I think I am right in saying that definitions should be divided with a ;.

But if we look at a simple word like 夹子 which is definied here as:

jiāzi: clip; tongs; folder

we can see that there are 3 definitions given. But in my English/Chinese dictionary it is given as:

1. clip, tongs 2. folder, wallet

So what I mean is that the two of the words that Skritter says are definitions are actually describing one definition (clip; tongs) and the other one is another one, but you wouldnt know this if you just came accross the word for the first time. I think some other punctuation mark is needed to divided meanings and multiple definitions within meanings.

To take another example (slightly contrived I admit but it makes my point and I can't be bothered to look for a better one ((I am sure other people can come up with some)). If you look at the word:

务 wù: business; affair; engaged in;

there might possibly be some confusion over the word affair (which in English can mean something quite different :P)

But if it was arranged something like:

1. buisness; affair
2. to be engaged in

this kind of confusion would be avoided, it would be much much easier to see what the word really means and also exactly how many definitions I should be remembering. The net result would also be that it would be much easier to remember definitions.

I also like this layout better; in fact i have already customized a lot of my definitions this way (based on Pleco) because i find it more clear. I often also add V (Verb); N(Noun), Adj; Adv; Prep; and Conj to better clarify how the word is used, especially as some words can be used in different ways.

While I see the advantage of having the definitions the way you describe, it's a bit of a legacy problem. I don't think we will go to multiline definitions for the Skritter standard, as they're not as convenient for us to deal with, and that would be a lot of definitions to go through and reformat. You can do as marleendemol does, though, and alter the definitions for those ones that prove confusing.