Even if you’re not a full-blown grammar nerd, you’ll find the origins of these words that changed meaning over time completely fascinating The English language is alive—and like any living thing, it ...

Back in grade school, words like "onomatopoeia" and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" seemed insanely complicated and long. Surprisingly, neither of these is the ...

Discover the Word of the Year 2025 selections from leading dictionary websites like Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and ...

Thanks to the evolution of language, technology, and lots of hyperbole, these words used to convey a lot more merit, emotion, or simply seriousness than they do nowadays. Ah, “genius.” Once reserved ...

The print edition of Merriam-Webster was once a touchstone of authority and stability. Then the internet brought about a ...

Author and software engineer Thomas Dimson has created an AI dictionary that generates fake words and definitions. The project, like many similar ones released online recently, uses sophisticated AI ...

Popular internet slang terms like "skibidi," "delulu" and "tradwife" are now recognized as words in the Cambridge Dictionary. The dictionary, which is published by Cambridge University Press and ...

Scientists say they have made an atlas of where words' meanings are located in the brain. The map shows that words are represented in different regions throughout the brain's outer layer. To make the ...

Word meanings can shift radically, just like pronunciation. Called semantic change, a shift in a word's meaning occurs when frequent misuse becomes standard, or when metaphoric use becomes literal.

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It's like Google Maps for your cerebral cortex: A new interactive atlas, developed with the help of such unlikely tools as public radio podcasts and Wikipedia, purports to show which bits of your ...

Our modern English word "Noel" is derived from the Middle English word nowel and means "a shout of joy or Christmas song." However, the root of the word is actually French, meaning " Christmas season ...