Demonstrations against racism and police brutality have put the words dissent and protest at the center of our vocabulary this year. Dictionary.com has seen a surge of interest in these words, which speak to their relevance to our current times. The death of George Floyd—a Black man who was killed after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes—has inspired worldwide protests that continue …
Thanks to clicks, likes, and verified blue checkmarks, a person’s reputation can extend far beyond those who know them personally. For example, it’s widely known that Chris Evans is a real-life Captain America who holds doors open for people, and we all acknowledge that Beyoncé is a goddess among us mere mortals. Speaking of superpowers, before she passed away on September 18, 2020, Supreme Court …
The word addict has been around in English since at least the 1500s, adapted from the Latin addictus, meaning “assigned, surrendered.” But the way we talk about people with addiction is changing, and here at Dictionary.com, we’re changing along with it. In a major update to Dictionary.com, our lexicographers have replaced all instances of addict used as a noun with “a person addicted to” or …
While the bald eagle is a national symbol for the United States, the two major political parties that govern it are often represented by two different animals: a donkey for the Democratic Party and an elephant for the Republican Party. These animals are commonly linked with these two parties in everything from political analysis to bumper stickers. Why these two animals, though? Why not an …
What a year 2020 has been—and it’s not even over yet! With any new global event, new words tend to pop up, for better or worse, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. We know many of the world’s greatest debates are held forth, of course, on Twitter. What color was that dress: blue or gold? (Definitely blue.) After watching Tiger King, did you realize …
This September, we released our biggest update to the dictionary ever. Our dictionary editors touched over 15,000 entries in a sweeping effort to reflect the many ways language is evolving. From capitalizing Black to adding a separate entry for Pride to revising references to suicide, our update addresses topics that touch us on some of our most personal levels: race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, …
Now more than ever before, public art is on the rise. New murals crop up in cities, large and small, on what feels like an everyday basis, each one breathing new, vibrant life into the streets that were once blank canvases for creativity. The terms graffiti and street art have long been used interchangeably to describe these public art installations—but what should we really call …
Just about every elementary schooler learns the months of the year with an easy rhyme: “Thirty days has [or hath] September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31, except February …” How exactly does it end? That depends on how you learned the poem, but one common version goes: “All the rest have 31 / But February’s 28 / The leap year, which comes once …
“So long, farewell …” This catchy tune from The Sound of Music is just one of many artistic reflections throughout the years on the ways we say goodbye. And it’s no wonder this parting word and its synonyms have been the subject of much rumination over the years as saying goodbye has become an integral part of our interactions with people, places, and things. We …
The words synchronous and asynchronous have become part of our lives, especially when it comes to the forms of synchronous and asynchronous learning and working that have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The terms are also used in other contexts, including in digital technology and in general, such as to differentiate forms of communication that happen in real time from those that don’t. We’ll …
Now, more than ever, our language is full of abbreviations. From texting to talking, they save time and space and streamline our communications … in most cases. Then there are the cases that leave us looking at a string of letters without a clue how to pronounce them or what they mean. Some abbreviations are obvious, as they’ve been in our vernacular for a while. …
Johnson & Johnson, Barnes & Noble, Dolce & Gabbana: the ampersand today is used primarily in business names, but that small character was actually once the 27th member of the alphabet. Where did it come from though? The origin of its name is almost as bizarre as the name itself. Where did ampersand come from? The shape of the character (&) predates the word ampersand by more …
