a Python library for wordnets

Available Wordnets | Documentation | FAQ | Migrating from NLTK | Citation

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Wn is a Python library for exploring information in wordnets.

Installation

Install it from PyPI using pip:

pip install wn

or uv:

uv add wn

Important

Existing users of Wn may encounter an error about an incompatible database schema. The remedy is to rebuild the database. There is a new function to help with this:

>>> wn.reset_database(rebuild=True)  # re-add any indexed lexicons

or

>>> wn.reset_database()  # initialize without re-adding; start from scratch

Getting Started

First, download some data:

python -m wn download oewn:2025+  # the Open English WordNet 2025+

Now start exploring:

>>> import wn
>>> en = wn.Wordnet('oewn:2025+')       # Create Wordnet object to query
>>> ss = en.synsets('win', pos='v')[0]  # Get the first synset for 'win'
>>> ss.definition()                     # Get the synset's definition
'be the winner in a contest or competition; be victorious'

Features

• Multilingual by design; first-class support for wordnets in any language
• Interlingual queries via the Collaborative Interlingual Index
• Six similarity metrics
• Functions for exploring taxonomies
• Support for lemmatization (Morphy for English is built-in) and unicode normalization
• Full support of the WN-LMF 1.4 format, including word pronunciations and lexicon extensions
• SQL-based backend offers very fast startup and improved performance on many kinds of queries

Available Wordnets

Any WN-LMF-formatted wordnet can be added to Wn's database from a local file or remote URL, but Wn also maintains an index (see wn/index.toml) of available projects, similar to a package manager for software, to aid in the discovery and downloading of new wordnets. The projects in this index are listed below.

English Wordnets

There are several English wordnets available. In general it is recommended to use the latest Open English Wordnet, but if you have stricter compatibility needs for, e.g., experiment replicability, you may try the OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.0 (compatible with the Princeton WordNet 3.0 and with the NLTK), or OpenWordnet-EN (for use with the Portuguese wordnet OpenWordnet-PT).

Name	Specifier	# Synsets	Notes
Open English WordNet	oewn:2025+ oewn:2025 oewn:2024 oewn:2023 oewn:2022 oewn:2021 ewn:2020 ewn:2019	120564 107519 120630 120135 120068 120039 120053 117791	← Recommended
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 1.5	omw-en15:2.0	91591
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 1.6	omw-en16:2.0	99642
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 1.7	omw-en17:2.0	109377
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 1.7.1	omw-en171:2.0	111223
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 2.0	omw-en20:2.0	115424
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 2.1	omw-en21:2.0	117597
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.0	omw-en:2.0 omw-en:1.4	117659 117659	Included with omw:2.0 Included with omw:1.4
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.1	omw-en31:2.0 omw-en31:1.4	117791 117791
OpenWordnet-EN	own-en:1.0.0	117659	Included with own:1.0.0

Other Wordnets and Collections

These are standalone non-English wordnets and collections. The wordnets of each collection are listed further down.

Name	Specifier	# Synsets	Language
Open Multilingual Wordnet	omw:1.4	n/a	multiple [mul]
Open German WordNet	odenet:1.4 odenet:1.3	36268 36159	German [de]
Open Wordnets for Portuguese and English	own:1.0.0	n/a	multiple [mul]
KurdNet	kurdnet:1.0	2144	Kurdish [ckb]

Open Multilingual Wordnet (OMW) Collection

The Open Multilingual Wordnet collection (omw:1.4) installs the following lexicons (from here) which can also be downloaded and installed independently:

