Tag: american heritage dictionary
member name: The Editors of the American Heritage(R) Dictionaries
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June 06, 2007 03:07 PM EDT --
UNIQUE
Unique may be the foremost example of an absolute term – a term that, in the eyes of traditional grammarians, should not allow comparison or modification by an adverb of degree like very, . . . more
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April 06, 2007 01:58 PM EDT --
Bored with / Bored of
The word bored is usually used with the preposition with, as in I was bored with my life so I decided to make a fresh start elsewhere. Occasionally, bored is accompanied by the preposition . . . more
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April 25, 2007 10:18 AM EDT --
A DEFINE-A-THON is the new word game sensation created by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Why are they taking us beyond the spelling bee? Because being able to SPELL a word doesn't . . . more
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December 29, 2005 09:13 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
CURFEW
A curfew was originally a medieval regulation . . . more
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April 28, 2006 11:24 AM EDT --
MALAPROP
"She's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile" and "He is the very pineapple of politeness" are two of the absurd pronouncements from Mrs. Malaprop . . . more
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March 26, 2007 01:27 PM EDT --
BRAND NEW
Nowadays, the word brand is probably most often heard with the meaning “a trademark or distinctive name identifying a product or a manufacturer,” but it can be traced all . . . more
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November 04, 2005 03:40 PM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage(R) Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
NE . . .
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February 17, 2006 09:41 AM EST --
BOYCOTT
Charles C. Boycott seems to have become a household word because of his strong sense of duty to his employer. An Englishman and former British soldier, Boycott was the estate agent of . . . more
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March 03, 2006 10:55 AM EST --
WIKI
Anyone who has not yet encountered a wiki while surfing the web will sometime soon, for wikis are proliferating quickly. In fact, the word wiki comes from a word for "quick." A . . . more
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January 26, 2007 11:30 AM EST --
MARSHMALLOW
Marshmallows were originally medicine, despite their modern reputation as the fluffiest of foods and the emptiest of calories. They were originally made from the root of the marsh . . . more
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March 30, 2007 01:51 PM EDT --
ANYMORE
In standard American English the word anymore is often found in negative sentences: They don’t live here anymore. But anymore is widely used in regional American English in positive . . . more
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April 04, 2007 02:02 PM EDT --
CANADA
Linguistically, mountains can be made out of molehills, so to speak: words denoting a small thing can, over time, come to denote something much larger. This is the case with Canada, now . . . more
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April 13, 2007 09:36 AM EDT --
AUTHOR
From an etymological perspective, the word author ought to be pronounced almost like otter. Author ultimately comes from Latin auctor, “creator,” a noun derived from the verb . . . more
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December 09, 2005 09:04 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
BLURB
In a lifetime of reading the fluff on book jackets . . . more
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December 16, 2005 09:21 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
NICE
Since its adoption from Old French in the thirteenth . . . more
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December 21, 2005 12:18 PM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
YANKEE
The origin of Yankee has been the subject of . . . more
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January 06, 2006 08:45 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
EUREKA
The classical world of the Greeks and the Romans . . . more
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January 13, 2006 10:21 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
CLUE
Clue and clew were at one time simply two spellings . . . more
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January 20, 2006 10:02 AM EST --
Join the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries each week as they investigate the mysterious origins of our everyday language.
HELLO
Every word can reveal fascinating facts when . . . more
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January 27, 2006 09:40 AM EST --
FILIBUSTER
A freebooter and a filibuster may not share many attributes, but they do share a common linguistic ancestor: both come from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which is derived from vrij, "free," . . . more
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