From the Dictionary.com Word of the Year to NASA’s years-long mission to land a spacecraft on Mars, the words that trended in searches November 23–30, 2018 were out of this world (if we do say so ourselves). Ready? Set? Learn! Misinformation It’s official! The Dictionary.com Word of the Year is misinformation, a word we chose after careful consideration. We’re glad to see from your dictionary …
by Heather Bonikowski, Lexicographer, and John Kelly, Managing Editor Our first major update to Dictionary.com in 2021 looks a lot like … 2020. But that makes a lot of sense. From the pandemic to protests to politics, our language is still catching up to the tremendous change we experienced last year—and Dictionary.com is here to document it all. Our tireless team of lexicographers have touched …
The internet keeps on supplying us with an endless stream of trendy slang words that come from anywhere—from bizarre TikTok streams and YouTube videos featuring sentient toilets—and everywhere in between. Why are grown men called babygirl? What is the scuttlebutt on tush push and gyatt? What does it mean to be delulu? Are we doomed to a fate of enshittification? We have all of the …
by John Kelly, Senior Research Editor at Dictionary.com Whether it’s flu season, chickenpox at your kid’s school, concerns about measles in your town, or the coronavirus pandemic, the words contagious and infectious often come around in news and social media, in casual conversations and government communications. While these two terms get used interchangeably, knowing the difference between them can, in some cases, be life-saving. To …
The popularity of the Apple Watch has given the noun wearable some additional prominence. This leads to the question of which term came first: wearable or personal computer? As with so many such questions, there is no simple answer.
