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Est. 1828
Wordplay
Arts & Culture (page 8)
The History of 'Bull' and 'Bear' Markets
Which came first?
The Surprising History of 'Freelance'
Freelancing has always been a battle
What's a 'Downticket Candidate'?
And what's a 'downballot race'?
How Is a Klingon like a 12th-century nun?
The surprising history of 'conlang'
OMG: The Internet and the Dictionary
Part Three: The Internet
To Boldly Go: Star Trek & the Split Infinitive
Can you split an infinitive in space?
'Picayune', 'Tribune', and 7 More Names for Newspapers
Ripped from the headlines
Aphantasia: When Your Mind's Eye Fails You
An inability to form mental images
It's Lit
An old slang word made new again
What Does 'Scale the Business' Mean?
Scaling 'scale'
What's a 'Headdesk'?
When facepalms aren't enough
What Does 'Wherefore Art Thou Romeo' Mean?
Not where, but why
How Journalists Are Redefining the Word 'Kicker'
The term's meaning has shifted
The Origin of the 'Ugly Cry'
No memes, just meanings
The Top 8 Political Buzzwords of 2016
From 'filibuster' to 'speechwriter'
What's the Political Meaning of 'Dog Whistle'?
Can you hear me now?
Do You Need a Makeunder?
And does the dictionary need 'makeunder'?
What's 'Hangry'?
Feed me. Now.
Singular 'They'
Everything old is new again
Spit Take
Don't drink anything while reading this
Stay Woke
Tracing the new sense of 'woke'
Adulting
The verb 'adulting' is all grown up
Fat-Finger
To mistype something
10 Words Shakespeare Never Invented
We'll explain the confusion
A Short History of 'Retcon'
Retroactive continuity
Break the Internet
It deserves it
Noticing Senpai
A word we're watching...and watching....
10 Godly Words
Divine inspiration
Words of the Week: May 1, 2016
This week's lookups were driven by holidays and politics
Name Check
To mention approvingly by name
Cromulent
A perfectly cromulent word.
Words of the Week: April 24, 2016
'Boulevardier,' 'collusion,' 'gullible' and more
8 Poets Share Their Favorite Words
Pinsky, Rankine, Harjo, and others discuss the words they love
A New Meaning of 'Burner'
Will the new sense of 'burner' stick around?
Splain
Let us explain.
When Did 'Horse Race' Become Political?
What do reporters mean when they call the election a horse race?
Does 'Posh' Really Come From Ocean Travel?
It's a great story, isn't it?
Don't Dox People!
Don't 'swat' them either
What does 'throw shade' mean?
If you have to ask....
Words of the Week: April 10, 2016
This week’s top lookups were so much fun
Happy Birthday, Webster's 1828!
Webster published his first dictionary on April 14
OMG, This Is So Awkward. Merp.
Don't know what to say?
A Glossary of Tax Terms
Happy words for the happiest season
Words of the Week: April 3, 2016
'Communism,' 'encryption,' 'rotten borough,' 'doobie'
Making Sense of 'Word Salad'
Olives. Tuna. Lime gelatin. Mmm.
Words of the Week: March 27, 2016
Word trends, stygian edition
What is 'reshoring'?
When offshore jobs return
Words of the Week: March 20, 2016
Fewer bombings next week, please.
The History of 'Side-eye'
We have our eyes on this one
Using the Dictionary to Write Poetry
Yes, the dictionary can help you write poetry
Go Ahead, Ping Me
What's the worst thing that could happen?
Words of the Week: March 13, 2016
Holidays and Politics (still) drove people to the dictionary
Words We're Watching: Secret Sauce
It makes all the difference
If You Love Clothes, You Need These 11 Words
Pretty styles, ugly names
Where Does the Phrase 'Barn Burner' Come From?
This one's pretty exciting
Subtweet: Subtext, Twitter-style
First used by Twitter in 2006
What Do You Call a Woman with the Rank of a Marquess?
