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Est. 1828
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Infographic: How a Word Gets Into the Dictionary

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This infographic is part of our series on slang in the dictionary. To read the article that accompanies this piece, click here.

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Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries.  Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
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Popular

Word History

12 Words Whose History Will Surprise You

15 Words That Used to Mean Something Different

Funner, Stupider, and Other Words That Are in Fact Real

10 Words from Place Names

8 Words with Fascinating Histories

See All

Wordplay

Weird Words for Autumn Time

Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 3

Words That Turned 100 in 2025

Our Best Historical Slang Terms

Even More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are)

See All

Grammar & Usage

31 Useful Rhetorical Devices

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'

Using Bullet Points ( • )

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

How to Use Em Dashes (—), En Dashes (–) , and Hyphens (-)

See All
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