How to retrieve Wiktionary word content?

Question

How may Wiktionary\'s API be used to determine whether or not a word exists?

Answer 1

You can download a dump of Wikitionary data. There's more information in the FAQ. For your purposes, the definitions dump is probably a better choice than the xml dump.

Answer 2

To keep it really simple, extract the words from the dump like that:

bzcat pages-articles.xml.bz2 | grep '<title>[^[:space:][:punct:]]*</title>' | sed 's:.*<title>\(.*\)</title>.*:\1:' > words

Answer 3

Here's a start to parsing etymology and pronunciation data:

function parsePronunciationLine(line) {
  let val
  let type
  line.replace(/\{\{\s*a\s*\|UK\s*\}\}\s*\{\{IPA\|\/?([^\/\|]+)\/?\|lang=en\}\}/, (_, $1) => {
    val = $1
    type = 'uk'
  })
  line.replace(/\{\{\s*a\s*\|US\s*\}\}\s*\{\{IPA\|\/?([^\/\|]+)\/?\|lang=en\}\}/, (_, $1) => {
    val = $1
    type = 'us'
  })
  line.replace(/\{\{enPR|[^\}]+\}\},?\s*\{\{IPA\|\/?([^\/\|]+)\/?\|lang=en}}/, (_, $1) => {
    val = $1
    type = 'us'
  })
  line.replace(/\{\{a|GA\}\},?\s*\{\{IPA\|\/?([^\/\|]+)\/?\|lang=en}}/, (_, $1) => {
    val = $1
    type = 'ga'
  })
  line.replace(/\{\{a|GA\}\},?.+\{\{IPA\|\/?([^\/\|]+)\/?\|lang=en}}/, (_, $1) => {
    val = $1
    type = 'ga'
  })
  // {{a|GA}} {{IPA|/ˈhæpi/|lang=en}}
  // * {{a|RP}} {{IPA|/pliːz/|lang=en}}
  // * {{a|GA}} {{enPR|plēz}}, {{IPA|/pliz/|[pʰliz]|lang=en}}

  if (!val) return

  return { val, type }
}

function parseEtymologyPiece(piece) {
  let parts = piece.split('|')
  parts.shift() // first one is ignored.
  let ls = []
  if (langs[parts[0]]) {
    ls.push(parts.shift())
  }
  if (langs[parts[0]]) {
    ls.push(parts.shift())
  }
  let l = ls.pop()
  let t = parts.shift()
  return [ l, t ]
  // {{inh|en|enm|poisoun}}
  // {{m|enm|poyson}}
  // {{der|en|la|pōtio|pōtio, pōtiōnis|t=drink, a draught, a poisonous draught, a potion}}
  // {{m|la|pōtō|t=I drink}}
  // {{der|en|enm|happy||fortunate, happy}}
  // {{cog|is|heppinn||lucky}}
}

Update: Here is a gist with it more fleshed out.