Hint: it's not "poor Edith"
Is 'None' Singular or Plural?
Or both? Or neither?
How 'Cadence' Became a Business Term
Music isn't the only thing with rhythm
Red Carpet Words: Our Top 7 Movie-Related Word Trends
Get ready for your close-up, 'revenant'
Phubbing
We can't ignore this word
11 Words from the Bible You Didn't Know Were Biblical
'Nimrod', 'scapegoat', and other good words from the Good Book
A New Meaning of 'Deprecate'
Why do some people use 'deprecated' to describe obsolescent technology?
We ♥ the Verb 'Heart'
The history of 'heart' as a verb
Looking for Love
No, we can't tell you how long it lasts
Is it ever okay to say 'themself'?
Shh. Don't tell autocorrect.
How 'Mardi Gras' Got Its Name
Quick: eat everything in the house.
Words We're Watching: Onboarding
Not everyone is on board
The Billion-Dollar Unicorn
This kind actually exists
A New Meaning of 'Moonshot'
From "long shot" to "giant leap"
What Does 'Quark' Have to Do with Finnegans Wake?
Physics, meet Literature
The Origins of 'Zika Virus'
It's named after the Zika Forest
A New Meaning of 'Whitewashing'
Old word. New meaning.
The Creation of 'Serendipity'
A word inspired by a fairy tale
Prepone
Prepone: the opposite of Postpone
7 Words We Get from Robert Burns
Celebrate the Scottish poet with a list of words popularized by his poetry.
-Zilla
How -zilla is used to create English words
Word We're Watching: Intersectionality
What happens when forms of discrimination combine, overlap, and intersect
How 'Facepalm' Became a Word
A gesture of exasperation, disappointment, or stress
Vocab On Fleek
On fleek or not, fleek is a word worth knowing
A New Meaning of the Verb 'Ghost'
A New Word We're Watching
Why Jaywalking is Called Jaywalking
The shape of the letter J has nothing to do with it
What does 'cisgender' mean?
If your birth announcement still feels accurate to your gender, then you're cis
Say Bye-bye to Microbeads
Now you see them, soon you won't—at least not in the store
Hoverboard
A look at early imaginings of floating skateboards
10 Sherlock Holmes Words Worth Investigating
The language in Sherlock Holmes is as intriguing as the stories.
Bio Break
Tech slang goes mainstream
The Eggcorn Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree
It sounds like the right word, but it's not.
Star Wars and Plain Words
How simple language made a movie more realistic.
A New Meaning of 'Liftoff'
What the Federal Reserve means by 'liftoff'.
Words We're Watching: A New Sense of 'Ship'
A New Meaning Of An Old Word That We're Watching
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2015
The events that drove the top lookups in 2015.
Frank Sinatra: Too Marvelous for Words
The one Sinatra recording that defies definition
Microaggression: A Not So Subtle Growth in Usage
So, where are you from?
Crash Blossom
A confusing headline that gave rise to a whole new term for the genre.
What is Health Span?
How does health span differ from life span?
Words that Come from Characters in Books
A who's who of literary allusions
Where did that h/t come from?
And what exactly does it mean?
What Are 'Practical Effects'?
Or, How Star Wars Was Made
What is Ragtime?
E.L. Doctorow's (1931-2015) famous novel celebrated this syncopated music
The 'Athleisure' Trend
Athleisure: Words We're Watching
What is Cakeage
Cakeage: Words We're Watching
Heroin, Granola, & More: Products That Became Words
Top 10 Words from Trademarks
Mx. - A Gender-Neutral Honorific
Words We're Watching
What does 'ICYMI' mean?
ICYMI: Words We're Watching
Mansplaining
Words We're Watching
The Joy of Tom Swifties
Funny and Exuberant Puns That Turn Adverbs into Punchlines
That Shrinking Feeling
Shrinkflation
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Can you solve 4 words at once?
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incidence
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