WORDS

Despite his many contributions to English literature, surprisingly little is known about William Shakespeare's life. Here’s what we do know about the celebrated actor, poet, and playwright.

The four-letter words that still have the power to offend took a circuitous route out of our mouths and into our language.

A handful of centuries-old sailing words remain known only to the saltiest of seamen, but some have become part of our everyday language.

Test your knowledge of Victorian slang with this quiz that’s bang up to the elephant.

Shakespeare is the first known citation for over a thousand words and even more meanings—but new research occasionally shows that Shakespeare actually didn't originate some phrases, a trend that will likely continue over time.

Medieval dog names ran the gamut from 'Argument' to 'Feete.'

Here's how 'Roger' came to mean "received" (and how 'wilco' fits in).

Idioms like Mandarin’s ‘take your pants off to fart’ make no sense to English speakers—at least, not English speaker who haven’t read this list.

Here are 20 of the world's trickiest names, from ‘Sean’ to ‘Saoirse.’ (No, they’re not all Irish.)

Our 2025 word-a-day calendar covers old-timey slang terms, fascinating phrase origins, and more.

The abbreviations are widely understood as “morning” and “afternoon,” but what do the Latin translations actually mean?

In the 2000s, the internet took over, as did social media, streaming, and cell phones that were also cameras and tiny computers. The slang of this era didn’t disappoint, either: From amazeballs to mukbang and beyond, here are some terms you might not have