Wordorigins.org Newsletter
  • Home
  • About
Sign in Subscribe
Newsletter

Halloween

  • Dave Wilton

Dave Wilton

24 Oct 2023 • 4 min read
Halloween
A Halloween jack o’ lantern

This post is for paying subscribers only

Subscribe now

Already have an account? Sign in

Movie poster depicting actor Martin Freeman, playing the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, holding a sword

hobbit

10 December 2025 In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. So begins J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit. A hobbit, as anyone who doesn’t live in a hole in the ground knows, is a small humanoid creature with hairy feet and a fondness
10 Dec 2025 5 min read
B&W photo of a Black man standing under a sign that reads, “Colored Waiting Room”; a bus is in the background
Paid-members only

race / racism (paid)

10 Dec 2025 13 min read
Photo of a clockface bearing astrological symbols

woo-woo

8 December 2025 Ghosts, magic crystals, faeries, homeopathy, Bigfoot, astrology, and the like are all examples of woo-woo or woo. But why are they called that? When and where does the term come from? The Oxford English Dictionary and Green’s Dictionary of Slang both say that woo-woo is onomatopoeia
08 Dec 2025 3 min read
Wordorigins.org Newsletter © 2025
  • Sign up
Powered by Ghost