Name	Specifier	# Synsets	Language
Albanet	omw-sq:2.0 omw-sq:1.4	4679 4675	Albanian [sq]
Arabic WordNet (AWN v2)	omw-arb:2.0 omw-arb:1.4	9916 9916	Arabic [arb]
BulTreeBank Wordnet (BTB-WN)	omw-bg:2.0 omw-bg:1.4	4959 4959	Bulgarian [bg]
Chinese Open Wordnet	omw-cmn:2.0 omw-cmn:1.4	42300 42312	Mandarin (Simplified) [cmn-Hans]
Croatian Wordnet	omw-hr:2.0 omw-hr:1.4	23115 23120	Croatian [hr]
DanNet	omw-da:2.0 omw-da:1.4	4476 4476	Danish [da]
FinnWordNet	omw-fi:2.0 omw-fi:1.4	116763 116763	Finnish [fi]
Greek Wordnet	omw-el:2.0 omw-el:1.4	18113 18049	Greek [el]
Hebrew Wordnet	omw-he:2.0 omw-he:1.4	5448 5448	Hebrew [he]
IceWordNet	omw-is:2.0 omw-is:1.4	4951 4951	Icelandic [is]
Italian Wordnet	omw-iwn:2.0 omw-iwn:1.4	15563 15563	Italian [it]
Japanese Wordnet	omw-ja:2.0 omw-ja:1.4	117659 57184	Japanese [ja]
Lithuanian WordNet	omw-lt:2.0 omw-lt:1.4	9462 9462	Lithuanian [lt]
Multilingual Central Repository	omw-ca:2.0 omw-ca:1.4	60765 45826	Catalan [ca]
Multilingual Central Repository	omw-eu:2.0 omw-eu:1.4	29420 29413	Basque [eu]
Multilingual Central Repository	omw-gl:2.0 omw-gl:1.4	34776 19312	Galician [gl]
Multilingual Central Repository	omw-es:2.0 omw-es:1.4	78948 38512	Spanish [es]
MultiWordNet	omw-it:2.0 omw-it:1.4	35001 35001	Italian [it]
Norwegian Wordnet	omw-nb:2.0 omw-nb:1.4	4455 4455	Norwegian (Bokmål) [nb]
Norwegian Wordnet	omw-nn:2.0 omw-nn:1.4	3671 3671	Norwegian (Nynorsk) [nn]
OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.0	omw-en:2.0 omw-en:1.4	117659 117659	English [en]
Open Dutch WordNet	omw-nl:2.0 omw-nl:1.4	30177 30177	Dutch [nl]
OpenWN-PT	omw-pt:2.0 omw-pt:1.4	43895 43895	Portuguese [pt]
plWordNet	omw-pl:2.0 omw-pl:1.4	33826 33826	Polish [pl]
Romanian Wordnet	omw-ro:2.0 omw-ro:1.4	58754 56026	Romanian [ro]
Slovak WordNet	omw-sk:2.0 omw-sk:1.4	18507 18507	Slovak [sk]
sloWNet	omw-sl:2.0 omw-sl:1.4	42590 42583	Slovenian [sl]
Swedish (SALDO)	omw-sv:2.0 omw-sv:1.4	6796 6796	Swedish [sv]
Thai Wordnet	omw-th:2.0 omw-th:1.4	73350 73350	Thai [th]
WOLF (Wordnet Libre du Français)	omw-fr:2.0 omw-fr:1.4	59091 59091	French [fr]
Wordnet Bahasa	omw-id:2.0 omw-id:1.4	46774 38085	Indonesian [id]
Wordnet Bahasa	omw-zsm:2.0 omw-zsm:1.4	36911 36911	Malaysian [zsm]

Open Wordnet (OWN) Collection

The Open Wordnets for Portuguese and English collection (own:1.0.0) installs the following lexicons (from here) which can also be downloaded and installed independently:

Name	Specifier	# Synsets	Language
OpenWordnet-PT	own-pt:1.0.0	52670	Portuguese [pt]
OpenWordnet-EN	own-en:1.0.0	117659	English [en]

Collaborative Interlingual Index

While not a wordnet, the Collaborative Interlingual Index (CILI) represents the interlingual backbone of many wordnets. Wn, including interlingual queries, will function without CILI loaded, but adding it to the database makes available the full list of concepts, their status (active, deprecated, etc.), and their definitions.

Name	Specifier	# Concepts
Collaborative Interlingual Index	cili:1.0	117659

Changes to the Index

ewn → oewn

The 2021 version of the Open English WordNet (oewn:2021) has changed its lexicon ID from ewn to oewn, so the index is updated accordingly. The previous versions are still available as ewn:2019 and ewn:2020.

pwn → omw-en, omw-en31

The wordnet formerly called the Princeton WordNet (pwn:3.0, pwn:3.1) is now called the OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.0 (omw-en) and the OMW English Wordnet based on WordNet 3.1 (omw-en31). This is more accurate, as it is a OMW-produced derivative of the original WordNet data, and it also avoids license or trademark issues.

*wn → omw-* for OMW wordnets

All OMW wordnets have changed their ID scheme from ...wn to omw-.. and the version no longer includes +omw (e.g., bulwn:1.3+omw is now omw-bg:1.4).

Citation

Michael Wayne Goodman and Francis Bond. 2021. Intrinsically Interlingual: The Wn Python Library for Wordnets In Proceedings of the 11th Global Wordnet Conference, pages 100–107, University of South Africa (UNISA). Global Wordnet Association.