✨📕 The NEW Collegiate Dictionary, 12th Edition Over 5,000 words added — Learn More!
✨📕 The NEW Collegiate Dictionary — Learn More!
play word of the year 2018 woty behind the scenes
Up Next
Title
CANCEL
word of the year 2018 woty behind the scenes
Words of the Year

2018 Word of the Year: Behind the Scenes

Editor Peter Sokolowski discusses 'justice' and the rest of our Word of the Year 2018 selections


How did we choose justice as our Word of the Year? Peter Sokolowski explains the data behind our decisions, and how this and the other Words of the Year reflect what was on people's minds this year.

Up next

play word of the year 2018 woty behind the scenes
2018 Word of the Year: Behind the Scenes

 

How we chose 'justice'

play sneaked vs snuck video
Sneaked vs. Snuck

 

How the irregular 'snuck' sneaked into the dictionary

play serenity carr next to an illustration of a refrigerator with the letter d in it
Why is there a 'd' in 'fridge' but not in 'refrigerator'?

 

Thawing one of the mysteries of English

play video schwa
The Schwa

 

The most common vowel sound in English causes many spelling problems.

play onomatopoeia video
A Look at Uncommon Onomatopoeia

 

Some imitative words are more surprising than others

play video title attorney generals
Is It 'Attorney Generals' Or 'Attorneys General'?

 

'Poets laureate'? 'Court-martials'? The curious history of postpositive adjectives in English.

play videos pictures in the dictionary
Pictures in the Dictionary

 

The story of those iconic illustrations.

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
thank-you-different-languages
Dutch, Yiddish, Japanese, or Hindi? Quiz Guess the language these English words come from.
See All