Wikiwikiweb

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The original collaborative website, created by Ward Cunningham in 1995, that let visitors edit its pages freely in a browser
2. The first wiki site, launched by Ward Cunningham, where users could create and change linked pages through a web browser
3. A pioneering online hypertext project by Ward Cunningham that introduced editable, community-written pages as a new web format

Etymology: "Wikiwikiweb" is the name Ward Cunningham gave to the first wiki, a collaborative website he launched in 1995 so that visitors could edit its pages directly in a browser. He took the name from "wiki wiki", a Hawaiian word meaning "quick" or "fast", which he had come across at Honolulu International Airport. The shuttle buses there were called "Wiki Wiki" buses, and Cunningham liked the idea that the site would let people publish quickly. The word is therefore a compound of the doubled Hawaiian "wiki" with the English "web", referring to the World Wide Web on which the site lived. The double form "wiki wiki" intensifies the meaning, so it signals speed rather than simply "quick". Cunningham later shortened the site's name to "WikiWikiWeb" for everyday use, and the single word "wiki" became the general term for any site of this kind.