Danielle in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is looking for a word for a year or anniversary that ends in a 5 or a 0. The word lustrum is an old term for a period of five years that derives from an ancient Roman practice. A quindecennial is a 15-year...
The word piecemeal means bit by bit. If you pay back a debt piecemeal, you repay it a little at a time. The -meal in piecemeal is an old term that means a measure of time or a specified portion. In Middle English, this element appears in several...
The expression back friend is an old term that means an enemy who pretends to be a friend. It’s more insidious than the modern coinage, frenemy. This is part of a complete episode.
The rarely used English noun list, meaning desire or craving, is entirely different from the word list that denotes a series of things. The little-used meaning is at the root of the term listless, which in its original sense meant a lack of desire...
Wrapping up 2016 with words from the past year and some newsy limericks. Bigly and Brexit were on lots of lips this year, as well as an increasingly popular Danish word that means “cozy.” Also, Quiz Guy John Chaneski sums up the year in...
Holiday is an old term for a spot missed when painting or wiping a surface. It’s mentioned in Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. This is part of a complete episode.