Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles from 2014
Blog Excerpts
Which Word Should Go Into the Next Scrabble Dictionary?
Hasbro, the company that makes Scrabble, is revising the game's official dictionary, and they're letting Scrabble fans pick one of the words to include. Some worthy contenders include zen, ew, and bestie. You can join in the Scrabble Word Showdown on Facebook here, and check out the authoritative take on Hasbro's contest from Stefan Fatsis on Slate here.
Vocabulary Shout-Out
Defining "Empathy"? We Feel Your Pain
And then turn to novelist Leslie Jamison for insight
Leslie Jamison's "cerebral, witty, multichambered essays [that] tend to swing around to one topic in particular: what we mean when we say that we feel someone else's pain." The word for this phenomenon, of course, is empathy, which Jamison explores in a bold and interesting way.
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A few of my female friends have a fun hobby. Not knitting. Not kickboxing. Not baking pies. Not vampire-slaying. Hating Gwyneth Paltrow. I haven't fully grasped my friends' loathing in the past, but I'm beginning to understand, thanks to a humdinger of a euphemism Paltrow used to describe her impending divorce: conscious uncoupling.
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Dept. of Word Lists
"A Long Walk to Water": You'll Hang on Every Word
A great choice for middle school readers and word learners
A great choice for middle school readers, A Long Walk to Water by Newberry award-winner Linda Sue Park introduces two true stories set in Sudan.
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With the teams competing in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament whittled down to the Final Four, "March Madness" is coming to a close. (Actually, as has been the case for a few decades now, March Madness extends into the beginning of April, when the semifinal and final games are played.) In honor of college hoops, I've selected a "Final Four" of important terms associated with the tournament.
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Announcements
"How Do You Get To College?" With Vocabulary.com
Vocabulary.com ignites a word learning frenzy at New York City school.
At a pep rally focused on academic achievement, about 500 students at New York City's High School for Public Service-Heroes of Tomorrow celebrated their Vocabulary.com monthly leaderboard win.
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Vocabulary.com News
Having associated the interjection boo with ghosts since childhood, it took me a while to get used to it as a term of endearment for one's (presumably living) significant other. However, it's been around long enough by now that some of you may well have grown up with it. But never mind boo: it's time to get ready for bae, the latest monosyllabic pet name starting with B.
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