notorious 9 March 2026 Usage manuals like to point out that notorious refers to someone or something of unfavorable reputation and that the word should not be used to mean merely famous or notable. While this is true to an extent, like many questions of usage the answer is more complicated,
hurricane 6 March 2026 Hurricane comes to us from the Taino language of the Caribbean via Spanish. The Taino word is hurákan. It makes its first English language appearance in Richard Eden’s 1555 translation of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés’s 1535 summary of La historia general de las
laneway / laneway house 4 March 2026 Literally, laneway (lane + way) is a redundant term, and one that is unfamiliar to most Americans. It is found in Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. Originally simply meaning a road, the word in Canadian usage has narrowed to mean an urban
Turtle Island 2 March 2026 Turtle Island is a calque of a Native American term from the creation accounts of tribes speaking languages of the Iroquoian and Algonquian families. It originally was a name for the world, taken from various stories in which the world is said to be the back of
arch / arch- 27 February 2026 Arch, in English, encompasses three broad senses. It can be a combining form signifying chief or high as in archangel or archbishop, it can mean clever or cleverly humorous, and it can mean a curved structure or to make a curved structure. Of these, the combining form,
dirigible 25 February 2026 Today, the word dirigible is almost always used as a noun, referring to a zeppelin-type airship, and I always had it in my head that the word was related to rigid, a reference to the rigid frame of such an aircraft. But that is not the case.
sapphire 23 February 2026 Sapphire is a gem, usually blue in color, a variety of corundum. The word came into English from the Anglo-Norman saphir, which is from the Latin sapphirus, which, in turn, is from the Greek σάπφειρος (sappheiros). After the Greek, the trail gets muddy. It may come from
airship 20 February 2026 As we use the word today, airship generally refers to a dirigible, but that specific usage became common only after 1900 and the launch of Ferdinand Zeppelin’s aircraft. The word appears as early as 1817 in reference to balloons and aircraft in general. Airship is, quite
four-twenty / 420 18 February 2026 There are many origin stories for 420, a slang term referring to marijuana, but unlike most slang terms, researchers have been able to pin down its actual origin with specificity. 420 was first used by a group of students at San Rafael High School in 1971, and
ring / ringleader 16 February 2026 Ring comes down to us from the Old English hring with much the same meaning as today, a circlet, often made of metal, to be worn as an ornament, or more generally, any similar circular structure, or a group of people arranged in a circle, as in
