Putting together a dictionary is hard. Or if you prefer, difficile or Augean. It’s one of those indispensable elements of civilization that many of us take for granted, like electricity. But its ...

An excerpt from Dictionary People investigates the story of amateurs collaborating alongside the academic elite to create a foundation for our vocabulary. Every item on this page was chosen by a Town ...

The print edition of Merriam-Webster was once a touchstone of authority and stability. Then the internet brought about a ...

It’s a new chapter for Dictionary.com. The online dictionary added 566 new words to its database Wednesday, as well as 348 new definitions for existing entries and 2,256 revised definitions. The new ...

Are you greenwashing? How much sleep debt do you have? If you're unfamiliar with those terms you're probably not the only one, but they're now recognized by the most famous online dictionary.

Mr. Tersigni is a cultural critic. Have you ever obeyed the suggestions of a digital writing assistant to replace a word or restructure a sentence without knowing how, why or even if it made your ...

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU. There’s a new arrival on the dictionary scene – the much-anticipated second edition of the Australian National ...

There was a time when Urban Dictionary felt essential. Twenty-six years ago, when then-college freshman Aaron Peckham founded ...

When the world was grappling with covid-19 five years ago, many in the fashion world vowed to be more eco-conscious, and careful about their consumption. “Sustainability" became a buzzword and ...

Since the 1960s, the reference book has cataloged how people actually use language, not how they should. That might be changing. An Object Lesson. That symbolic importance is summed up in the phrase ...

Imagine that you are an author and your editor assigns you the task of compiling a massive reference work — say, a dictionary — from scratch. This gargantuan project would likely induce feelings of ...