Changes to the Ordpar site

What has changed on ordpar.no, newest first. The entries are dated; version numbers start with the first full version, 1.0. Changes to the dictionary's content have their own list: Changes to the dictionary.

2026-11-07, third update

• Lists of what has changed. The site, the dictionary and the Anki decks each have a list of their changes, newest first, under "Changes" in the About pages. When Ordpar has been updated, the note that says so now links to the site's list ("What's new").
• Tabs over the About pages. About, Coming to Ordpar, Changes, Privacy and Thanks share a row of tabs under each page's title, and the footer's link now reads "About".

2026-11-07, second update

• Our own survey. "Tell us what you think" at the foot of every page now opens Ordpar's own survey, "Ordpar — your first impressions", in place of a Google form. Every question is optional, and your answers come to us only, kept in the EU. The privacy page says what is sent and kept, and no longer names Google.
• The Norwegian first, by default. In each definition the Norwegian is now in full colour and the English faded, and short formula lines such as "used as an adverb:" show in Norwegian and English. A new preset in Settings, "English emphasized", brings back the English in full colour and the formula lines in English. If you had chosen either setting yourself, your choice stays.
• Audio is built. "Coming to Ordpar" now lists Norwegian you can listen to under Built.

2026-11-07

• The recordings are free to reuse. The About page now says you may reuse the recordings under CC BY 4.0, as the text, and that you can write to us to get the dictionary's data as files: the articles or the recordings.

2026-11-06, third update

• Look words up privately. The privacy page now opens with how: with the offline copy downloaded, your searches and the articles you open are answered from your device, so nobody sees which words you look up. It also says plainly what GitHub, which serves the site, can tell without it.
• Nothing loaded ahead when you ask for that. With "When its link is clicked" chosen under Loading, the site now fetches nothing before you click, recordings included. With the offline copy, a word's own page (such as /bm-en/hus/) now opens from your device too.
• Sound lists only when you play. The list of recordings a sound icon needs is now fetched when you play one, not when an article opens. The icons look the same.
• Where to look when a word isn't found. "Could not find" now suggests NAOB (for Bokmål) and Norsk Ordbok (for dialect words and Nynorsk), each linking to its search for your word.

2026-11-06, second update

• "Article page" is gone from under articles, on a computer too. Copy link and Share give the article's own address.
• The privacy page says more about the audio. It now says that Cloudflare, which runs our audio server, keeps a record of each request for a recording, with the IP address, the time and the recording asked for, and that we can see these records for 32 days. It says the same of the requests that send a report.

2026-11-06

• One line of buttons under an article on a phone. On a word's page, in search results, History and Favourites, "Article page" is no longer shown on a phone, so the buttons under each article fit on one line. Share and Copy link still give the article's own address, and on a computer the link is still there.

2026-11-05

• Suggest a correction. Every article now has a button, "Suggest a correction", at its foot. It opens a short form where you can tell us what is wrong in the translation, the audio or the Norwegian text. You can leave an email address if you would like an answer, and a name if you would like to be thanked by it.
• Thanks to our readers. A new page lists the fixes that readers' reports have led to, naming a reader only if they gave a name. It is linked from the About page.
• A privacy page, linked at the foot of every page: what your browser keeps, what it sends and to whom, and what we keep and for how long.
• Copy link on phones. Where your phone offers Share, "Copy link" is no longer shown beside it, since the share menu can copy the link too. This keeps the buttons at an article's foot on one line.
• A new accent colour, Burnt orange, in Settings, in place of Oxblood. If you had chosen Oxblood, the site now shows Wine, the default.

2026-11-04, second update

• A small article opened inside another one stays on screen. When there isn't room for it below its word, it now opens above the word, and it is never taller than the room it has, so its end can't fall below the window.
• No empty row in a comparison table. When an adjective has two sets of forms and only one has comparison forms, the table shows only that row, as on Bokmålsordboka's own site (avsindig, uredd).
• The search results' heading now reads "Norwegian–English dictionary", the name the site uses everywhere else.

2026-11-04

• Sound on every form of the headword. Where an article gives a second form with its own word class, such as forutanelse and forutaning, that form now has its speaker icon too.
• "Labels inside an article" has moved from Style to Article, under Language. Choosing a preset still leaves it as it is.
• The buttons at an article's foot stay in English. "Copy link" and "Share" no longer turn Norwegian with the labels setting or with Norwegian only, like the rest of the site's own buttons and menus.

