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October Top Twenty

The imminent release of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's book put rogue in the Top Twenty list for October; we discuss the word's history here. Otherwise, many familiar words make up the list this month. Spikes of interest for hoax following the "balloon boy" episode and humble after President Obama's reaction to the Nobel Prize weren't enough to put those words on the list.

Happy Birthday 1789

By proclamation of President George Washington, the national government of the young United States marked November 26, 1789 a day of general thanksgiving. This month we commemorate that first Thanksgiving of the new country with a look back at words that first saw print 220 years ago.

Of the 108 words that first appeared in print that year, some are quite distinctively American – here's a sampling. For the full list, choose the Collegiate as your reference, click on Date in the pulldown Search Type list, type in 1789 and click on Search.

Notable & Quotable: George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans was born in England on Nov. 22, 1819. The author of The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch, Evans is better known by her pen name, George Eliot. She is also remembered in the Unabridged Dictionary, where her words are used to illustrate dozens of entries.

Interested in seeing all the examples in the Dictionary from a particular author? Select the Unabridged or the Collegiate as your source, click on Advanced Search and type the last name in the Author field, then click Search.

From the Mail Server

As Americans get serious about this month’s cooking, editors serve up some information about the history of a classic dish and they also look at a usage question raised by someone disgusted by the alleged misuse of nauseous. Finally, the editors turn up their collective nose at a popular theory purporting to explain the origin of snob.

Words in the News

News about former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue boosted rogue to #16 on last month's Top Twenty. But do we know where the word rogue comes from? Not really. Appropriately enough, in terms of poetic justice, the origin of rogue remains uncertain.

Word History of the Month: humble

When President Barack Obama described himself as "surprised and deeply humbled" that he won the Nobel Peace Prize, humble rose high on the most-looked-up list for a few days last month.

What's the full etymology of humble? The adjective and verb forms have an ancestor in the Latin word humus, meaning earth or ground and date back to the 13th and 14th centuries respectively. But is the same word humble also the humble of humble pie, a term that originated in the long-ago activities of Anglo-Norman huntsmen?

Just Foolin’ Around

The release of the film Love Happens sent folks looking up quidnunc for a few days last month. That's because the movie's quirky female lead (played by Jennifer Aniston) writes that word (among others) on hotel walls. A quidnunc is a busybody; the word derives from the Latin for what now? Interested in knowing the scoop on words about gossiping? We looked at all the terms in the Unabridged that include gossip as part of their definition. Check out a few of the more colorful words we discovered.

If you're interested in researching the words in the dictionary that share a key defining term, choose the Unabridged or the Collegiate as your reference, select Definition from the pull-down menu, type in the word that interests you, and click on Search.

Language Links: Ask the Editor

Our editors have begun a series of short online videos featuring discussions about dictionaries and language. Facts about word histories, grammar, spelling, and usage are all a part of the popular Ask the Editor series. You can see them all here.