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Vocabulary.com's Dictionary empowers learners at any level to learn new words through a variety of features. Continue reading...

In anticipation of her school's "official jump" to the Common Core, English teacher Jennifer Johnston of Rialto High, in Rialto, CA created a dramatic new word learning program using Vocabulary.com. She was hoping for measurable improvement. What she ended up with was a dramatic change. Now, in the International Reading Association's online magazine Reading Today, Johnston explains how she made this happen. Continue reading...

We're excited to announce some significant improvements to our dictionary pages. Continue reading...

Dennis Baron, English professor at the University of Illinois and author of the blog The Web of Language, writes:

The Web of Language Word of the Year for 2011 is "volatility." Volatility may not be trendy like occupy or Arab Spring, but it's the one word that characterizes the bipolar mood of 2011 in everything from politics to economics. Continue reading...

You're familiar with canine and feline, but there's a marvelous menagerie of animal adjectives (Anserine! Piscine! Vulpine!) that we don't want to wind up on the endangered vocab list and disappear forever. So do your part: learn them and use them, either literally or metaphorically. Continue reading...

In an earlier post on this blog, we wrote about word knowledge limbo, citing research that shows that our brains don’t travel directly from “not knowing” a word to “knowing it.” In this post, we’ll talk about what it means when you do finally get there. What does it mean to know a word? Continue reading...

In our coverage of the first Republican presidential candidates' debate last month, we used our vocabulary list builder to find the most relevant word each candidate used. Now, before Republicans take to the stage again, we want to explain what we mean by "relevance." Understanding it sheds light on not just how we're analyzing candidates' speech, but also how we're pulling vocabulary from academic and literary texts. Continue reading...

This is a must-read for teachers planning on revamping their vocab instruction! Few educational authors can blend research, theory and practical examples like the vocabulary instruction expert Isabel Beck and her co-authors Margaret G. McKeown and Linda Kucan. This excerpt, from Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, offers creative ideas about how to motivate "word wizards" of all ages to extend their vocabulary use beyond the classroom walls. Continue reading...

Presidents' Day allows us to put politics aside for awhile and celebrate the personalities that held the highest office in the land. There is perhaps no greater reflection of those personalities that the words they are credited with introducing or making popular. Continue reading...