Wow Yourself With 17 Words With “Word” In Them

We love all kinds of words: big words, small words, words with silent vowels, and even the word moist. With that in mind, we wanted to find words that feature the word word in them. Without getting too wordy, we managed to find words like foreword, afterword, and doubleword that fit our criterion of being a word with the word word in the word. Being the word-wise wordsmiths that we are, we wanted to spread the good word and share our fun list of words that include the word word.

Cool off your hot word skills with these cool words about words.

headword

A headword is a word or phrase that appears as the heading of a dictionary, encyclopedia, or other reference work. For example, if you research the first president of the United States, the headword will most likely be George Washington.

catchword

A catchword is a word or phrase that someone uses so frequently that it becomes their slogan or a signature phrase associated with them. For example, comedian Stephen Colbert popularized his catchword “truthiness” when he hosted The Colbert Report.

byword

The term byword is used to mean a word or phrase that has become associated with a person or thing to the point that they are cited as a proverbial example of it. For example, the sentence The company has become a byword for success may be used to describe a profitable business. Byword is also used to mean “a proverb” or a synonym of the term household word to mean a name or phrase that many people know.

Janus word

A Janus word, also called a contranym, is a word that has opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example, the Janus word scan can mean to briefly glance at something or to thoroughly analyze something. Fun fact: Janus words are named after the Roman god Janus, who had two heads that looked in opposite directions—much like a Janus word with its two opposite meanings.

buzzword

A buzzword is a word or phrase, often from a particular jargon, that becomes fashionable or trendy among a particular group or in popular culture. For example, the word synergy is a popular buzzword often used in business and marketing.

code word

A code word is a word or phrase that has a secret meaning that only a select few people know. For example, spies might agree to use the code word “red eagle” when they need to identify each other. The term code word is also often used to refer to a euphemism that is used in place of harsher language as in My mom said my room “needed some love,” which is code word for saying “my room is a huge mess.”

nonword

A nonword is a collection of letters that isn’t accepted as an actual word. For example, “definate” is not an English word; it is a nonword that is a common misspelling of the word definite.

keyword

A keyword is a major word in a sentence, passage, or document that typically reveals the central meaning or most important information. In technology, a keyword is a word or phrase typed into a search engine or reference software to search through content.

password

A password is a secret word or phrase that a person must recite in order to gain access to restricted areas, information, etc. For example, a door guard may only let people enter a fortress if they say the password “swordfish.” In computing, a password is a string of characters that a user must enter correctly in order to log into an account, use wireless internet, or otherwise bypass electronic security.

guide word

The term guide word is used as a synonym of headword to refer to a word or phrase used at the top of articles or entries in reference works.

curse word

A curse word, also known as a cussword or a dirty word, is a word that is considered to be profane or offensive. For example, the words ass, crap, and piss are some examples of English words that are usually considered to be curse words.

kangaroo word

The term kangaroo word refers to a word that contains its own synonym within it, spelled in the correct order. For example, the kangaroo word barren contains the word bare and the word catacomb contains the word tomb.

ghost word

A ghost word is a word that entered a language by mistake, such as a typo or translation error, rather than from actual linguistic use. For example, the word syllabus seems to have resulted from a misreading of Greek.

Which ghost words haunt the dictionary?

counterword

A counterword is a word that has picked up a much looser meaning than it originally had. Counterwords have so many meanings and/or are used so generally that they are almost meaningless. Words like good, fine, gross, awful, cute, and nice are some examples of counterwords. (You know we have better synonyms for these, starting with nice.)

loanword

A loanword is a word from one language that is used in another with little or no changes in meaning or spelling. Some English words that are loanwords from other languages include incognito (Italian), schadenfreude (German), sushi (Japanese), and piñata (Spanish).

Want to know more Japanese loanwords? We’ve got you covered.

weasel word

A weasel word is a word that weakens a statement by making it sound more confusing, ambiguous, or noncommittal. For example, the word probably is an example of a weasel word in the sentence I’ll probably do better on my next math test.

nonce word

A nonce word is a word created for only one specific occasion. For example, the cartoon The Simpsons invented the word cromulent just for the sake of making a single joke about language. (That’s not the only word they created!)

Wordsmiths, this quiz is for you

Word on the street is, you can refer to these “wordy” words whenever you want with our word list (and flashcard tool!) and then challenge yourself with our quiz!