Word of the Week

Word history and etymology

Word of the Week – Phony
As long as there have been people selling things, there have been people cheating, swindling, and otherwise trying to get more money than something's worth. And of course, words have evolved to describe those things. In the late 1780s, one such word was fawney, used...
Word of the Week – Interest
It can be so fascinating to look at the history of incredibly common words. And the history of interest is definitely, well...interesting. 😉 When we think about our common uses of the word today, we probably think first of the meaning "a feeling that accompanies or...
Word of the Week – Wicked
With the proliferation of the book, musical, and movie Wicked, I thought it would be fun to look at the history of the word. (Okay, so in fact, I saw a fun article on it on www.EtymOnline.com and that 100% inspired me to borrow the topic, LOL. Click the link to read...
Word of the Week – Catalog
As someone who studied Ancient Greek in college, I occasionally get excited when I realize that an English word has its roots in that language...and especially when it's a logos word. Why? Because logos might mean "word" most specifically, but it means SO MUCH MORE....

Have you ever wondered when certain words started to be used in certain ways? Or how they even came about? If they’re related to other, similar-sounding words?

I wonder these things all the time. And so, for years I’ve been gathering interesting words together, looking at the etymology, and posting them in fun, bite-sized posts called Word of the Week. Here you’ll find everything from which definition of a word pre-dates another, to how certain holiday words came about, to what the original meaning was of something we use a lot today but in a very different way. And of course, the surprising words that we think are new but in fact are pretty ancient, like “wow”!

Word of the Week – Leprechaun

Word of the Week – Leprechaun

As we prepare for St. Patrick’s Day, let’s take a minute to look at the meaning of the little fae dressed in green that we sometimes associate with the day: leprechauns!

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Word of the Week – Guy

Word of the Week – Guy

“Guy” didn’t use to be a word for any male…in fact, it began life in English very differently, and we owe a French terrorist for its change.

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