Part of the drama of hurricane season revolves around the predicting and changing of the severity—or category—of the storm. What category will the hurricane be when it hits land? What kind of damage might it inflict? What is a hurricane category? There are a few classification scales that meteorological agencies use to determine the intensity of hurricanes. The Saffir-Simpson scale is used to measure the strength of …
Since pour is a common word and sounds identical to pore, many English speakers use the verb pour in the verb phrase pore over meaning “to meditate or ponder intently.” Oops, we’ve definitely written that one incorrectly before … What does pore mean? When talking about carefully reading books, wills, or other documents, pore is the verb that you’re looking for.Pore means “to read or study with …
Nobody can guess how serious the next hurricane will be, but you can find out what it will be named. An important thing to note is that weather events aren’t eligible for a name until they transform from a tropical depression into a tropical storm. When tropical storms reach a certain velocity, they become cyclones, which North Americans call hurricanes. How are hurricanes named? Then, the name of …
Hipsters have become simultaneous objects of ridicule and desire, associated with the new and in vogue, and also with an absurd form of consumerism. Why do we call them hipsters, and how did this word, born of jazz music in the early 1930s, make the transition to describe young men in skinny pants and classes on how to properly sharpen a pencil?
Whether they’re boot-legged, low-rise, or skinny, most Americans have at least one pair that they can’t live without. Blue jeans are as American as apple pie, right? Well, kind of. The word “jean” comes from the French jean fustian. Fustian is a type of twilled cotton cloth originally from Genoa, Italy. But the plural form of the word was first used in the United States, in 1843. …
The noun ghost has been around a very long time, since before 900, when Old English was spoken. Originally it referred to the soul of a dead person or a disembodied spirit, and this meaning is still in use. In the recent past, ghost and ghosting have expanded in meaning, and today this term is often evoked in relation to dating. How do you know if …
In our latest update to Dictionary.com, we added more than 300 new words and definitions, and revised over 1,700 entries. Many of the newly added terms are pulled straight from the headlines like Daesh, intersectionality, warmist, woke, and Zika virus. Several of the new words relate directly to the media, including lamestream, presstitute, and hot take. Mainstream cultural conversations give Dictionary.com’s lexicographers an endless supply …
