LINGUISTICS

If you ask for a “jye-roh” in Greece, prepare to get some funny looks.

A knight throwing down his glove in Medieval Europe meant serious business.

Any early warning sign can be a canary in a coal mine. But the original meaning was more specific.

If you’ve ever looked up the definition of “gaslighting,” you’re not alone.

Without a Rosetta Stone for these centuries-old writing systems, the meaning of the texts may never be known.

The prefix ‘pre-’ often seems redundant—but it’s actually working hard to serve its purpose.

Here are some highlights from Merriam-Webster’s latest slate of additions.

We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?

The first jack-o'-lanterns were made with turnips, not pumpkins.

The meaning behind the money.

There's a fancy term for forgetting a word—'lethologica.'

The connections between words aren’t always as straightforward as the link between ‘run’ and ‘runner’; often, figuring them out requires the subtle unraveling of linguistic evolution, the kind of detective work that makes etymology so fascinating.