonym group functions like a kind of generalized KEY itself.

You can also specify competing URLs for a synonym group, viz.,

KEY = Superstring Theory | String Theory | Superstrings
URL = http://www.superstringtheory.com/
RTG = 7
URL = http://www.treasure-troves.com/physics/Superstring.html
RTG = 5

When two synonym groups have some terms in common, but not all, the URLs may be considered combined for the common terms, but not combined for the separate terms. This rule extends to any number of overlapping synonym groups. Thus, a search for a term which happens to appear in three distinct synonym groups should list the URLs for all three synonym groups as competing definitions for that term.

Entry ownership is tied to the URL. Thus, if two users submit different URLs for the same KEY, they each own their respective contribution. The KEY is not owned by anybody.

If a list of competing definitions is submitted for a KEY, and that KEY already exists at the Open Dictionary, the newly submitted URLs are appended to the existing URLs, after weeding out any duplicated URLs. Thus, the submitter only owns the URLs which were both submitted and not already present in the database.

A duplicate entry must have the same list of URLs, the same list of synonyms, and be in the same context.