To help kick off the new academic year, we asked college students who use Dictionary.com to share slang they’ve heard around campus. We received more than 2200 responses in only a few days. Notable themes we noticed include the supernatural, food, and making out. We’ve highlighted our favorite responses below. Are you familiar with the following terms? What other slang terms have you come across …
This September, we released our biggest update to the dictionary ever. Our dictionary editors touched over 15,000 entries in a sweeping effort to reflect the many ways language is evolving. From capitalizing Black to adding a separate entry for Pride to revising references to suicide, our update addresses topics that touch us on some of our most personal levels: race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, …
The terms empathy and sympathy are often confused, and with good reason. Both of the words deal with the relationship a person has to the feelings and experiences of another person. One involves feeling a certain way about a person, and the other involves feeling the same way that another person does. In this article, we’ll explain the subtle differences between sympathy and empathy, discuss …
The blues got you today? Or is that upcoming speech giving you the jitters? As unpleasant as it is, it is OK. Sudden bouts of gloominess and uneasiness are completely normal responses to upsetting or potentially dangerous circumstances, whether real or imagined. Thankfully, they are short-lived. They ebb and flow and vanish together with the triggering event. We all have bad days every now and …
You might be able to recite the letters considered vowels in the English language: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. But what makes a vowel a vowel? Vowels and consonants are two different categories of sounds that linguists (in the branch of linguistics called phonetics) use to explain how speech sounds work. In this article, we’ll explore the difference between consonants and vowels …
As we get deeper into this new millennium, one that we like to think might free us from things like racial and gender inequities and stereotypes, some interesting “man-” words have found their way into English. What’s going on? Are we widening the gender chasm, at least linguistically? Manly, Mean, or Meh? The proliferation of male “gender marked” nouns, like man bun, man purse, or …
Cyclone, hurricane, and typhoon are all terms for big storms. Are they all the same thing? What’s the difference? Join us on this whirlwind tour as we answer these questions and more: What’s the difference between a cyclone, a hurricane, and a typhoon? What’s the difference between a tropical cyclone, a tropical depression, and a tropical storm? Why are some tropical cyclones called hurricanes and …
Even though the standard calendar year is 365 days, Earth actually takes 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds to go completely around the sun. (This is called a solar year.) In order to keep the calendar cycle synchronized with the seasons, one extra day is (usually) added every four years as February 29. Where did this practice come from? Who came up …
By some estimates, there are more than 4,000 religions in the world. And while these beliefs vary widely, many of them can be generally categorized as forms of either monotheism or polytheism. The difference has to do with whether followers believe in or worship a single deity (supreme being) or multiple ones. In this article, we’ll break down the difference, provide examples of monotheism and …
As the Covid-19 virus continues to spread and evolve, each new variant is given an official name—and sometimes an unofficial nickname. We’ll keep this page updated with the latest Covid-19 variant names and an explanation of where the new names come from. What is XBB.1.5? XBB.1.5 is a subvariant of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. In early 2023, medical experts described XBB.1.5 as …
There’s a funny scene in the 2002 romcom My Big Fat Greek Wedding in which the main character, Toula, introduces her fiancé to her aunt and explains that he’s a vegetarian. The aunt asks what that means, and when he replies that it means he doesn’t eat meat, she says in shock, “What do you mean you don’t eat no meat?” They stare at each other …