2026-11-02, second update

• Every spelling can be heard. Where a headword has more than one spelling, such as bru, bro, each spelling now has its own speaker icon.
• Headwords in search results are plain text. On a word's page and in search results, an article's headword is no longer a link, so a press beside a speaker icon can't take you away from the page by mistake. "Article page" under each article still opens it, as on Bokmålsordboka's own site.
• What the presets do. A "?" beside "Presets" in Settings now says what Default, Concise and For learners each set, with a link to more in Help.
• No "?" beside the pronunciation. The explanation of the stress and tone marks is on the Help page, under Pronunciation.
• Inflection tables closer to Bokmålsordboka's. Forms that two rows share are joined, and the rows are ordered, as on Bokmålsordboka's own site.
• A word with no definition now says so in new words: "This word is currently listed without a definition."

2026-11-02

• Hear the words. A small, faded speaker icon after a headword, each Norwegian definition line, each example and each form in an inflection table reads it aloud, in a synthetic Norwegian voice (Ida, from Amazon Polly); press it again to stop. It works in a small article too. The icons need an internet connection, also with the offline copy.
• Speed of the spoken words. A new setting under Article plays the recordings as recorded or at 90%, with the voice keeping its pitch.
• Help and About say more about the voice: who reads, how her readings are corrected, and how much audio there is.

2026-11-01, second update

• Inflected forms in view. A search that finds one article and also finds the word as an inflected form of another (hus, also a form of huse) now shows the list, with "is an inflected form of" near the top, instead of opening the article with those rows at the foot of the page. A search that finds one article and nothing else still opens the article straight away. This is the new default under Settings, "List view in search": "When there are several articles, or inflected forms". The earlier choice, "Only when there are several articles", is still there.
• A deeper shadow under a small article. The box that opens when you click a linked word casts a deeper shadow, which darkens the page's text beside it; at night the box is a shade lighter than the page under it, so it stands out. In dark mode the page's background, the header and the cards are a shade darker too.

2026-11-01

• Norwegian only now turns every label too. With Norwegian only on, an article's headings and buttons ("Opphav", "Betydning og bruk", "Vis bøyning", "Kopier lenke") are in Norwegian as well, whatever "Labels inside an article" says; switch Norwegian only off and your own choice there applies again.
• The Norwegian grammatical labels follow Norwegian usage. An inflected form's label now reads as Norwegian writes it, "ubestemt form flertall" and "bestemt form entall" instead of "flertall ubestemt" and "entall bestemt"; and three words are now Bokmålsordboka's own: "gradbøying", "forkorting" and "i sammensetning".
• A compound prefix is named the same everywhere. kjempe- and the other first elements of compounds read "compound prefix" ("i sammensetning" in Norwegian) on their own pages too, as in the search's lists, no longer "prefix".

2026-10-31, third update

• Norwegian only. A new button in the header, beside Favourites (on a phone, on the row with "Search English words"), shows every article in Norwegian only: no English and nothing to click to reveal it, with the word class and the inflection tables in Norwegian too. It stays on, on every page, until you press it again; your other settings are kept and apply again when you switch it off. The same switch is in Settings, at the head of the article settings, with its own choices: whether the short English equivalents stay (under the headword, in the search suggestions and lists, in History and Favourites); with them hidden, whether the lists show each word's first Norwegian definition or nothing, and whether a linked word shows its first Norwegian definition when the pointer rests on it; and whether the button shows in the header at all. The Norwegian is Bokmålsordboka's article as it was in the copy Ordpar works from, with our corrections.
• Labels in Norwegian. A new setting under Style, "Labels inside an article", puts an article's headings and buttons in Norwegian ("Opphav", "Betydning og bruk", "Vis bøyning"), with its word class and the words of its inflection tables. The rest of the site stays in English.
• In a pop-up dictionary such as Definer, the CSS line on "More ways to use Ordpar" now also shows the Norwegian-only button beside the headword, where the header is hidden. Paste the line again to get it.

2026-10-31, second update

• Random word in English. With "Search English words" switched on, Random word now picks a random English word, each of the words the English suggestions offer equally likely, and shows its English search; the switch stays on. With the switch off it picks a Norwegian word, as before.
• Clearer search results on Google. Each page's description, which a search engine may show under its link, now begins with the word itself ("kanskje: perhaps · maybe …"). The hidden labels a page holds (the English shown when you hover over a link, and the words read out to screen readers) are marked to stay out of search engines' previews, and the pieces of a page now have spaces between them where a search engine reads them, so its previews no longer run words together. Nothing on the pages themselves looks different.

