Investigating English across the globe
World Wide Words
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Enter one or more words, separated by spaces.
Hints for searching
- Results are returned with the best matches first.
- If you specify more than one word, the system returns pages that contain all the words, though not necessarily together.
- To search for an exact phrase, enclose it in double quotation marks.
- Some short or common words are excluded from searches.
- Search terms are treated as stems, so results may include extended forms. A search for wonder will also find wonders, wondering, wondered, and wonderful. Use a fuller form (wonderi, wonderf) to exclude other variants.
- A word containing an apostrophe is truncated to the part before it.
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Over the past 30 years, World Wide Words has chronicled the shifting English wordscape — new coinages, word histories, books on language, curious idioms, and the oddities of native English speech. More than 3,000 articles are archived here for you to enjoy.
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