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13 Fiendish Etymologies for Halloween Monsters

On Halloween, witches and werewolves, ghosts and ghouls, and demons and devils stalk the streets for tricks or treats. But the real tricks and treats—at least for the horror-loving word nerds among us—might just be the strange and far-flung origins of the

How A Misinterpreted Anagram Predicted The Moons of Mars

SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEUMIBUNENUGTTAUIRAS

Why Do We Call General Knowledge “Trivia”?

Pull apart the word "trivia," and you’ll be left with two fairly familiar Latin roots.

Why Do We Call Weights "Bells"?

The Origin of the Word Slang Has Been Found

Let me put this right up front. The headline to this post is slightly misleading, but not dishonest.

10 Words with Hidden 'Shoe' Etymologies

By some accounts, the average person owns 19 pairs of shoes. But it’s not just our closets that are overflowing with sneakers, loafers, pumps, and wedges. It’s also our vocabulary.

Pigeons Can Distinguish Written Words From Nonsense

These common birds are masters of the four-letter word.

Most Languages Use the Same Sounds for Certain Words, Study Finds

Concepts like "nose" and "tongue" share some of the same sounds no matter what language you're listening to.

26 Unusual Plurals That Work Like "Attorneys General"

Some plurals work in unexpected ways.

Why Are Inferior Things Referred to as “Chopped Liver”?

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang pinpoints comedian Jimmy Durante as the first person to use this meaty metaphor.

20 Towns Named for Other Towns But Pronounced Differently

Here are 20 American towns that have really cut the cord from the sources of their names.

5 Annoying Latin Errors from an Ancient List That Predicted Latin's Descendants

Sometime around the 7th century, a grammarian got fed up and started collecting all the annoying mistakes that people kept making in Latin. He wrote them up in the 'Appendix Probi,' a straightforward list of the “say this, not that” variety.

18 Common Words That Have Unexpected Science Definitions

You keep using that word…

Like Humans, Dogs Understand Both Tone and Vocabulary

Your beloved pup is paying attention both to what you say and how you say it.

50 Spanish-English False Friend Words

Sometimes words with the same origin take a separate path in each language, or words with different origins resemble each other by coincidence. That can mean trouble.

Auribus teneo lupum means "holding a wolf by the ears."

20 Latin Phrases You Should Be Using

Next time you spot a misbehaving child, or you want to seize the night rather than the day, you’ll have the perfect phrase at hand.

Oxford Dictionaries Wants to Know the Worst Word in the English Language

Is it moist? It’s probably moist.

9 Old-Fashioned Words for the Fickle

Make sure to use them the next time you dither.

16 Buggy Ways to Say Mosquito

You might be one of a lucky type who rarely attract bites, or you might be someone skeeters love to feast on—in which case, you’ll want plenty of ammunition for name-calling. Here are a few choice terms for mosquitoes courtesy of the Dictionary of America

Two swordsmen participating in the fencing semifinals during the 1948 Summer Olympic Games in London.

The Etymology of 15 Weird and Wonderful Olympic Words

Wow your friends during your Olympic watch party with these winning, weird, and wonderful Olympic words and their origins.

7 Words That Mean The Opposite Of What They Used To

While 'awesome' was going on its journey from bad to good, 'awful' was going in the opposite direction.

You Won't Find the Letter "E" in Either of These Two Novels

It's difficult enough to write a sentence that doesn't contain the popular vowel. (There are eight right there.)

12 Arm-Twisting Words for Bullies

The long tradition of bullying means a long list of words for bullies, many of which are lost in the mists of time. Though some words show traces of the wide-ranging history of bully—which originally was a tear of endearment—most of the following terms wo

Scholars Have Been Working on a Dictionary of Old English For 46 Years

The University of Toronto-based project aims to define every English word used between 600 CE and 1150.

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