March Top Twenty

The return of healthcare to the front pages of newspapers made March a big month for research into socialism – the word is used so often in the context of contemporary American politics that it's becoming a regular in lists of most looked-up words.

But in every other way, this month's most looked-up word list is the very portrait of daily lexical curiosity: affect, effect, and love are there. Several other words that are slightly abstract and have classical roots, such as integrity, contingent, and eclectic, are nearly always near the top of the list. And words that end in -ous are, taken as a group, the most looked-up words in English: ubiquitous, pretentious, ambiguous, egregious, etc.

Notable Quotable: William Shakespeare

Traditionally, William Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated on what is actually the anniversary of his death: April 23. The dramatist and poet who died in 1616 is believed to have been born on or around April 23, 1564.

Shakespeare is quoted a remarkable 1800 times in the Unabridged – probably more than any other writer. His words also illustrate dozens of now-archaic senses of familiar words, giving us a fascinating view of how the language changes over time.

Interested in seeing citations from a particular author? It's easy. Select the Collegiate or the Unabridged as your reference. Click on Advanced Search, and type the surname in the Author box, then click on Search.

Happy Birthday 1865

April was a month for significant events of the American Civil War: shots were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, General Lee surrendered at Appomattox April 9, 1865, and, just after the war, President Lincoln was shot April 14, 1865.

Of the 209 words that first saw print in 1865, only one has a clear association with the Civil War; a sampling of the full list reveals a bit about America in that turbulent year.

Interested in seeing all the words known to have first appeared in print in a specific year? Choose the Collegiate as a reference, type the year into the Date box on the pull-down menu, then hit Search.

From the Mail Server

This month, editors answered questions about usage, etymology, and vocabulary for curious dictionary users. The long-standing controversy about well and good gets a new twist, an obscure origin for a common word is finally explained, and a pesky fact about gender inequality inherent in the language is revisited.

Words in the News

Socialism was in the Top Twenty yet again (for the third time since the November 2008 election), but since we've covered that term before, we'll look at two other terms that tickled Online Dictionary users for a day or two last month: titivate and titillate.

When Dancing with the Stars judge Len Goodman approvingly asked contestant Pamela Anderson if she'd been titivating herself, both titivate and the more common titillate briefly soared on the look-up scorecard.

Report from the Open Dictionary

Perhaps the long winter kept plenty of folks on the computer. Recent submissions to the Open Dictionary include several new words that come from the world of Internet commerce, art, and gossip.

Interested in adding a new word or new sense of an existing word to the Dictionary? We're always interested in the words that you hear and see that haven't yet been defined. Click for guidelines and join the amateur lexicographers!

Just Foolin' Around

Last month's most looked-up word list welcomed the annual appearance of leprechaun on St Patrick's Day.

Leprechaun comes from Irish Gaelic: lu (small) + corpan (body). According to legend, that small-bodied creature will reveal hidden treasure to the person lucky enough to catch him. We caught a few similar creatures by fooling around with the Advanced Search function of the Unabridged; just type in the words "small creature" in the definition box to get the results.

Language Links

National Grammar Day came and went last month. The date? March 4th – a call to action, in case you miss the reference. Keep the humor going with a look at few grammar cartoons (and note the first is a webcomic).