ilcaa-swahili

Meanings of the signs, marks, and abbreviations used in the database are as follows.

1. Word class notations for each entry

-: Adjectival stems (those obligatorily marked by an agreement marker)
#: Adjectival stems (those require no agreement marker)
+: verbal stems
=: other predicative/pronominal stems (those obligatorily marked by a verbal agreement marker)
N.B.
Homonyms, including those with different word class properties, are distinguished by superscript numbers that appear to the right of each entry.

2. Signs and marks

[]: Reference code
$: Stem forms
☞: See
%: Relevant items
=: Synonyms
¥: Antonyms
/ /: Line breaks in poetry
< >: Semantic annotations of the imediately preceding word/phrase
( ): Direct/supplementary explanations about the imediately preceding word/phrase
{ }: Indirect explanations about the imediately preceding word/phrase

3. Abbreviations

ex.: Example
kny.: Antonym (kinyume)
phr.: Phrase
col.: Collocation
pvb.: Proverb
rdl.: Riddle
sst.: Superstition
N.B. All examples are shown in Italics and those not indicated by 'eg.' are enclosed by '~'.

4. Asterisks

• One that follows an entry is used to mark number. A single asterisk (*) refers to a singular form, a double asterisk (**) refers to a plural form, and a triple asterisk (***) refers to a form without a number distinction.
• One that precedes a language/dialect name refers to an original source of a borrowing word as shown below.

*Arb.: Arabic
*Eng.: English
*Fre.: French
*Hindi/*Kihindi: Hindi, Indian languages
*Per.: Persian
*Por.: Portuguese
*Tur.: Turkish

*dial.: (Unspecified) Swahili dialect
*Kiamu.: Lamu dialect
*Kijizirat.: Jizirat dialect
*Kimvita.: Mombasa dialect
*Kitikuu.: Tikuu dialect
*Kiunguja.: Unguja dialect