word-hoard
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of word-hoard
First recorded in 1890–95; literal modern rendering of Old English wordhord
Explanation
A word-hoard usually refers to a collection of all the great vocabulary a person knows. Word-hoard comes from an Old English term meaning "treasury of words." It appeared in its modern form in the mid-1800s as a poetic term. Today, it often refers to a person's vocabulary, but it can also refer to all the words in a single language or the sum of words in a particular dictionary. A paperback print dictionary may have a word-hoard of 170,000 words. English's word-hoard is sometimes said to be around a million. Now that's a treasure trove or hoard of words!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And then, around Page 15, the wheels bust off this narrative, and we’re airborne: “Grown Boy came into his own voice and let loose his word-hoard pent up within him.”
From Washington Post • Mar. 14, 2019
Next we find Little Boy became Grown Boy, who “came into his own voice and let loose his word-hoard pent up within him.”
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 14, 2019
“The Essex Serpent” is also an example of what the nature writer Robert Macfarlane calls “a word-hoard of the astonishing lexis for landscape.”
From New York Times • Jun. 7, 2017
“I intend to rally my memory and write in these pages you provide a small word-hoard of my own,” Cockcroft wrote.
From The New Yorker • Apr. 10, 2017
Every writer faces the challenge of finding a superlative in the English word-hoard that has not been inflated by hyperbole and overuse.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
