Etymology
SCARILY METICULOUS
 The term meticulous can be traced back to a mid-sixteenth-century collection of poetry. It was derived from the Latin word meticulosus, which originally meant "frightful" or "timid". This association…
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Latest Etymology
ROASTED RICE
 The history of the beloved rice dish known as biryani is a subject of debate among scholars. Some believe…
AN UNDERDEVELOPED STRAP
 Someone recently asked about the word inchoate, and I had to look up its definition: it means "just begun"…
The Grammarphobia Blog: Cheeseparings from the moon
Q: In Can You Forgive Her (1864-65), one of Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels, a character complains about the “wretched cheeseparing…
ON LOSS-FAMILIES
 The terms stepfather, stepmother, and stepchild have roots dating back to early Old English, as steopfæder, steopmodor, and steopcild…
DESPICABLE HEROES
 The term wretch has a long history in the English language, with various spellings such as wrecca, wrecche, wrehche,…
ALP-ITANIA
 Arpitania is a cultural region in the Western Alps spread across parts of France, Switzerland, and Italy (and it…
GoldEN CHRYSALIDES
 When it comes to the plural of chrysalis, most people use "chrysalises", but the more etymologically correct version is…
FIVE PUNCHES
 The origin of the word punch, meaning "to hit," can be traced back to the Old French verb ponchonner,…