Jan Baptist Weenix, “Ancient Ruins” (n.d.), oil on canvas, 80.5 x 68.3 cm, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest (image via Web Gallery of Art) This week, NATO was obsolete until it wasn’t. Either war is ...

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them. The English language is always evolving as words come ...

Last month, we brought you 5 archaic booze words that should be revived. Boy, that was fun. So, this month, we thought we'd repeat the fun with food words. Here are 5 words we'd like to see brought ...

Because we began this week with Tales of the Cocktail, and because we all know how much serious bartenders love archaic things, and because old words are fun, I thought I'd compile a list of fun booze ...

You can’t call someone a frutescent snollygoster anymore—at least not officially. Those words have been deleted from the dictionary, so you’ll have to come up with alternate terms to describe a ...

Maybe this has happened to you. A song you love comes on the radio as you're driving. You start singing along or nod your head to the beat or rhythmically bang the steering wheel with your hands. You ...

On February 1, 1884, the first fascicle, or volume, of one of the world’s greatest literary achievements was published: the Oxford English Dictionary, affectionately known as the OED. I’m not talking ...

Nearly two decades and several text-handling paradigms ago, I was an editorial assistant at a weekly newspaper, where a few freelancers still submitted their work on typewritten pages. Stories would ...

The Oxford English Dictionary estimates there are over 170,000 words in the English language, with an additional 47,000 obsolete words. Only a few other languages reportedly have more words than the ...

The dictionary isn’t forever. Here’s the lowdown on why certain words are not in the dictionary and how they got removed. If you, too, have been left puzzled by words not in the dictionary—even ones ...