Nobody can guess how serious the next hurricane will be, but you can find out what it will be named. An important thing to note is that weather events aren’t eligible for a name until they transform from a tropical depression into a tropical storm. When tropical storms reach a certain velocity, they become cyclones, which North Americans call hurricanes. How are hurricanes named? Then, the name of …
Hipsters have become simultaneous objects of ridicule and desire, associated with the new and in vogue, and also with an absurd form of consumerism. Why do we call them hipsters, and how did this word, born of jazz music in the early 1930s, make the transition to describe young men in skinny pants and classes on how to properly sharpen a pencil?
The noun ghost has been around a very long time, since before 900, when Old English was spoken. Originally it referred to the soul of a dead person or a disembodied spirit, and this meaning is still in use. In the recent past, ghost and ghosting have expanded in meaning, and today this term is often evoked in relation to dating. How do you know if …
In our latest update to Dictionary.com, we added more than 300 new words and definitions, and revised over 1,700 entries. Many of the newly added terms are pulled straight from the headlines like Daesh, intersectionality, warmist, woke, and Zika virus. Several of the new words relate directly to the media, including lamestream, presstitute, and hot take. Mainstream cultural conversations give Dictionary.com’s lexicographers an endless supply …
On Bastille Day, the world parties in the name of France. But do you know what makes Bastille Day so important not just for France but the history of all democracies? What is a bastille? A bastille is French for “fortress,” “castle,” or “bastion.” What is Bastille Day? But, Bastille Day is specifically about the Bastille Saint-Antoine, which is a fortress-prison in Paris that was stormed …
