There’s no benevolence here . . . you’ll need real skill to ace this Word of the Day Quiz! Tell us your favorite word from this week below (and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter)! If the quiz doesn’t display, please try opening in the Chrome browser. Improve your vocabulary with our Visual Word of the Day videos. See this week’s here.
What is the difference between a while and awhile? Few word pairs capture the idiosyncrasies (“peculiar characteristics”) of the English language like a while and awhile do. Both of these terms are expressions of time, but one is written with a space while the other is one word. In fact, these two terms represent different parts of speech. The two-word expression a while is a noun phrase, consisting of the article …
What’s the difference between everyday and every day? Do you eat breakfast every day or everyday? The word everyday describes things that are commonplace or ordinary, and it also answers the question “what kind?” For example, in the sentence “Wear your everyday clothes,” the word everyday tells you what kind of clothing to wear. The phrase every day indicates that something happens each day. It also answers the question “when?” …
As 2017 comes to a close, it’s time for us to reflect on the words that impacted all of us this year—for better or for worse. At Dictionary.com, the Word of the Year serves as a symbol of the year’s most meaningful events and lookup trends. Our 2017 Word of the Year is complicit. Complicit means “choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable …
Every snowflake is unique. Reclaim the snow. Snowflake is one of the words that has taken a jump from normal noun to pointed insult. When used as an insult, it means that someone is easily offended and has a hard time accepting anything outside of their comfort zone. It’s often used against younger people (generally, those of the millennial generation) and left-leaning people.
