Tag: literature
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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August 27, 2008 09:33 AM EDT --
LITERALLY
For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherence of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of "in a manner . . . 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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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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June 15, 2007 09:13 AM EDT --
DOGIE
In the language of the American West, a stray or motherless calf is known as a dogie. In Western Words, the noted scholar Ramon F. Adams gives one possible etymology for dogie, a word whose . . . more
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August 31, 2007 01:47 PM EDT --
Vamoose
The verb to vamoose, "to leave hurriedly," has a full range of tenses and grammatical moods in English, and it can be used with all grammatical persons: . . . more
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November 28, 2007 01:43 PM EST --
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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June 11, 2008 02:32 PM 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 . . . more
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July 18, 2008 11:18 AM EDT --
COUPON
A Roman might have had difficulty predicting what would become of the Latin word colaphus, which meant "a blow with the fist." As the variety of Latin spoke in . . . 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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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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February 03, 2006 09:15 AM EST --
MASCOT
A giant strutting bird leading a cheer at the homecoming game may seem a far cry from a witch fashioning a charm or spell, but these two figures are related historically in the development . . . more
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March 17, 2006 08:53 AM EST --
OK
OK is a quintessentially American term that has spread from English to many other languages. Its origin was the subject of scholarly debate for many years until Allen Walker Read showed that . . . more
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