2026-10-31

• A fixed expression's own page names the words it is built from. Bokmålsordboka's "Se:" line is back on the page of each fixed expression: aksle seg shows "Se: aksle", slappe av "see: slappe". It sits where Bokmålsordboka puts it, after the definition and before the examples, and its words are links, with their English on hover where we have it. With short formula lines set to Norwegian it reads "Se:". It is shown only on the expression's own page, not when the expression is listed under its headword.

2026-10-30, second update

• Compound lists labelled in Bokmålsordboka's own words. The line over a list of compounds now says in English what the dictionary's own line says: "som etterledd i ord som" is "as a suffix in words such as:", "i ord som" is "in words such as:", "for eksempel" is "for example:", and so on, where three labels used to stand for them all. A compound list with no compounds in it is no longer shown.

2026-10-30

• Search in English. A switch under the search box, "Search English words", lets you type an English word and find the Norwegian articles whose short English equivalents contain it. The suggestions show each English word with its Norwegian words beside it; picking one lists the matching articles, the most common words first, with the word you searched for in bold, and a word with only one match opens its article at once. After a search, similar English words are listed, as they are for Norwegian. The switch is remembered on your device. The English search covers the 10,134 articles that have English equivalents so far.
• Similar headwords without repeats. A similar headword is listed only if its search would show you an article that is not already on the page.
• The suggestions show the spelling you typed. Typing "sjøl" now suggests sjølsagt, not "selvsagt, sjølsagt".
• "Coming to Ordpar" shows what has been built. Items move from the list to a new "Built" section as they land.

2026-10-29

• Small articles inside small articles, in a second box. A link inside a small article now opens its small article in a second box, over the first; a link inside that second box changes it, with a line at its top such as "← skip" to go back. Settings, under Small articles, has four choices: this one (the new default), the same box, a box of its own for every link, or the whole article. There is no longer a limit on how many boxes can be open.
• The page stays where it is. Nothing you click or press inside a small article moves the page any more; going back puts you where you were inside the box.

2026-10-28

• Your settings in a pop-up dictionary. A pop-up dictionary such as Definer cannot see the settings you have saved on ordpar.no, so it showed every article with the default settings. Now the address you give it can carry your settings: the Definer steps on "More ways to use Ordpar" show that address with your settings in it, and Settings has a button, "Copy the address for a pop-up dictionary". Settings given this way apply only in that pop-up or tab, and nothing is saved.
• Copy buttons on "More ways to use Ordpar". Both lines to paste into Definer, the address and the CSS, have a Copy button beside them.

2026-10-27, second update

• More ways to use Ordpar. A new page, linked from the home page and the footer of every page: how to look up words in a pop-up on any web page with the Definer extension, how to practise them with Ordpar's Anki deck, and how to keep the whole dictionary on your device to use it offline.
• Similar words with their English. When a search finds nothing, the similar words below it now show their word class and English (or, for a word not yet translated, its Norwegian definition), as the search suggestions do. A search that finds something keeps the short list of words.
• Norwegian-only words in the suggestions and History. A word whose articles are all still untranslated now lists each one's first Norwegian definition, instead of a count such as "2 articles".
• Cleaner one-line definitions. The short Norwegian definitions in lists no longer carry the numbers of the words they refer to, such as "(III)" or "(I, 2)"; the article itself keeps them.
• A quieter home page. The line "Type a Norwegian word to search the dictionary." is gone.

2026-10-27

• Small articles inside small articles. A link inside a small article now opens that word's own small article in the same box, with a line at the top ("← skip") that takes you back one word at a time, to the place you had scrolled to. A new setting under Small articles chooses this, a second box opening over the first (with a limit of how many), or the whole article as before.
• Hover labels in full. A link's hover label inside a small article is no longer cut off at the box's edge, and the box no longer grows while you hover; near the top of the window the label shows below its word.
• The order under "is an inflected form of". The words a form belongs to are now listed most common first, by how often its spellings appear in Norwegian books, with a few set by hand, so var starts with være. The homographs of one word keep the same order as in the results list.

2026-10-26, fifth update

• Presets in Settings. Three buttons at the top of Settings set all the article settings at once: Default, Concise (English definitions, two examples under each sense, shorter small articles) and For learners (the eye that hides the examples' English, the Norwegian emphasized, short formula lines in both languages). The one your settings match is shown pressed; any setting can still be changed afterwards. Your theme, colour, search and offline settings stay as they are.
• What "Reset settings" resets. A line under the button now says it puts every setting back, the theme and colour too, and that Default resets only the article settings.
• Help on the settings. The Help page has a new first section on the settings: the idea, the presets, and a few settings worth knowing.

