What’s the Difference Between a Gift and a Present?
Those brightly wrapped packages we exchange around the holidays and other special occasions: Sometimes we call them “gifts,” sometimes “presents.” Is there a difference?
Those brightly wrapped packages we exchange around the holidays and other special occasions: Sometimes we call them “gifts,” sometimes “presents.” Is there a difference?
We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?
The six-sided tool helped make IKEA a household name. But did anyone named Allen have anything to do with it?
Here are 2024's trickiest terms to say, half of which are famous names.
Americans have no lack of idioms for snow and other features of winter weather. Here are 15 regional terms you should know.
We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?
The phrase for being terminally online is not flattering, but it is Oxford’s Word of the Year.
Use them while you're talking turkey.
To get to the answer, we need to discuss Latin, wooden stakes, Catherine the Great, and, of course, Shakespeare.
Solving the etymological mysteries of 'innocent,' 'disgruntled,' and other prefix-dependent words.
The origins of the term come from the Irish word for “ring.”
This ancient symbol, also called the Staff of Hermes, depicts two snakes intertwining around a stick that is capped by wings. It’s used as a medical logo, but for almost all its roughly 5000-year history, the caduceus had nothing to do with medicine.
A new study finds that residents of Dublin, Belfast, and Glasgow were better at detecting fake accents than their counterparts in southern areas of England—possibly as a result of long-ago conflicts.
We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?
See if you can spot the laudable lexicography of these famous writers.
It’s a compressing of an earlier phrase that also yielded variations like ‘nilling, willing’ and ‘william-nilliam.’
If you’re grandiloquent, then you like to use extravagant, high-flown words—precisely like the 50 verbs listed here, which either refer to everyday activities or else can be used in place of everyday words.
Here's how the cornucopia went from ancient gods to American dinner tables.
We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?
Let’s sort these babies out.
Use these obscure terms to describe (or diss) the bad guy in your life.
The popular nursery rhyme may have emerged in the 14th century—and it didn’t have anything to do with bathing.
We give you an obscure word with four definitions—one correct, three made up. Can you identify the correct one?
Some words, like ‘motel,’ ‘brunch,’ and ‘sitcom,’ are obvious portmanteaux. But the portmanteaux on this list are undercover.