Every March and November, most Americans change their clocks to keep up with the switch into or out of daylight-saving time. This practice of advancing the clocks ahead an hour is called daylight-saving time. But, because daylight savings time is used so frequently, the term is also considered acceptable. Daylight-saving time means that since the clock is moved ahead one hour, you get one more …
Not all things are created equal: some are good, others are better, and only the cream of the crop rise to the level of best. These three words—good, better, and best—are examples of the three forms of an adjective or adverb: positive, comparative, and superlative. What is the positive form? The positive form of an adjective or adverb is the basic form listed in a dictionary—e.g., …
What does a.m. mean? The term we associate with the morning, a.m., is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase ante merīdiem meaning “before midday.” What does p.m. mean? P.m. is an abbreviation of post merīdiem, meaning—you guessed it—“after midday.” These two terms help keep ambiguity at bay in the 12-hour time system. What does m. mean? There is a third, lesser-known abbreviation in this system: …
In parts of the US, supper and dinner are used interchangeably to refer to the evening meal, but they’re not exactly synonyms. What do these words mean? Dinner, which dates back to the late 1200s, refers to the main meal of the day—historically, a meal served midday for many peoples. The term comes from the Middle English diner, which, via French, goes back to a …
Have you ever typed a word into Dictionary.com just to see how it's spelled? Yup, us too. Here are the most misspelled words so far for 2019.
What rhymes with orange? Orange rhymes with Blorenge (a mountain in Wales) and sporange (a technical word for a sac where spores are made). Of course, if you want to write a rhyming poem about oranges, the scientific or geographic research involved might be a little tough. What rhymes with silver? While we’re at it, while silver hangs on to the same rumor, it actually rhymes with Wilver (a nickname) and chilver (a ewe lamb). …
Did the dictionary … get it wrong?! We once featured the word comeuppance as our Word of the Day. Comeuppance, as we define it, means “deserved reward or just deserts, usually unpleasant.” More than a few of our brilliant and devoted users, wrote in to inform us that there was a typo in the definition: just deserts should be just desserts. Was an S left out of …
Three verbs that mean similar things: charge, convict, and sentence. They appear in the news constantly, but do you know what each term actually describes? What does it mean to be charged with a crime? Let’s begin with charge. When a person is charged with a crime, a formal allegation (a statement not yet proven) of an offense is made. We typically refer to charges in the …
March 14 marks one of the geekiest days on the calendar. But, some people might confuse it for one of the tastiest. It’s Pi Day. Not pie, but pi (II, π), the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet. In mathematics, the character is used to represent a constant—the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter—which is approximately 3.14159+. While the infinitely long …
