Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Vocabulary
In a comical scene in the film The Princess Bride, the character Inigo Montoya has finally had enough of hearing the bad guy Vizzini say "Inconceivable!" when things are not only conceivable, but just keep happening. Montoya is finally moved to say, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
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Blog Excerpts
Oh Come "Lettuce" Adore Him? Christmas Carol Confusion Explained
In time for Christmas, learn what the songs you're humming actually mean
Isn't "Don" is that guy from accounting? Does "gay apparel" mean I think it does? And what are the cattle doing again? Just in time for Christmas, clear up carol confusion.
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Tasty MorselsGood stuff from Vocabulary.com
What Got These Middle Schoolers So Excited About Vocab?
Competition is the name of the game
In heated competition, Corkscrew Middle in Naples, FL topped the Vocabulary.com school leaderboard for the month of November and were awarded the Vocabulary.com Champions' Banner to display in their school. What's their secret? Making competition fun.
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We had so much fun watching the 500-plus vocabulary videos sent in the Vocabulary.com-New York Times Learning Network vocabulary in video contest that we just couldn't narrow the winners down to a logical five, but had to choose seven, and list a hefty number of honorable mentions.
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
A Tolkien Tangle: What Does "The Desolation of Smaug" Mean?
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was just released today. You can tell from the title that in this movie, someone's going to get desolated, and desolated but good. But who? Does Smaug desolate someone, or does someone desolate Smaug? What does desolate mean, anyway?
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Vocabulary Shout-Out
"Wine-Barring" and Other Nouns That Just Can't Sit Still
And how our amazing brains are able to understand words introduced in this way for the first time
In a piece about the de-funkifying of Greenwich Village, New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren transforms the noun wine bar into a verb.
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Topics:
Vocabulary
Dept. of Word Lists
South Africans "Burnish" While Ukrainians "Blandish": Ten Words in the News You Need to Know
In the meantime, US lawmakers talk "infrastructure"
While mourners burnish Mandela's memory, Ukrainian protesters brandish makeshift weapons against security forces. Meanwhile, in the US, legislators agree on budget terms and we look at the budgeting term infrastructure.
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Topics:
Vocabulary
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