2026-10-26, fourth update

• The newest search wins. If you search again, or click a similar word, before the first search has been answered, the newer one is now the one you get. Before, a slow first answer could arrive late and replace it.
• "Searching …" at once. The moment you search, the results make way for "Searching …" until the answer comes, instead of the previous answer staying on screen.
• Lists tag only what isn't translated. Search results, Favourites and History no longer mark each translated article "translated"; an article not yet translated is still marked "Norwegian only".

2026-10-26, third update

• What's coming. On the Coming to Ordpar page, Ordpar in Norwegian now says what it is really waiting for: the site's first full version (1.0), when its building stage ends.

2026-10-26, second update

• What's coming. A new page, Coming to Ordpar, lists what we have decided to build and what each is waiting for; the About page links it.
• Hide the examples' English with one press. A new setting under Examples, off by default, puts an eye beside the headword: pressing it hides the English of every example in the article, or shows it again.
• The Anki deck and how to reach us. The About page now names Ordpar's Anki deck under Thanks, with its licence, and ends with a Contact section.
• The same title for the same page. A search answered on the page you are on now gives the browser tab the same title as opening that word's page directly.
• Ordpar's icon. Every page now carries Ordpar's icon, for the browser tab and for search engines.

2026-10-26

• A page for each word. Each of the 22,928 Norwegian words whose first article is translated now has a page of its own, at an address such as ordpar.no/bm-en/så/, showing what a search for the word shows: its articles, the words it is a form of, and similar words. A search for such a word now opens its page, so the address can be shared and found by search engines; any other search works as before.
• Pages for irregular forms. 2,325 common irregular forms, such as tær and gikk, have pages too, showing the words they are forms of.
• Which form it is. Where a search lists the words a form belongs to, each now says which form it is, such as "tå noun (plural indefinite)" for tær.

2026-10-25, fifth update

• The note at the foot of each page now says that Ordpar is still being built, no longer that it is not yet published.

2026-10-25, fourth update

• Small articles for screen readers. The line at the top of a small article now marks the Norwegian word as Norwegian and its English as English, so a screen reader reads each in its own language, also while the small article is still loading.

2026-10-25, third update

• Ordpar can be found in search engines. The translated articles, the home page, About and Help can now be listed by Google and others; the articles not yet translated stay out until they are translated.
• Clearer titles and descriptions. An article's title now names the word, its word class and the dictionary, such as "abstrakt (adjective) — Norwegian–English dictionary", and its description gives its English and definitions.
• A picture when you share a link. A link to ordpar.no shared on Facebook, Messenger and the like now shows Ordpar's own card.

2026-10-25, second update

• Settings explained. Every setting's heading, choices and "?" text has been rewritten to say exactly what it does, and to explain the site's own terms. Small articles, the boxes a linked word opens, now have a line saying what they are and how to open the whole article. "Colour" is now "Accent colour".
• History on a slow connection. A search that finds a single article is now kept in History even if you leave the page before the article has loaded.

2026-10-25

• The "?" boxes close cleanly. With a "?" box open, in Settings or beside a pronunciation, a click or tap anywhere else now only closes it; it no longer also picks a setting or follows a link. The next click works as usual.
• Offline, faster. The Offline section in Settings now says that keeping the dictionary on the device also makes pages open faster.

2026-10-24, third update

• Pronunciation. The 4,419 articles for which Bokmålsordboka gives a pronunciation now show it, written in Norwegian spelling with marks for the stress and the word tone. Where it uses those marks, a "?" beside it explains them.
• A Help page, linked at the foot of every page, for now explaining the pronunciation marks.

2026-10-24, second update

• English on the articles not yet translated. On an article shown only in Norwegian, a link to a word we have translated now shows that word's English when you point at it: its short English equivalents, or, for a link to one meaning, that meaning's English definition. The small article that opens on a click shows the equivalents in its heading.
• Compounds linked on those articles. On an article shown only in Norwegian, the compounds listed under a meaning (such as blomsterkrukke under krukke) are now links, and their heading is in Norwegian, as on ordbokene.no.
• Settings on a phone. A long choice in Settings now wraps beside its button instead of dropping below it.
• About Ordpar now says what the site is for and that it is free to use, with no advertisements and no account. Its section on the English now comes before our changes to the Norwegian.

