Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Words
As the recession worsens, we're all learning far more than we ever wanted to know about the ins and outs of the banking industry, ground zero of the financial meltdown. And we're learning new lingo too: the news these days brings word of good banks, bad banks, zombie banks, and even banksters.
Continue reading...
Last month a usage dispute broke out in the comments section here on the Visual Thesaurus. Our "Evasive Maneuvers" columnist Mark Peters described a friend who "started feeling nauseous." Two commenters objected to this use of nauseous, saying that the word properly describes someone or something that is sickening, and that the word Mark should have used is nauseated. Who's right?
Continue reading...
As the only euphemism columnist in America, it is my sacred duty to help euphemisms swim and purr to their greatest potential, lest Darwinian forces maul them prematurely.
Continue reading...
With this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament just around the corner, there is no better time to consider that peculiar, vowel-heavy brand of English known as "crosswordese." Think you're a first-rate cruciverbalist? Quick: can you tell an anoa from an unau?
Continue reading...
The American Dialect Society wants to know what you think the Word of the Decade is. Which word best sums up the years from 2000 to 2009? Read the call for nominations below.
Continue reading...
Last week we interviewed the irrepressible Roy Blount, Jr. about his latest book, Alphabet Juice, an A-to-Z compendium of his musings on the glory of the English language. In this excerpt from the book's opening chapter, Blount considers the scholarly theory of the arbitrary relation between words and meanings, to which he firmly responds: "Arbitrary, schmarbitrary."
Continue reading...
Today marks the bicentennial of two of the most influential minds of the modern age: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Besides sharing a birthday, Lincoln and Darwin also shared an eloquence with the English language, despite the very different prose styles of their work. In a new book, Angels and Ages, Adam Gopnik argues that this shared eloquence allowed them to impart their world-changing visions. But what about on a more basic level, that of the individual word? What lasting contributions did Lincoln and Darwin make to the English lexicon?
Continue reading...
Sign up now (it’s free!)
Whether you’re a teacher or a learner,
Vocabulary.com can put you or your class
on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.