The official feed for https://t.co/pmc26gGhhZ, the world's leading digital dictionary. Home to #WordOfTheDay and place to indulge your inner #WordNerd.
A warm stroopwafel balanced over a cup of coffee makes for a delicious afternoon treat. ☕ A “stroopwafel” is a Dutch confection made from two thin waffle cookies joined by a layer of caramel. Its name literally translates to “syrup waffle.” What other foods have wonderfully literal names? #WordOfTheDay
Finding a long-sought treasure at a garage sale would be quite the Our #WordOfTheDay “trouvaille” refers to a lucky discovery or found treasure. It comes from a French word meaning “to find” and is related to the English word “trove.” What’s another French-rooted word you love to use?
2026 Word of the Year is “maxxing!”
“Maxxing” refers to the practice of pursuing an activity to the fullest, or optimizing a certain aspect of your life. It’s used as a suffix as well as a standalone word, embodying our modern obsession with doing everything to the max.
This use of “maxxing” might have started with looksmaxxing, but lately the word has been turning up in beauty and fitness content, workplace discussions about AI, wellness advice, and many other areas of everyday life.
Whether you’re earnestly self-improving, aspiring to more, or just mocking the pressure to optimize, “maxxing” reflects both the ambitions and anxieties of modern life. Read more at our link above! And tell us below...
What are you maxxing? 👀
#WordOfTheYear#Maxxing#2026Trends#EnglishLanguage#2026Wrapped
A cabin bereft of cell service might be the perfect place to finish a book. 📖 “Bereft,” our #WordOfTheDay, means deprived of or lacking something. It can also describe someone experiencing grief, but its more general sense of “deprived” is much older. What other words convey powerful emotions?
Have you heard of ghost words? 👻 These are words that appear in dictionaries or other reference works even though they were never actually used in real language.
They can begin as typos, misreadings, or printing errors. Once they appear in an authoritative source, other writers assume they're legitimate and copy them. 📖 Some eventually disappear, but others become accepted parts of the language.
A famous example is “dord:” an editor's note reading "D or d" (the abbreviation for density) was accidentally interpreted as a new word. “Dord” appeared in print from 1934 to 1947 before the error was discovered!
A knowledgeable cicerone can make every portrait, doorway, or landmark part of the story. Our #WordOfTheDay, “cicerone,” refers to a guide who conducts sightseers. The word comes from Cicero, the Roman statesman celebrated for his eloquence. What word have you discovered recently that deserves more attention? 💬
What do the expressions “dead ringer” and “saved by the bell” have to do with death? ☠️
Although often linked to spooky stories of people being buried alive, their actual origins might surprise you.
Join author and language expert @jesszafarris as she explores the etymology of these everyday idioms!
Do you know the history behind any other English expressions?
#Etymology#WordOrigins#LanguageHistory#Idioms#Linguistics#WordNerd#EnglishLanguage
Sometimes you just need to ratiocinate your way through a particularly puzzling problem! 🧩 “Ratiocinate,” our #WordOfTheDay, means to reason or carry out a process of reasoning. It traces back to the Latin “ratio,” which was associated with reckoning, calculating, planning, and reasoning. Can you use it in a sentence?
He kept talking about how much his possessions cost, which made him come across as bit of a parvenu. Our #WordOfTheDay, “parvenu” refers to someone who has recently acquired wealth or social standing but lacks the expected refinement. It joins French-derived expressions such as “nouveau riche” and “arriviste.” What other French word adds flair to English?
Some images are so memetic that a single glance brings dozens of captions to mind. Today's #WordOfTheDay “memetic” means of or relating to memes. Although “meme” was coined in the 1970s to describe ideas or behaviors transmitted through imitation, the internet gave the word an entirely new life. What's another internet culture word?
Crispate leaves can give a plant an almost ruffled appearance. 🌿 Our #WordOfTheDay, “crispate,” means having curly or wavy edges, especially when describing a leaf. Botanists use “margin” for the edge of a leaf and have plenty of precise words to describe its shape. What’s another delightfully specific nature word?
