Tag: usage
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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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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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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April 20, 2007 12:06 PM EDT --
AX
Ax, a common nonstandard variant of ask, is often identified as an especially salient feature of African American Vernacular English. While it is true that the form is frequent in the . . . more
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May 03, 2007 04:36 PM EDT --
FIXIN’ TO
Fixin’ to ranks with y’all as one of the best known markers of Southern dialects, although it occasionally appears in the informal speech and writing of non-Southerners . . . 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 They were originally made from the root of the marsh .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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April 18, 2007 09:41 AM EDT --
NON SEQUITUR
noun
A statement that does not follow logically from what precedes it.
Anticipation began to plague her with such ferocity that the thought of a husband, on which all her . . . more
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June 01, 2007 09:31 AM EDT --
STOOP
Originally brought to the Hudson Valley of New York by settlers from the Netherlands, a few items of Dutch vocabulary have survived there from colonial times until the present. Stoop, “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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June 29, 2007 02:36 PM EDT --
VENOM
Anyone who has ever been lovesick will appreciate the etymology of the word venom. Venom descends from the Latin word venenum, “potion, drug,” which could originally be used to designate . . . more
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July 31, 2007 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 a word doesn't . . . 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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