Every March, people around the world celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with parades, street parties, festivals, sing-alongs, arts exhibitions, and yes, green rivers (such as the Chicago River, dyed green with what’s essentially food coloring). What began as a feast day for the patron saint of Ireland has evolved into a worldwide celebration of Irish culture and heritage—and it’s hard to resist the temptation to look …
Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukah) is one of the most prominent observances during the holiday season in the United States. The eight days of Hanukkah are a time of reflection, celebration, and learning for Jewish people around the world. The holiday is marked by observed rituals, as well as a number of celebratory foods and games that honor Hanukkah’s origin story. From the ritual of lighting …
Lately, it seems everyone has been talking about the Delta variant of COVID-19. And just as we were getting used to this new term, a Lambda variant appeared in the news. Delta? Lambda? Do these words mean anything? Why are we using them to refer to COVID-19? Delta and lambda are actually letters of the Greek alphabet, and there is a good reason that we …
If you’ve ever been to a Japanese restaurant, particularly in the US, there are certain familiar items you’re expecting to see: miso soup, tongue-tingling wasabi, warm sake, plenty of rice, and equal amounts of fish and other carefully prepared bite-sized portions. But did you know that you don’t actually need fish (uncooked or otherwise) in order to call the dish you’re eating sushi? Those little …
Black Lives Matter is a powerful political and social movement aiming to ensure basic human rights for Black people. Many people are familiar with the name of the movement as it is used amid protests against violence inflicted on Black people involving police officers, including the death of George Floyd in 2020. As the movement has expanded all around the world, many may not know …
Most of us landlubbers live out our dry lives on solid ground, so it can be easy to forget that Earth is primarily an ocean planet that’s 71% covered in water—most of which connects in a giant blue mass around our little green islands. Ocean, sea, it’s all the same salt water, right? Yes and no. In general use, it’s extremely common for the two …
Trying to classify what’s a fruit and what’s a vegetable isn’t always cut and dry. In fact, the debate about it can get pretty juicy—seedy, even. This all stems from the fact that some things we eat are technically fruits but are almost always called vegetables (and treated like vegetables, too). Some people make a distinction based on the level of sweetness, but the difference—from …
Held on March 8, International Women’s Day celebrates the progress women have made over the last century, and the inspiring women who helped make that progress happen. From the suffragist movement of the 1800s to the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, women have used the power of language and oration to inspire countless people. Early inspiration: the Enlightenment Early feminism was heavily influenced by the …
![List of words in white outline, with central word in bold purple font, on lilac background: “pseudonym, synonym, caconym, inaptonym [in bold], metonym, backronym, retronym"](https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20220426_NYM_800x800-380x380.png)
We love to look at words, and today the name of the game is words that end in -nym. The ending -nym or, most often, -onym is a combining form from Greek that means “name.” Apparently, we love naming names because there are a whole bunch of words that end in -nym. Some of these words are pretty common, but we managed to find quite …
Puerto Rican songwriter Bad Bunny loves to meld genres—reggaetón blended with a little pop here, punk and rock there, and also soul. In a way, his music perfectly encapsulates Caribbean and Latin American music and its history of weaving and fusing together different musical styles that come together for a highly danceable mix. From reggaetón to the cha-cha-cha to the “singing newspapers” known as plena, Caribbean and …
So, you’re wondering why Beyoncé’s Renaissance album has proved to be so irresistible and has now inspired a record-breaking tour—declared the highest grossing for a female artist—in 2023. Well, we’ve got 15 words that help tell that story. The album, released in 2022, samples and incorporates elements of a highly danceable musical genre known as house. Renaissance in particular references and pays homage to the Black …
As Leo Tolstoy wrote in the classic Anna Karenina, “spring is the time of plans and projects.” To put it more bluntly, spring is a time of new growth, new experiences, and, in most of the world, temperamental weather. To encourage your personal growth during this season of change, why not try out some of these sophisticated vocabulary terms related to spring? verdurous Verdurous is …