2026-10-24

• Fewer examples, if you like. A new setting, "Examples under each sense", shows only the first few examples under each meaning (from 1 to 10), with a line that opens the rest if you want one. Long articles such as gå then show their meanings without pages of examples between them. The default still shows them all.
• Searching on a phone. The search box no longer starts with a capital letter, and the keyboard closes after a search, whether you press Enter or pick a suggestion, so the result is not hidden behind it.
• Random word shows the whole word. It now opens the search for a random word, with all its homographs together, as ordbokene.no's does. A random word is not one of your searches, so it no longer goes into your History.
• Small articles at the article's size. The small article that opens from a link now uses the same text size as the article, with its English heading in semibold. A new setting, "Text size", brings back the smaller text.
• English equivalents stand out in lists. In the search suggestions, the list of results, History and favourites, the short English equivalents are now in semibold, and definitions stay in normal text. The dots between equivalents are lighter, there and in the article's heading.
• Settings explained. The note under "A short summary" now says what it leaves out: most subsenses and the lists of compounds.

2026-10-23, third update

• Practise with the examples. A new setting, Examples, can hide the English of every example sentence behind a "Show English" button, for practising your Norwegian: read the example first, then reveal the English to check yourself. The default still shows both.
• Quieter "Show English" buttons. The button that reveals hidden English is now grey instead of coloured.
• Homograph numbers closer to ordbokene.no's: smaller, grey and only slightly raised after the headword, and at a readable size of their own in the search's lists of meanings.
• Inflection tables wrap fewer columns. When a table is a little too wide for its card, the column that saves the most space now wraps first, instead of the widest one, so fewer columns need to wrap.
• Your searches stay in your browser. A search is now kept in the part of the page's address after "#", which is never sent to the server that hosts the site. Older links to searches still work.

2026-10-23, second update

• A note on every article we corrected. Where we corrected Bokmålsordboka's text, a line at the foot of the article now says what kind of correction we made (a cross-reference, a typo and so on) and links to the same article on ordbokene.no.
• Our changes listed on the About page, each kind with its count, as of the copy of Bokmålsordboka's data the site is built from. A new list of the dictionary's own changes starts with this update.
• Inflection tables fit better. When a wide table is a little too wide for its card, its columns now wrap one at a time, widest first, instead of switching straight to the narrow layout; the narrow layout comes only when nothing else fits. A wrapped table no longer carries spare space in its columns. In articles and search results alike, and on a phone turned on its side.
• Each setting lists its default first (the small articles' spacing and the search's list view were the other way round).
• A clearer hint for "Norwegian, with the English hidden until revealed": it is for when you mostly follow the Norwegian.

2026-10-23

• Wider article cards, as on ordbokene.no. The article card now widens with the window in the same steps as ordbokene.no's, up to about 1,500 px, so inflection tables never run past the card's edge. The wide table shows wherever it fits, the narrow one where it does not, in articles and search results alike.
• Sense numbers fixed. In articles with bulleted subsenses, the numbers no longer skip (møte II read 1, 3, 4 …; it now reads 1, 2, 3).
• Hints in the settings. A "?" beside a setting explains why you might choose each option, such as faster loading against saving data. The notes that used to sit under the options are there too, so the settings page is shorter.
• Homograph numbers look the same everywhere: raised and coloured as in the article, in the search list, favourites and the numbered glosses.
• Our spelling order in four headwords. Where we put the more common form first (tørre, tore; gæren, galen; aksjemegler, aksjemekler; eiendomsmegler, eiendomsmekler), the headword line, the page title and the search now show it. The About page says so.
• Small articles now use the article's own spacing by default (Compact is still a setting), and the English gloss in their heading is in the normal text colour.
• Recent searches under the empty search box stop above a phone's keyboard and scroll.

2026-10-22

• Homograph numbers on each spelling. Where an article has more than one spelling, each now carries its own number, as on ordbokene.no: lysing I, lysning II, where the site printed one number after the last spelling. A search for lysning numbers each result by its own spelling.
• Spellings separated by commas in the list view and favourites ("lysing I, lysning II", not "lysing / lysning"), as in the article.
• History rows look like the search suggestions: translated articles listed by their numbered glosses, untranslated ones counted in "+ N more", and the word coloured only when an English translation is behind it.
• The offline copy updates by itself. It checks for a new version when the site is opened and whenever it comes back to the screen, at most every 15 minutes, from every page; once updated, a note offers to reload. Before, an installed app on Android could keep its old copy until the browser itself was closed.
• Faster opening, offline and on a computer. The offline copy is stored in smaller pieces, so an article opens about three times faster from it. On a computer, an article in the search list, a history or favourites row, and the History and Favourites pages start loading while the pointer rests on them. The setting for this has moved to Settings → Loading, offline and your data.
• Fixed: typing some words in the search box (such as "hu") caused an error behind the scenes; the install offer could cover the search suggestions.