Wordplay

Arts & Culture (page 8)

Where Does 'Impostor Syndrome' Come From?

When you feel like you're faking it, but you're not

What's a 'Good Get'?

How to use 'get' as a noun

'Wassail', 'Yule', and More: The Stories Behind 8 Holiday Words

Happy holidays!

'Dark Post': Now You See It, Now You Don't

A new word for a new kind of ad

It's Not Just You, Charlie Brown

Lucy's suggested diagnoses, explained

Word of the Year 2016

Our top lookups of 2016

Jedi: Now in a Galaxy Near You

No robes required

What is 'world-building'?

And how do you spell it?

What Does 'Sapiosexual' Mean?

The heart's wisdom

What Is 'Meatspace'?

No, you don't need to bring napkins

Where Does 'Friendsgiving' Come From?

The term is relatively new

The New 'Normalize'

What does 'normalization' mean?

'Nail-Biter', 'Battleground State', and 7 More Words from Your Newsfeed

The history behind 9 words from the news

Can 'Other' Be Used as a Verb?

A verb that sets itself apart

The Mythological Origin of 'Panic'

Don't panic

Where Do 'Hot Takes' Come From?

Read this now

October Surprise

The surprising history of an election buzzword

Words We're Watching: Going Nuclear

How the election affects our language

What Does 'Pwn' Mean?

And how do you say it?

Words We're Watching: 'Lean in'

Is there a 'Lean in' generation?

The History of 'Alt-'

This is why we can't have nice things

What is 'dabbing'?

Three new uses of one old word

The History of 'Bull' and 'Bear' Markets

Which came first?

The Surprising History of 'Freelance'

Freelancing has always been a battle

What's a 'Downticket Candidate'?

And what's a 'downballot race'?

How Is a Klingon like a 12th-century nun?

The surprising history of 'conlang'

OMG: The Internet and the Dictionary

We're breaking it...down

To Boldly Go: Star Trek & the Split Infinitive

Can you split an infinitive in space?

'Picayune', 'Tribune', and 7 More Names for Newspapers

Ripped from the headlines

Aphantasia: When Your Mind's Eye Fails You

An inability to form mental images

It's Lit

An old slang word made new again

What Does 'Scale the Business' Mean?

Scaling 'scale'

What's a 'Headdesk'?

When facepalms aren't enough

What Does 'Wherefore Art Thou Romeo' Mean?

Not where, but why

How Journalists Are Redefining the Word 'Kicker'

The term's meaning has shifted

The Origin of the 'Ugly Cry'

No memes, just meanings

The Top 8 Political Buzzwords of 2016

From 'filibuster' to 'speechwriter'

What's the Political Meaning of 'Dog Whistle'?

Can you hear me now?

Do you need a makeunder?

And does the dictionary need 'makeunder'?

What's 'Hangry'?

Feed me. Now.

Singular 'They'

Everything old is new again

Spit Take

Don't drink anything while reading this

Stay Woke

Tracing the new sense of 'woke'

Adulting

The verb 'adulting' is all grown up

Fat-Finger

To mistype something

10 Words Shakespeare Never Invented

We'll explain the confusion

A Short History of 'Retcon'

Retroactive continuity

Break the Internet

It deserves it

Noticing Senpai

A word we're watching...and watching....

10 Godly Words

Divine inspiration

Words of the Week: May 1, 2016

This week's lookups were driven by holidays and politics

Name Check

To mention approvingly by name

Cromulent

A perfectly cromulent word.

Words of the Week: April 24, 2016

'Boulevardier,' 'collusion,' 'gullible' and more

8 Poets Share Their Favorite Words

Pinsky, Rankine, Harjo, and others discuss the words they love

A New Meaning of 'Burner'

Will the new sense of 'burner' stick around?

Splain

Let us explain.

When Did 'Horse Race' Become Political?

What do reporters mean when they call the election a horse race?

Does 'Posh' Really Come From Ocean Travel?

It's a great story, isn't it?

Don't dox people!

Don't 'swat' them either

What does 'throw shade' mean?

If you have to ask....

Words of the Week: April 10, 2016

This week’s top lookups were so much fun

Happy Birthday, Webster's 1828!

Webster published his first dictionary on April 14

OMG, This Is So Awkward. Merp.

Don't know what to say?

A Glossary of Tax Terms

Happy words for the happiest season

Words of the Week: April 3, 2016

'Communism,' 'encryption,' 'rotten borough,' 'doobie'

Making Sense of 'Word Salad'

Olives. Tuna. Lime gelatin. Mmm.

Words of the Week: March 27, 2016

Word trends, stygian edition

What is 'reshoring'?

When offshore jobs return

Words of the Week: March 20, 2016

Fewer bombings next week, please.

The History of 'Side-eye'

We have our eyes on this one

Using the Dictionary to Write Poetry

Yes, the dictionary can help you write poetry

Go Ahead, Ping Me

What's the worst thing that could happen?

Words of the Week: March 13, 2016

Holidays and Politics (still) drove people to the dictionary

Words We're Watching: Secret Sauce

It makes all the difference

If You Love Clothes, You Need These 11 Words

Pretty styles, ugly names

Where Does the Phrase 'Barn Burner' Come From?

This one's pretty exciting

Subtweet: Subtext, Twitter-style

First used by Twitter in 2006

What Do You Call a Woman with the Rank of a Marquess?

Hint: it's not "poor Edith"

Is 'None' Singular or Plural?

Or both? Or neither?

How 'Cadence' Became a Business Term

Music isn't the only thing with rhythm

Red Carpet Words: Our Top 7 Movie-Related Word Trends

Get ready for your close-up, 'revenant'

Phubbing

We can't ignore this word

11 Words from the Bible You Didn't Know Were Biblical

'Nimrod', 'scapegoat', and other good words from the Good Book

A New Meaning of 'Deprecate'

Why do some people use 'deprecated' to describe obsolescent technology?

We ♥ the Verb 'Heart'

The history of 'heart' as a verb

Looking for Love

No, we can't tell you how long it lasts

Is it ever okay to say 'themself'?

Shh. Don't tell autocorrect.

How 'Mardi Gras' Got Its Name

Quick: eat everything in the house.

Words We're Watching: Onboarding

Not everyone is on board

The Billion-Dollar Unicorn

This kind actually exists

A New Meaning of 'Moonshot'

From "long shot" to "giant leap"

What Does 'Quark' Have to Do with Finnegans Wake?

Physics, meet Literature

The Origins of 'Zika Virus'

It's named after the Zika Forest

A New Meaning of 'Whitewashing'

Old word. New meaning.

The Creation of 'Serendipity'

A word inspired by a fairy tale

Prepone

Prepone: the opposite of Postpone

7 Words We Get from Robert Burns

Celebrate the Scottish poet with a list of words popularized by his poetry.

-Zilla

How -zilla is used to create English words

Word We're Watching: Intersectionality

What happens when forms of discrimination combine, overlap, and intersect

How 'Facepalm' Became a Word

A gesture of exasperation, disappointment, or stress

Vocab On Fleek

On fleek or not, fleek is a word worth knowing

A New Meaning of the Verb 'Ghost'

A New Word We're Watching

Why Jaywalking is Called Jaywalking

The shape of the letter J has nothing to do with it

What does 'cisgender' mean?

If your birth announcement still feels accurate to your gender, then you're cis

Say Bye-bye to Microbeads

Now you see them, soon you won't—at least not in the store

Hoverboard

A look at early imaginings of floating skateboards

10 Sherlock Holmes Words Worth Investigating

The language in Sherlock Holmes is as intriguing as the stories.
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