tariff A tariff is a tax on imported or exported goods, or more precisely, it is a schedule of such tax rates for various types of goods. The word is also used more generally to mean a fee or charge. It was borrowed into English from the Italian tariffa in the
Mandela Effect The Mandela Effect is the phenomenon of many people sharing the same false memory. The classic examples, which are cited in nearly every description of the phenomenon, are memories of watching news reports of the death of Nelson Mandela in the 1980s, long before the South African leader's
robot / android Robots are a staple of science fiction and increasingly an important part of life in our present-day world. The word comes from the Czech robota, a word literally meaning forced labor (the root rob means slave) but which is also used figuratively to mean drudgery, hard work. Robota has cognates
quick The meanings of words change over time. But when a particular sense of a word falls out of general use, sometimes the old meaning sticks around in idiomatic and stock phrases. Such is the case with quick, which did not always mean fast, rapid. The word comes from the Old
lent [This seasonal post pulled from the Wordorigins.org archives was originally published in February 2021.] In the Christian liturgical calendar, Lent is the season of fasting prior to Easter. It’s an odd word to the modern ear and has nothing to do with lending anything. Rather, the name comes
curd / crud / cruddy Most Americans today only see curd in descriptions of cottage cheese, in the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet, or in the verb form to curdle. The word in its original sense referred to the soft, white solid formed when milk or cream coagulates, but it has acquired additional senses over
pork / pork barrel It’s something of a cliché to say that English words for domesticated animals come from Old English while the words for various types of meat come from Norman French, as the English-speaking commoners cared for the animals and the French-speaking nobility ate the meat. It’s a gross simplification,
artificial intelligence / AI Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the capacity of computers to perform tasks that were previously thought impossible for machines, that is to mimic human thought processing either for specific tasks or in general. The term appears in the 1950s. More recently, the term generative artificial intelligence has come in to
silver Silver is a chemical element with atomic number 47 and the symbol Ag. It is a soft, white, lustrous metal with the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal. It has, of course, been known since antiquity. Besides its use in coinage and in jewelry and other decorative items,
kangaroo court / mustang court / mustang It is often the case with slang terms that the metaphor underlying the term has been lost. Slang often circulates for decades before being recorded, and in that time why the term came to be can be forgotten. Such is the case with kangaroo court. We have no firm idea
occupy Occupy is a verb with many shades of meaning, but these senses fall into two broad categories. One sense is that of keeping busy or being engaged, as in occupying one’s time; the other is to seize, to take possession of, as in occupying territory. English borrowed the verb
doge Doge, pronounced / doʊ(d)ʒ /, is a variant of dog that became an internet meme and then a US government entity. It is an internet subculture in-joke that in 2025 became an official US government term, a shift that reflects upon the maturity of those appointed to high office by
Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico is the body of water bordered by the United States to the north, Mexico to the west and south, and Cuba to the east. The English name is a calque of the Spanish Golfo de México, which dates to the sixteenth century. The name follows the
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with atomic number 14 and the symbol Si. It is a hard, brittle, crystalline metalloid with a blue-gray luster. It is the eighth most common element in the earth’s crust and has a wide variety of uses, perhaps the most common being in glass,
