Wordplay

 For the love of language

Better Ways to Say 'This Sucks'

Your day is the worst. Your vocabulary is the best.

Birds Say the Darndest Things

10 Words (or Phrases) Birds Seem to Be Saying

Flower Etymologies For Your Spring Garden

A bouquet of floral origin stories

Popular

8 Words with Fascinating Histories

Heads up: one is 'vulgar'

Word Choices

Gabrielle Zevin

Novelist

Emily Flake

New Yorker Cartoonist

Celeste Ng

Novelist

Eli Cymet

Video Game Writer/Producer, Cuphead

Emma Straub

Novelist and Children’s Book Author

Arts & Culture

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15 Cheffy Words for Chefs (and Everyone Else)

Including 'cheffy'

8 Words for Lesser-Known Musical Instruments

Our maraca shake brings all the hautbois to the yard

Pilfer: How to Play and Win

Welcome to our newest word game

12 Star Wars Words

Enjoy this listicle, you will

10 Words from Taylor Swift Songs (Merriam's Version)

Look what you made us do
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Obscure & Fun

Obscure & Fun

Even More Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

Get off your plum duff and check these out

Foreign

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10 of Our Favourite British Words

Please don't whinge about being knackered, you prat.

All About Latin Plurals

Check your dictionary

10 English Words from Dutch

Learn how to tell your caboodle from your caboose

10 Words from Nahuatl, the Language of the Aztecs

Avocado, chocolate, and more

Favorite Words From Foreign Languages

Karaoke, chutzpah, kerfuffle & more
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Games & Hobbies

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12 Words From Basketball

Plus a few terms that never quite made it

Popular Gaming Terms Explained

Nerfs, MMORPGs, and who the final boss really is

A Player's Guide to 'Q' without 'U' Words

Remember this and win.

19 Palindromes You Might Not Know

Learn some fun vocabulary with these palindromes!

Why 'Love' Means "Nothing"

In tennis. This is about tennis.
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Insults

Insults

Words for Laziness, and for Lazy People

Indolence, Malingerer, Draffsack: the right word for when you just don't have the energy

Science & Nature

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9 Superb Owl Words

Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? We do!

7 Especially Fitting Common Names for Plants

So you don't mix up your Swiss Cheese plants with your Dutchman's Breeches

7 Common Idioms That Come from Chickens

Don't ask us which came first

12 Pairs of Commonly Confused Animal Words

The animal words went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah!

A Cast of 12 Astrological Words

It's written in the stars
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Word History

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15 Words That Used to Mean Something Different

Including the secret history of 'secretary'

Etymologies for Every Day of the Week

The sun, the moon, four gods, and a goddess.

Eavesdrop, Fiasco, and 8 More Words with Surprising Origins

Including some trivia on ‘trivia’

9 Christmas Words with Surprising Histories

There's no bread in 'gingerbread'

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

Don't argue with the dictionary
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