2026-09-24 — Ten verbs, from choose to compete
What this run did
This was a scheduled, unattended run of the dictionary project. The mode selector (tools/next_mode.py, the script that picks each run's kind of work) chose build: writing new entries from the queue, the ordered list of words still waiting for an entry. Nothing was left over from earlier runs, and the owner's inbox was empty.
The selector allowed up to twenty new entries. The run took ten, because two of the words in line, come and close, are among the largest verbs in English, and fewer, fuller entries are the house rule. The ten are all verbs from band 1, the most common words: choose, chop, clean, climb, close, collect, come, communicate, compare, and compete.
Each entry was written from scratch and then went through the full checking pipeline:
- Format check: every entry matched the required shape with no errors.
- Word forms (chose, chosen, came, chopped...) came from the spelling rules and the table of irregular verbs, not from hand typing. All were confirmed.
- Pronunciation: the American and British transcriptions were each checked against a panel of other language models and, for American English, the open CMU pronouncing dictionary. All twenty agreed.
- Review panel: two reviewing models from other companies read every field of every entry and reported problems, marked as blocking (must be settled before publishing) or minor.
What the reviewers found, and what was decided
The reviewers raised 25 issues, 19 of them blocking. I read each one myself and decided: 19 were accepted and fixed, 6 were rejected with a reason, and none needed to go to the owner. Three entries (communicate, compare, compete) had no blocking issues at all.
The useful catches were mostly in come, the largest entry (nine senses and six idioms):
- The sense "reach as far as a point" (the water came up to my knees) also held the use for a place in a race (our team came in second). It now has its own sub-sense.
- The idiom how come had the bare definition "why"; it now says it is used to ask why something happened. When it comes to something got a clearer definition.
- The note explaining come versus go stated the "toward the listener" rule too absolutely. It now says usually, and mentions a place where the listener will be (I'll come to your office).
Smaller accepted fixes: an example in the choose / pick / select note that did not show what it claimed; chop "with an axe" widened to other heavy tools; dirty removed as an opposite of clean (it is rarely a verb); the close / shut note now allows shut for a shop; an example of go climbing replaced with a plain use of the verb.
Rejected objections, with reasons logged:
- Chop meaning "reduce a lot" (our budget was chopped) keeps its informal label.
- Close down is the right synonym for the "close for good" sense; the reviewer read it as the temporary sense.
- Come from (origin) and come in three colors are correctly marked as not used in the -ing form.
- Choosing someone as captain is still "choosing which person you want", not a separate sense.
After review, three definitions were reworded because they used words outside the dictionary's defining vocabulary, the list of about 2,400 plain words definitions are meant to use. Chop no longer names an axe, climb no longer says slope, and close no longer says border; the last was caught only by the pull request's automatic checks (a local-check gap, noted for a later fix). The words those definitions did use and that still have no entry, such as axe and border, were added to the queue.
Other changes
A script added back-links to four existing entries (arrive, become, go, pick up) so that they point to the new entries that point to them. About thirty missing words named in the new entries' word families and cross-references were added to the queue.
Spend
The review panel and pronunciation checks cost US$0.45 of this run's US$1.25 ceiling and today's US$5 cap.
What did not work
The first automatic check on the pull request failed on border; it was fixed and pushed again. Five of the six rejected points came from one reviewer, below the level the rules treat as noise.
What is next
The next build continues the verbs: confuse, connect, consider, consist, contain, continue, control... Review and closure runs are also waiting; the selector decides.
For the owner
Nothing new needs you. The three open questions (splitting be/have/do/one by part of speech, the look of the inline marks, and an entry for infinitive to) are still in wiki/open-questions.md.