Inkhorn terms are showy Latin- and Greek-based words stuffed into English, a label that looks back to the animal-horn ink bottles used by 14th-century scribes. Henry Cockeram’s 1623 The English Dictionarie (Amazon) includes catillate, meaning “to...
Scott in Billings, Montana, wonders about the word hornswoggle, meaning to swindle, bamboozle, deceive, or trick. This verb found its way into American English during the 1820’s, when there was a fad among newspaper editors and writers for inventing...
It seems there’s a sesquipedalian version to the classic “Three Blind Mice” folk rhyme about a trio of rodents with impaired vision. Need a visual yourself? Try this one. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
If you say to someone the Spanish equivalent of “you’re giving me green gray hairs” (me sacas canas verdes), it means that person is making you angry. In Japan, the phrase that literally translates as “one red dot”...
A fan of the TV series West Wing was puzzled by a character’s use of the term pulchritude. It’s a pretty ugly term for a word that means “beauty.” Check out what some other commenters are saying about the word. This is part...
A Texas caller wonders about the origin and meaning of the term ultracrepidarian. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ultracrepidarian” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, I’m Patrick Wilson from Dallas, Texas. Well...