wiki

noun

wi·​ki ˈwi-kē 

ˈwē-

: a website that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections

Did you know?

Today, wikis are common stops on the information superhighway; however, they only date to 1995, after computer programmer Ward Cunningham introduced his software WikiWikiWeb to the world. The software, whose name is based on a Hawaiian term for "quick," allows website visitors to contribute content to its pages and comment on and make changes to information posted by others. A site using the software is referred to as a wiki.

Examples of wiki in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Neither the Hugging Face or German wiki page incidents were required to be reported under California’s frontier AI law, a gap that has fueled a broader debate over whether the statute has enough teeth. — Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 14 Sep. 2026

Last week, a different team of AI researchers discovered that OpenAI agents had started yet another message board all the way back in May on an obscure German wiki page. — Shaun Raviv, CBS News, 10 Sep. 2026

Launched in 2004, Fandom is best known for its wiki platform that attracts 300 million unique visitors per month. — Jennifer Maas, Variety, 10 Sep. 2026

The agents also allegedly impersonated a moderator on the wiki, using an identical Cyrillic е character in the admin's username instead of the Latin one. — Will McCurdy, PC Magazine, 6 Sep. 2026

Word History

Etymology

from WikiWikiWeb, a website with such programming introduced in 1995

Note: The WikiWikiWeb was named by its developer, American computer programmer Ward Cunningham, after the Wiki Wiki Shuttle, the free bus service that runs between terminals at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. The name is a reduplication of Hawaiian wiki "quick."

First Known Use

1995, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for wiki

• agree
• allee
• banshee
• beastly
• bibi
• bowsprit
• carefree
• cerci
• chablis
• cowpea
• crappie
• crappy

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