Tag: word lovers
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 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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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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May 09, 2007 09:21 AM EDT --
comedic / comic / comical
The word comedy has a broad range of meanings, but in general it indicates a dramatic or literary work that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone and that usually . . . more
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May 11, 2007 09:40 AM EDT --
TABLOID
We often hear the complaint that factoids and sound bytes dominate news media in the 21st century, and simplistic and superficial reporting is often considered to be a malady of modern . . . more
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May 24, 2007 10:53 AM EDT --
A DEFINE-A-THON is the new word game sensation created by the Editors of the American Heritage(R) 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 25, 2007 10:58 AM EDT --
A DEFINE-A-THON is the new word game sensation created by the Editors of the American Heritage(R) Dictionaries. Why are they taking us beyond the spelling bee? Because being able to SPELL a word doesn't . . . more
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July 06, 2007 01:59 PM EDT --
UGLY
The standard sense of the adjective ugly, “unsightly,” becomes figurative in the common expression an ugly temper. Regional American speech shared this figurative sense and makes it . . . more
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September 07, 2007 03:40 PM EDT --
barracuda
Barracuda are fierce-looking fish that live mostly in tropical seas like the Caribbean. They have a projecting lower jaw, and their large mouth holds two rows, one behind the other, of fanglike . . . more
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December 05, 2007 01:22 PM EST --
ACRIMONY
Noun
Bitter, sharp hostility, especially in speech.
Some conversations I have heard in our own country sound like old records, long-playing, left over . . . more
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