Looking for polysemous inspiration for your new conlang? Take this Word of the Day Quiz with alacrity! If the quiz doesn’t display, please try opening in the Chrome browser. Interested in Words of the Day from the past? Check out this one that we brought to life … Tell us your favorite word from this week below (and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter)!
What do Scotland, Silicon Valley, LGBTQ pride, and Jesus Christ all have in common? Unicorns. You read that right, unicorns. This connection may sound as fantastical as unicorns themselves, that mythical horse famed for the single horn it bears on its forehead. But, only a creature as unique as a unicorn could span such a wide array of contexts. So, too, can the word unicorn. Since …
It seems like a rite of passage for most kids: your first made-up language. Whether you devised it with a sibling or wrote in a diary only you could translate, there was an allure in concealing your communication in code. The appeal doesn’t dissipate as we grow older, either. Take Igpay Atinlay. Pig Latin, that is. Plenty of parents still use it to speak about things they don’t …
The word chemical elicits strong reactions from many people. You’ve probably seen viral headlines over the past few years about “yoga mat chemicals” in your Subway sandwich bread or “toxic chemicals” in your mascara. Certainly, you’ve seen people online discussing the “dangerous chemicals” they believe are contained in vaccines. When people see the word chemical, it tends to inspire fear, but should it? What is a chemical? A chemical …
Grammatical gender* is an unfamiliar concept to some native English speakers. If you’re learning a language like Spanish, for instance, one of the earliest lessons is that some nouns are feminine (la mesa for “the table”) and others masculine (el café for “coffee”). Gendered words are part of many other languages around the world, too, but not so much in English—or are they? Believe it or not, English …
by Ashley AustrewPoliticians aren’t exactly known for being honest. President Nixon had the Watergate scandal. President Bill Clinton lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And, in the first two years Donald Trump was president, the Washington Post reported he’s made over 8,000 “false or misleading claims” to the American public. Still, it is rare to see a headline declaring any president or politician a liar. …
Our crippling anthophobia won’t stop us from taking this week’s Word of the Day Quiz. If the quiz doesn’t display, please try opening in the Chrome browser. Interested in Words of the Day from the past? Check out this one that we brought to life … Tell us your favorite word from this week below (and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter)!
Stationary and stationery are just one letter off, but that seemingly small difference changes the meaning of these words entirely. These two terms share the Latin root statiōnārius, which derives from the word station meaning “a standing place.” What does stationary mean? Stationary with an a is the older of these two terms, and it means “fixed in one place and not moving,” like a …
The word ban gets bandied about a lot these days, from vegan brides wanting to ban meat-eaters from their weddings to plastic straws getting banned from coffee drinks. On an individual level, banning things we don’t like or agree with can be an easy way to rid them from our life. But, zoom out to a governmental and societal level, and bans become much more complex. What …
What is a mondegreen? Have you ever heard someone sing the wrong lyrics to a song? Maybe a child gave the nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” a new meaning by replacing the line “life is but a dream” with “life’s a butter dream.” Or maybe you’ve unironically belted out “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” instead of Jimi Hendrix’s intended lyrics, “Excuse me …
JSYK, we’ve added new words and definitions to the dictionary. Over 300 of them in 2019, in fact. This is one case, we think, where JOMO just doesn’t apply. We’re sure you’ve guessed by now that these additions include some new internet slang abbreviations, like JSYK (“just so you know”) and JOMO (“joy of missing out”), that reflect how technology is influencing modern life—and modern …
by Rachel Bradley Ah, childhood, those halcyon days when you chewed on a stuffed Mr. Snuffleupagus and cruised the driveway in your foot-pedaled convertible. Childhood was also the time when, hopefully, you learned how to peepee—with your wee wee, weenie, peenie, winkey, giney, or jay-jay. Ring any bells? Those goofy names remind us that childhood is also when our private parts are often given cutesy …