The holiday season has finally arrived, which means it’s time for the Elf On The Shelf to make its triumphant return! Whether you’re a seasoned elf parent, or this is your very first year introducing the concept, chances are you’re looking for some creative elf activities to keep your kids entertained all December long. While there are certainly plenty of ways for the Elf On …
There are dozens of spells that are used by the characters in Harry Potter’s fictional world of wizardry. But are any of them real words? What language are the spells in Harry Potter? The names of many of the spells are indeed derived from other languages, especially Latin. However, for the most part, they aren’t proper words. Author J.K. Rowling created words that resemble other …
Some young people may find it hard to believe, but there was once a world without emoji (the plural can be either emoji or emojis—take your pick). These bright, little, expressive images didn’t come into existence until 1999, when the first ones were created by Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita. Today, there are more than 3,000 emoji … and counting. They add a pop of personality to …
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 …
This week, Lady Gaga lit up Twitter with a simple question: “What’s fortnight?” What’s fortnight — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) October 15, 2019 As the viral response to her tweet made plain, Gaga had apparently confused fortnight with the massively popular online video game—and homonym—Fortnite. Gaga’s question also lit up searches on Dictionary.com for fortnight, which, compared to data from, well, a fortnight ago, went up …
These names used to be roughly interchangeable when distinguishing the social outcasts from the in-crowd in school. Yet, those so-called social rejects were destined to rule the world in the form of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, et al. “The geek shall inherit the earth,” indeed. Oh yeah, and billions of dollars. There’s a lot of overlap in the meanings of nerd, geek, and …
There are a lot of words to refer to people who move from one place to another. Some are used in overlapping ways, but there are key differences between many of them, including whether the person is coming or going, and for what reasons. In this article, we’ll break down the differences in meaning and use between the words immigration and emigration, the related forms …
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: …
All politics, as they say, is personal. That truism definitely rang, well, true in the closing question of the third Democratic debate in Houston, Texas, Thursday, September 12, 2019. One of the moderators, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, asked the ten candidates on “the quality of resilience.” He went on:Every president confronts crises, defeats, and mistakes. So I want to ask each of you, what’s the most …
In the past few weeks, people lined up at Popeyes, a popular restaurant chain known for its Southern-fried chicken, all over the US to get their hands on a hot and hyped new menu item: a chicken sandwich. On Dictionary.com, meanwhile, we saw our own crowd: searches for pandemonium surged nearly 350% since mid-August, when Popeyes released the sandwich en masse. Searches for pandemonium are …
The origin of the word pizza The word pizza as we now know it is recorded in English in the early 1800s, though early English lexicographer John Florio enters pizza for “a small cake or wafer” in his historically important 1598 Italian-English dictionary. Pizza, of course, is borrowed from Italian, but the deeper ingredients of the word, if you will, are unclear. Some think the Greek pitta (pita, …
