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Articles about Vocabulary
Word CountWriters Talk About Writing
Made Up: Fictional, Fictitious, Fictive, and Factitious
Choose wisely, or risk saying something you don't mean.
When coming up with adjectives for made-up things, we have many to choose among: fictional, fictitious, or fictive, or even factitious. Choose wisely, or risk saying something you don't mean.
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Under the HoodThe science of vocabulary building
How Economic Hard Times Change Our Vocabulary
A new study says the boom/bust cycle shows up in literature
Looking for another reason to learn new words on Vocabulary.com? Check out a study released last week on the relationship between literary and economic misery. The news pairs nicely with our List of the Week, "Vocabulary from John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath."
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Dept. of Word Lists
Is Chris Christie a "Miscreant"? A Quick Current Events Vocab Quiz
Ten words drawn from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Atlantic coverage.
Stay on top of the New Jersey traffic scandal, Obamacare fallout, NSA hacking, Pacific Rim trade negotiations, and Internet law...from a vocabulary perspective!
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Shout-Out
From the Inventor of the Detective Mystery: "Rapine"
In celebration of Victorian Wilkie Collins' Birthday, we take a look at a word from his era
Victorian novelist Wilkie Collins, widely regarded as the father of the modern detective story, celebrates his 188th birthday this week. To honor him, we take a look at the opening pages of his still-fun The Moonstone, where he uses the unusual rapine.
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Word RoutesExploring the pathways of our lexicon
"Because" Wins 2013 Word of the Year Vote, Because Awesome
Leading up to the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year vote last night, handicappers might have favored such terms as selfie, twerk, or Obamacare as possible winners. But the society's selection was a bit of a surprise: the humble word because, which has recently expanded in new grammatical directions in informal use online.
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At the American Dialect Society's annual conference in Minneapolis, we have nominated words in various categories in our Word of the Year selection. I presided over the nominating session on Thursday in my capacity as chair of the society's New Words Committee. Winners will be selected from the different categories on Friday evening, culminating in the vote for the overall Word of the Year. Here's the list of nominees.
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As the year comes to a close, it's time once again to survey the new words and phrases that made their presence felt in the popular consciousness. For the Wall Street Journal, I surveyed the "words that popped in 2013," from cronut to Sharknado, but there were too many good choices to include in one article. Here I present my more comprehensive list of notable words of the year.
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