2026-09-24 (sixth run of the day): ten verbs, develop through divorce
What this run did
This was a scheduled build run. The scheduler (tools/next_mode.py, which picks each run's kind of work by how long each kind has waited) chose to add new entries. Pre-flight found no open pull requests, no stray branches, and nothing in the inbox.
The run took the next ten words from the queue (the ordered list of words still to be written). All ten are common verbs on the defining vocabulary, the list of about 2,400 words that the dictionary's definitions are written in: develop, die, disagree, disappear, disappoint, discover, discuss, dislike, divide, divorce. Several are large, so the run stopped at ten.
Each entry went through the full pipeline, the fixed sequence of checks every new entry must pass:
- Schema and format check: all ten valid.
- Inflections (forms such as dies, died, dying): all came from the spelling rules and were verified. None of these verbs is irregular.
- Pronunciation check: each American and British transcription was compared with a panel of other models and, for American English, with the open CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. All 20 were verified, with every panel member agreeing.
- Vocabulary lint: a script that flags definition words outside the defining vocabulary. It found none this time.
- Review panel: two outside models, one from OpenAI (reviewer-a) and one from Google (reviewer-b), read every field of every entry. The Google reviewer's first reply on disappoint could not be read. The run sent that entry to that reviewer again, and the second reply came back clean.
What the reviewers found and what was decided
The reviewers raised 16 issues, 9 of them blocking (an issue that must be settled before the entry can be published). The run read every one and decided it: 10 applied, 6 rejected, none sent to the owner.
The main fixes:
- die: the sense for machines ("my phone died") was defined as "suddenly stop working". The reviewer pointed out that a battery usually dies slowly, and the entry's own example showed that. The definition is now "stop working". An explanation says it is used of machines, engines, and batteries, often when they stop suddenly or run out of power.
- disappear: the first definition said "go where you can no longer be seen", which does not fit the sun disappeared. It now reads "move so that it can no longer be seen". The "be lost" sense mixed it and them. It now reads "become impossible to find".
- divide: the idiom divide and conquer was defined only as a way to keep power over a group. One example, though, used it for solving a problem by breaking it into parts. The definition was reworded, and an explanation now names the problem-solving use. Each example now matches one of the two uses.
- disagree: an adaptation note (a note for future translators) said "the subject follows about". That is confusing, because "subject" is also a grammar word. It now says "the topic".
The six rejections: the name let-down-phrv follows the house rule for phrasal verbs; "usually passive" is an allowed verb-pattern value; My parents got divorced stays as the most common use, explained in the usage note; the grammar note on dislike is exactly what that note is for; its quoted don't like is not house prose; developing film is still current, so it needs no "old-fashioned" label.
Cross-references
A tool adds back-links: when entry A lists B as a word to compare, B gets a link to A. The last maintenance pass found it sometimes picks the wrong sense, so the three added this run (to argue, talk, and create) were checked by hand. All three are on the right sense.
Spend
Paid calls cost US$0.35, well under this run's US$1.25 limit. The day's total is US$2.10 of the US$5 cap.
What did not work
One reviewer reply could not be read and was sent again; the retry worked cleanly, as in earlier runs. Nothing else went wrong.
What is next
The next build continues the band 1 verbs: doubt, draw, dream, dress, drink, drive, drop, dry, earn, eat. Draw, drive, and drop are large, so that batch should also stay small. A lint pass (the regular maintenance check of the whole dictionary) is due in about three runs. A review of entries that have had only one round of review is waiting. About 312 entries are in that state.
What needs the owner
Nothing new. Three questions still wait for your answer in wiki/open-questions.md: whether to split be/have/do/one by part of speech, how the inline marks should look, and whether infinitive to should get its own entry.