Maybe you’ve read the comic books or seen some of the Marvel movies that feature a big blond guy named Thor, founding member of the Avengers and brother of Loki. But, Thursday is a bigger tribute to the Norse god of thunder than any movie or comic book upon which it’s based. After all, it is “Thor’s day.” Who is Thor? In Norse mythology, the original Thor …
Awhile ago, we asked readers to share their choices for the most beautiful sounding word in English. Nearly 500 of you shared your favorites, which included the lyrical, delightful, and uplifting. Some of you also shared your least favorite words. “I would like to vote ‘moist’ as the most gross sounding word in the English language,” wrote in Jack. Good point, Jack. It’s time to talk about …
The 12 episodes of the Netflix show that you watched on Saturday. The full pint of Ben & Jerry’s you ate last Thursday night. The entire series of books you read in one week. When we enjoy things, it’s normal for us to indulge in them. There’s even a handy little word we pull out just for these instances of indulging in something we love: binge. …
Over the last couple of years, the term bae has achieved widespread usage. While the noun form has been around for over 10 years, adjectival and verbal uses, along with other related forms, have more recently started popping up to describe the people and things we love, or at least like-like. Twitter, in particular, is rife with interesting new uses of the term. The popular social …
Karma entered English as a religious concept in the nineteenth century, but as it gained popularity, it took on additional meanings, that while still spiritual, are not loaded with the same religious connotations as the original sense. English speaker’s first introduction to karma was in the context of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Originally coming from the Sanskrit term for “action” or “fate,” karma is …
… and the people have spoken! We’ve tallied the thousands of responses we received for our People’s Choice 2020 Word of the Year, and the results are, well, unprecedented. That’s right, the top submission was unprecedented, just edging our own official selection for Word of the Year, pandemic. Is it just us, or are we sensing a pattern here? Now, we know many of you …
We’re only a quarter of the way through 2019, but already we’ve seen some significant trends in searches on Dictionary.com. Politics, as ever, has propelled many of the lookups, but that’s not the only driver. Sneak peek: Top terms range from pad thai to deep space. Here are the words setting the search trends through March 2019: 1. Exonerate Our top lookup in early 2019 …
We've rounded up some of our favorite examples of Jamaican slang in the language. Yuh ready?
During the holidays, kids hope to receive that one toy they have been dreaming of all year. Popular toys come and go, but some of them are still fondly remembered by multiple generations. When naming a toy, it is important to pick something catchy and memorable so that kids will know that yours is the best. That being said, the origins of the names of …
Since 1990, the American Dialect Society has held a Word of the Year vote, which is open to the public. This year’s vote takes place on January 8, 2016 in Washington DC. Over the past few weeks, linguists have been discussing nominations for various categories, and the ADS website has a nice roundup of 2015 Word of the Year candidates. Dictionary.com announced our own Word of …
To help kick off the new academic year, we asked college students who use Dictionary.com to share slang they’ve heard around campus. We received more than 2200 responses in only a few days. Notable themes we noticed include the supernatural, food, and making out. We’ve highlighted our favorite responses below. Are you familiar with the following terms? What other slang terms have you come across …
