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Terrible and terrific are both formed off the same root: terror. Both started out a few hundred years ago with the meaning of terror-inducing. But terrific took a strange turn at the beginning of the 20th century and ended up meaning really great, not ter
A few years ago, Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson pointed out that the best way to expose a German spy would be to ask them to say the word “squirrel,” because “no German, no matter how well they speak English, can say ‘squirrel.’” So naturally, someone test
We've lost many delightful words and phrases along the way.
English spelling is a crazy mess, but it’s a mess that makes sense if you look at how it got that way.
A semordnilap (itself a semordnilap of “palindromes”) makes a completely different word when spelled backwards.
Criminals have been referring to police as pigs since at least 1811—but they've also called cops and private detectives by many other, more creative names.
These –ty coinages have a slangy, modern ring to them, but English speakers have actually been trying to make –ty happen for centuries.
Now the names for these creatures big and small make total sense.
The Oxford English Dictionary is honoring the centenary with an appeal to the public for help in finding the earliest documented uses of words that first came into English during World War I.
It's very cold, and we're running out of ways to say that. So we reached out to the editors of the Dictionary of American Regional English for suggestions.
We all come into contact with many of these shapes every day. Here's what you can call them.
From reality TV shows to The Beach Boys’ croons of Aruba and Jamaica, references to honeymoons are everywhere. But where did the term "honeymoon" first come from?
You won't find crikey in this book, but there are plenty other weird and wonderful terms work incorporating into everyday conversation.
The OED upped its entry count with three updates last year—here's a snapshot retrospective of the words committed to dictionary immortality in 2013.
The American Dialect Society waits until the year is completely finished before holding its vote for the word of the year, a lively event, now in its 24th year, that was held last night. Here are some of the words that were up for discussion.
When winter bears down, it can be hard to think of anything outside of how much you hate (or love!) the snow and ice. Here are a few of the words and phenomena that could define this season.
What makes a word the word of the year? Different authorities use different criteria in making their selections.
Hindsight tells us that Word of the Year candidates have not always fared so well.
Every year, Oxford Dictionaries names a Word of the Year, the word “that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance.”
Love is patient. Love is kind. And often, love is denoted by the Greek root -phile.
Some words can be pronounced with two different syllable structures. What’s more interesting than fighting about who’s right is understanding why these differences arise.
On the 11th of every month, we publish a bunch of lists of 11. Virginia C. McGuire gets us started.