Methodology & editorial policy

This page explains exactly how the dictionary is built: where the 81,179 entries come from, how they are verified, where AI is and is not used, and how mistakes are fixed. We publish this in full because for a dictionary, a clear and honest method is the whole basis of trust.

Where the words come from

Every entry is compiled from open, attributed lexical data, and each links back to its source.

• Wiktionary, via the Wiktextract project: headwords, meanings, romanization, etymology and inflected forms. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Olam: an open English–Malayalam dictionary, inverted to Malayalam headwords for breadth. Licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL).
• mlmorph (Swathanthra Malayalam Computing): the open morphology engine that generates the case and declension tables and lets an inflected word resolve to its root. Labelled on each entry where used.
• Wikimedia Commons (Lingua Libre): native-speaker pronunciation recordings, used where available under their free licences.

Full attribution and licence terms are on the sources page.

Meanings are sourced, never invented

The meaning of a word always comes from the open sources above. We do not generate definitions. Each entry keeps the wording of its source and carries a link back to it, so any meaning can be checked against where it came from.

Where AI is used, and where it is not

AI is used in two narrow, labelled places, and never to decide what a word means.

• Example sentences. For common words that lacked one, an example sentence may be composed to show the word in use. Each candidate is then checked by a separate, adversarial verification step and is kept only if it passes; anything uncertain is rejected rather than published.
• A small number of drafted entries. When a genuinely missing word cannot be sourced, a draft may be prepared and is published only after a person reviews and approves it. These are marked as AI-assisted, human-approved.

Every field that AI touched is recorded as such in the entry's data. AI is never used to invent a meaning, and the dictionary abstains rather than guess.

The quality gate

Before any update goes live, an automated check validates every entry: the headword must be real Malayalam, the link (slug) must be well-formed and unique, and the meaning must be present and sourced. Entries that fail are held back and set aside for review rather than shipped. If an unusually large share of the corpus would be held, the whole update is stopped and the live site is left unchanged. The guiding rule is simple: show nothing rather than something wrong.

Inflection and roots

Malayalam inflects heavily, so a word rarely appears in its dictionary form in a sentence. Using mlmorph, we generate the case, number and other inflected forms for a word and publish them on the word's page, and we let a lookup of an inflected form resolve to its root. This is the part most other dictionaries do not do.

Human oversight and honesty about it

Entries are sourced, labelled and gated as described above. Not every entry has yet been individually checked by a subject expert, and we say so plainly rather than imply otherwise. Oversight today is at the level of the process: the sourcing, the verification of examples, the approval step for drafted words, the quality gate, and reader corrections. Where a named person has reviewed an entry, that person is credited by name and by their real role. We do not invent editors, reviewers or credentials.

Corrections, and how readers make it better

Every word page has a way to report an error, request a missing word, or suggest a better example. Corrections are tracked and folded back into the dictionary, and fixes to source-derived entries also flow back upstream to the open data everyone shares. Every correction we make is published, with the wrong text and the fix side by side, in the public corrections log. This is what keeps the dictionary improving over time. See contribute.

Who maintains it

The dictionary is compiled and maintained by its editorial team as an open, non-commercial reference for the Malayalam language. The fastest way to reach us is through the contribute page.

Last updated 2026-10-11.