From lawsuits on the gridiron to scandal in the Oval Office and a jump over the pond into the land of K-pop, trending words were all over the map the week of May 4–11, 2018!Toadyism and oleaginousWriter George Will can always be counted on to fill his columns with interesting words, and his latest Washington Post article titled “Trump Is No Longer the Worst Person in …
What is net neutrality? You may have heard the term net neutrality in the news. Net neutrality is the idea that the relationship between you and content on the internet shouldn’t be altered by internet service providers—that ISPs should provide nondiscriminatory access to internet content, without manipulating the transfer of data, and treat all web traffic equally. The government has protected this idea until recently, when the FCC …
Want your child to stand out on the preschool roster? Going with a strong noun name is an all-American tradition. Below are some names that you may not have even realized were nouns. And, with a little help from Babylist (who we love because they named the dictionary and thesaurus as some of the top ways to pick a baby name), we’ve ranked awesome noun-inspired names …
From rapper Kanye West to satirist Andy Borowitz to—who else—President Donald Trump, the trending words for April 28–May 4, 2018 were driven by a star-studded cast of characters. So, what word really soared into the stratosphere?UnhingedRumors that White House Chief of Staff had called President Donald Trump “an idiot” and said he was “becoming unhinged” helped boost searches for unhinged this week. But, it may …
by Taneesh Khera Dictionary.com’s United States of Diversity You’ve stumbled onto our United States of Diversity series, welcome! If you don’t already know, here we explore a minority language or dialect in the country, and this episode’s no different. Does your keeat sit an the meeat? Or, maybe you wait for the boss down the black? Do you cal your mam an Sundays? If you …
Bullies are discussed a lot these days, but they aren’t something new. Tormenters have been around for a long time … especially in literature. Let’s take an inside look at the characters who are bullies and learn about their consequences. Marion Hawthorne In the 1964 children’s novel, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, Marion Hawthorne is a smart-mouthed, entitled classroom bully. It’s never determined why she is …
“One toke over the line . . .” That 1971 hit by the duo Brewer and Shipley was written as a paean to marijuana. On Last.fm, Tom Shipley commented, “‘When we wrote ‘One Toke Over the Line,’ I think we were one toke over the line.” Back in that day, marijuana was lumped in with all sorts of drugs deemed to be forbidden. But now, …
For the second time in as many months, former CIA Director John Brennan has thrown searches on Dictionary.com into a tailspin. Last month, Brennan’s retort to President Donald Trump drove people in droves to find out the meaning of the words turpitude, venality, and demagogue. So what word did Brennan use this week of April 13–20, 2018 (in yet another response to the president)?Kakistocracy Meaning “a form …
Many idioms—expressions that are not taken literally—are so old and so familiar that we don’t think twice about using them. We say, for example, “it’s raining cats and dogs” to indicate that it’s pouring outside, and “comfortable as an old shoe” to explain an easy and familiar relationship. We can trace the etymology of some idioms to books and sayings that were first used hundreds …
Even balladmongers can ace this Word of the Day Quiz … If the quiz doesn’t display, please try opening in the Chrome browser. Share your favorite word this week with your friends on Facebook and Twitter)!
Sometimes, letting out a curse word feels pretty darn good, doesn’t it? How about letting out the word that means “feeling good about cursing?” It’s real, and it skyrocketed to the top of our trending words list for the week of April 6–13, 2018!LalocheziaSearches for lalochezia, which means “emotional relief gained by using indecent or vulgar language,” climbed a whopping 15,930%. The term has been …
One way to get to know a country is through its food. Another way is by using the country’s public transportation. Some unique modes of transportation are just for fun, like dog-sledding trips in Norway and zorbing in New Zealand (which involves rolling down a hill inside a giant inflatable ball, just saying). Other means of transportation are more practical . . . here’s a …
