intelligentsia

Ender Wiggin is a brilliant but lonely young strategist in a world where children are trained to defend humankind against alien attacks.

Putin invades Crimea. Kermit the Frog goes to Siberia (where Tina Fey is prison warden). Journalists tweet pics of brown water flowing from faucets in Soviet-reminiscent Sochi hotel rooms. Wes Anderson enshrines that concept via "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Meanwhile Cold War history series "The Americans" is signed to a third season on FX. Call it War on Terror fatigue, ascribe it to fashion's habit of looking back, just don't try to deny it. The Cold War is hot right now, and so are the words in this list. (For words on this list originating from Russian, we reference Wikipedia's entry for List of English words of Russian origin.)

Vocabulary.com and the New York Times Learning Network have teamed up to launch a Vocabulary Video contest. Just create a short (15 seconds or less) video that defines or teaches any of the words in the Times' Word of the Day collection, post it online, and submit a link to your video in the Learning Network's comments section. Click on these links to learn more about the eligible words: List 1, List 2 and List 3.