Which word rules your part of the town? March is bracket season, and Dictionary.com has assembled a field of 32 of the most iconic local slang from around the country, separated out between the West, Northeast, South, and Midwest. Now it’s up to you to vote on which regional lingo (and region) reigns supreme! Winner Y’all The people have spoken and y’all won Best Regional …
In 2011, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recognized the discovery of two new chemical elements: flerovium and livermorium. With the chemical symbols of Fl and Lv, these names became official in 2012. Until the discovery of these predicted elements occurred, they were known as ununquadium and ununhexium, which is scientific Latin for 114 and 116, respectively. These numbers correspond to their atomic …
The terms we use to refer to other people—and ourselves—can communicate a lot about identity, and sometimes even a single letter can make a big difference. Perhaps you know the words Latino and Latina. But have you encountered Latinx or Latine? Even if you have, you might still be confused about why they’re used and whether there’s a difference. In this article, we’ll explain the …
Chances are, when you started reading you encountered plenty of new words. That’s great for you—you were learning, after all—but here’s the catch. Your skill at pronouncing these words didn’t necessarily keep up with your reading skills, leading to some funny mishaps. Did colonel’s pronunciation confuse you? What about choir? Or hors’d’oeuvres? (Did you try “horse divorce” or “hers dervs”?) This might seem silly now, but …
When was the last time you discovered an Easter egg hidden in plain sight? If your answer involved any kind of backyard Easter egg hunt, it’s time to expand your playing field. In the 1980s, the term Easter egg took on a new meaning that keeps the hunt going on all year—inside of video games! What is the origin of Easter egg? But first, let’s …
With so many kids learning remotely, parents may be witnessing their child’s classroom struggles for the first time. But is an academic coach in order? A lot of parents have been getting a first-hand look at the way their child learns thanks to the rise in remote schooling since 2020. If you are not a trained academic or educator, it can be hard to tell …
If you have to ask what it means to be cool, well, you probably aren’t cool. What is cool, though, is just how many slang words we’ve used over the years to talk about people and things that we think are fab, funky, fresh, groovy, fly, phat, lit, gnarly, rad, and the cat’s meow. And that is just a taste of the coolness we managed …
If you haven’t visited a classroom in years, you might be surprised to discover surprising new approaches to education. Do you know what microlearning is? Does you child’s school favor personalized or experiential learning? Is asynchronous learning the same as distance education? Learning has come a long way since the days of reciting times tables in the brick school house or getting chalky hands while …
When you look up words on Dictionary.com, you’ll encounter all kinds of labels on terms and their definitions. Taken in combination with the definitions, these labels are intended to help you understand how words are used. Some labels, like noun and verb, are straightforward, but the meanings of others, such as Disparaging, Archaic, and Literary, may be much less obvious. To help clarify and demystify …
Some of the traditional ways of talking about adoption may seem neutral or harmless, but many once widely used terms are now avoided due to carrying negative implications or associations. Taking time to understand and consider these implications is especially important at a time when many discussions and depictions of adoption are criticized for minimizing the perspectives and experiences of children awaiting adoption and people …
Say cheese! There are a ton of different cheeses out there, and many of them have unique toponyms, or names that are derived from the name of a place. In fact, many cheeses are officially designated by international cheese organizations—yes, that’s a thing—as so-called “protected cheeses,” meaning only a specific place can legally make a certain kind of cheese. Whether they are protected or not, many …
