These names used to be roughly interchangeable when distinguishing the social outcasts from the in-crowd in school. Yet, those so-called social rejects were destined to rule the world in the form of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, et al. “The geek shall inherit the earth,” indeed. Oh yeah, and billions of dollars. There’s a lot of overlap in the meanings of nerd, geek, and …
As the first full day of the weekend in the standard Western work week, Saturday means different things to different people. Freedom from school or work, for some, and the perfect day for parties for others. And then there are those who take the day to do absolutely nothing and not feel guilty about it. Though you’re probably already familiar with the vibes that come …
The continued box office success of the Fast and the Furious franchise gives moviegoers and word-lovers something to cheer about. Beyond the stunning action sequences, though, audiences, including us, actually really enjoy the title itself. That probably has something to do with its alliteration, “a figure of speech in which a consonant sound at the beginning of a word is repeated” (in this case the sound of the letter …
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 …
Have you heard the story of the Tower of Babel? According to the Bible, all of humanity lived together in harmony, until God decided to confuse the languages and spread the people across the Earth. This story points to one of the great mysteries of human culture: why do we all speak different languages? Our ancestors probably began using language between 200,000 to 50,000 years …
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 …
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?
