Ever wonder why we have so many words with multiple meanings? Consider the word “mean,” which can convey hurtful behavior (as in “mean girls”), signify a mathematical middle or indicate intent — as in ...

Will was the Phones Editor at Android Police from August 2022 to May 2025, which usually meant his desk was covered in a dozen different smartphones at any given time. Prior to that, he was a news ...

Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest literary figures of the 18th century, sardonically stated that making dictionaries is dull work. A lexicographer, he quirkily wrote, was a harmless drudge, making ...

Different subjects have different vocabularies and affect how readers and writers cycle through different vocabularies. So, I pondered a bit more and realized that students probably have to cycle ...

Feather duster: Can anyone see the significance of this? Two words crammed together to make one. Kind of like draft dodger. No, I’m not talking about leaky windows and baseball players, either. OK, OK ...

One of the great things about English is its malleability. A sentence can take on a different meaning when you apply emphasis in different places. The same word can hold different meanings in ...

It is now possible to identify the meaning of words with multiple meanings, without using their semantic context. Two physicists have now devised a method to automatically elucidate the meaning of ...

People sometimes tell you you’re misusing a word and cite the Latin origin as proof. Don’t fall for the etymological fallacy. What a word means depends not on its origin, but on how speakers of a ...

In May 1993, Trinidadian-German Eurodance artist Haddaway posed a crucial query to the world: “What is love?” Haddaway asked his question in English, but he received a range of responses—in part, ...