Chungus
Chungus is a meme featuring a chunky version of the cartoon character Bugs Bunny, typically captioned Big Chungus. It began as gaming joke that spread online as a slang term for anything "(adorably) chunky," similar…
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VSCO girl
VSCO girl is a term, generally used as an insult, for a young, usually white woman who posts trendy pictures of herself edited on the app VSCO. Stereotypes of the VSCO girl include wearing scrunchies… -
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ELO Hell
ELO Hell is a situation in video games where more skilled players—and their rankings—are dragged down or unable to advance because of poor teammates. -
Why Did “Pandemonium” Trend This Week?
In the past few weeks, people lined up at Popeyes, a popular restaurant chain known for its Southern-fried chicken, all over the US to get their hands on a hot and hyped new menu item: a chicken sandwich. On Dictionary.com, meanwhile, we saw our own crowd: searches for pandemonium surged nearly 350% since mid-August, when Popeyes released the sandwich en masse. Searches for pandemonium are …
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Words Bookworms Mispronounce Because We Read Them First
Anyone who has spent nights during their childhood huddled under a comforter with a flashlight (or more recently a flashlight app) lighting up the splayed pages of a book knows that being a bookworm helps you build the sort of vocabulary that earns you eyerolls on the playground and accolades from the teachers. Yet, dedicated bibliophiles know there’s really only one problem that comes with …
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break the glass
The expression break the glass refers to doing something in case of an emergency, particularly in medical or fire contexts. It's commonly used ironically, or as a metaphor to describe an emergency situation. -
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Playful Words That Jane Austen Popularized
In her novels, Jane Austen (1775–1817) scrutinized the ways that social codes and class place constraints on individuals and relationships. Her own use of language, however, was anything but constrained. It was so playful and inventive—like tittupy, or “bouncing all around,” which a character uses to describe a rickety carriage in Northanger Abbey. While she may not have exactly coined words like tittupy, Austen’s books …
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Supper vs. Dinner
In parts of the US, supper and dinner are used interchangeably to refer to the evening meal, but they’re not exactly synonyms. What do these words mean? Dinner, which dates back to the late 1200s, refers to the main meal of the day—historically, a meal served midday for many peoples. The term comes from the Middle English diner, which, via French, goes back to a …
