Recently updated
Another word of the year.
Recently updated
Another word of the year: justice.
Recently updated
Words of the year, now with Canberra bubble.
Recently updated
Another word of the year: “single-use.”
Recently updated
Another word of the year.
Words of the year
From the dictionaries.
Secret, secretary
Ammon Shea: “When I learned that secretary meant “one privy to a secret” during the fourteenth century I was utterly delighted.”
Thanks to the dictionaries
Dictionary work: a crucial factor in a federal court’s decision this week to allow an emoluments-clause lawsuit against Donald Trump to proceed.
NJ OED
The Oxford English Dictionary is looking for words from New Jersey.
W2’s mommy
What does Webster’s Second do with the word?
Recently updated
Oxford Dictionaries announces its word of the year.
M-W sentence challenge
“In the name of federalism, show some empathy, or at least some syzygy, you complicit gaffe-prone dotard,” the hurricane warned, “before I turn you into a gyro platter and recuse myself!”
Words of the year
Several picks.
New AHD entries
Burner, saltimbocca, GOAT: among the additions this year to the American Heritage Dictionary.
Review: Word by Word
Kory Stamper’s Word by Word does for lexicography what Mary Norris’s Between You & Me does for copyediting: it makes visible the work, the worker, and the workplace.
Word of the day: heirloom
Long story short: an heirloom isn’t a weaving machine, nor is it something looming in the distance. Nor is it related to Erroll Garner, though the rights to “Misty” would be quite a heirloom.
Dictionaries rising
From the Fashion and Style pages of The New York Times, a report on increased interest in dictionaries.
Words for these times
From the American Heritage Dictionary, words for these times: “Minions, sycophants, toadies, and other creatures.”
Word of the day: emolument
See also: “kleptocracy.”
M-W Word of the Year
Surreal.
Yoda, n.
“Yoda” is a new addition to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Merriam-Webster v. fascism
Merriam-Webster is encouraging readers to look up something other than “fascism.”
A Word of the Year
“After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth.”
Hot mess
Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster explains.
xednI drawkcaB ehT
An analog-world tool: Merriam-Webster’s Backward Index.
Word of the day: bogart
Questioning Merriam-Webster’s explanation of the word’s origin.
OMG and others
From Oxford University Press, nine words that are older than you might think. Or eight words and one acronym.
Erin McKean on how dictionaries work
“I truly believe that if something is used as a word, it’s a word. The rest is just bookkeeping.”
Words of the year
Culture, exposure, vape, #blacklivesmatter.
Food and the dictionary
“The adoption of ethnic food words into English is an excellent proxy for the moment our culture embraces these foreign foodstuffs as our own.”