Every Christmas Eve, Santa Claus and his reindeer deliver presents to children all over the world. The first time a reindeer appeared in a Christmas story was in the children’s poem Old SanteClaus with Much Delight which was published in New York in 1821 and featured an illustration of a sleigh being pulled by a reindeer. Today, Christmas stories usually feature nine reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder/Donner, Blixem/Blitzen, and Rudolph. Although most of us recognise Rudolph from the popular song, he first appeared in a booklet by Robert L. May in 1939. The booklet was distributed by a Chicago-based retailer who bought and gave away colourin...
Recently we shared ten words that have evolved in meaning as technology has advanced, here are ten more: refresh Refresh is the verb used to describe the act of reloading the data on a webpage (usually to see if any new information has been added). We refreshed the page to check the score. spam Spam refers to unwanted email or messages. Have you checked your spam folder? stream A stream is a continuous flow of video or audio information that is transmitted over the internet. The word is also used as a verb to describe the act of watching or listening to something in this way. We streamed the show on Netflix. ...
Due to lockdown, more and more people are turning to the internet to find virtual alternatives for their usual entertainment. This week we are looking at twenty words that have evolved in meaning as technology has advanced. block This word for obstruct or prevent is used on the internet to describe the act of preventing someone from contacting you or seeing your information. She blocked anyone she didn’t know who tried to message her. bookmark This word for a paper or ribbon marker used to keep one’s place in a book now also describes the act of marking a webpage you want to refer to again. Make sure you bookmark Spe...
From sandwiches to wellington boots to the Nobel Prize, many words take their names from people or fictional characters, and these people and characters are known as eponyms. You might remember some examples of these eponymous figures from our past posts, such as Don Quixote and Mrs Malaprop from our ‘Words from Literature’ series, or Julius and Augustus Caesar from our post on where the months of the year originate from. A few years ago we looked at five words and their eponyms, here are five more: Achilles heel This figurative expression is used to describe someone or something’s weakness or vulnerable point. The phrase was first used in the early 19th cent...
February 5th 2019 is Chinese New Year, marking the beginning of the Year of the Pig. You can learn more about Chinese New Year traditions here. Here are 10 English words and phrases which originate from Chinese languages: Char This colloquial term for tea dates back to the late 16th century and is a version of the Mandarin dialect word 'chá'. Chin chin You may have heard this phrase said by someone who is about to sip a drink. The expression has been used to express good wishes before drinking since the late 18th century when it was an English pronunciation of the Chinese 'qing qing'. Chopsticks Used in English since the late 17th ...
Here at Spellzone, it’s looking even more like Christmas and we’re finding ourselves using certain words that only come out at this time of year! Last week we looked at 5 Christmas-themed words and their origins – here are 5 more: Eggnog Eggnog is a drink made from alcohol (usually rum or brandy) mixed with beaten egg, milk, and sugar. The word ‘nog’ refers to strong ale. It dates to the 1690s when it described an ‘old, strong type of beer brewed in Norfolk’. Merry Like the word ‘tidings’ in last week’s article, the word ‘merry’ pops ups in Christmas songs but seems to hide away for the rest of th...
Here at Spellzone, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And along with the decorations box and that Michael Bublé album, we’re finding ourselves using certain words that only come out at this time of year. Let’s take a closer at some Christmas-related words and where they come from: Carol While the word ‘carol’ can refer to religious hymns from all seasons, many people associate the word with Christmas songs in particular. Around 1300 the word referred to both a ‘joyful song’ and a ‘dance in a ring’, and it came to be used in reference to Christmas hymns from around 1500. ‘Carol’ comes from the Old F...
Last week, we looked at 10 French words and expressions that are used in English. Read part 1 here and scroll down for part 2. excusez-moi ‘Excusez-moi!’ he gasped, looking annoyed. Excusez-moi means ‘excuse me’. faux pas He had no idea he was making a faux pas by putting his elbows on the table. A faux pas is the embarrassing mistake of violating unwritten social rules. The phrase translates to ‘false step’. haute couture She only wore haute couture. Haute couture literally means ‘high dressmaking’. The expression describes expensive and exclusive (often custom-fitted) clothing created by ...
à la carte As well as a lunchtime offer, the restaurant offered an à la carte menu. The phrase à la carte translates to ‘on the card’. If you order à la carte it means you order individual dishes as separate items from the menu rather than choosing a set meal that has a fixed price. apropos ‘You tell it better,’ he told her apropos of the story about their adventure in Venice. From the French à propos de, this word means ‘regarding’ or ‘concerning.’ au contraire ‘Au contraire,’ he replied when she asked him if he was bored. Au contraire translates ...
What is a loanword? A loanword is the term given to a word which is directly borrowed from another language and used in the recipient language without being translated first. One of the reasons why English is such a difficult language to learn (and why its spellings are so inconsistent!) is because the language is full of loanwords. The term ‘loanword’ itself is a loan translation from the German ‘Lehnwort’. Some loanwords are obvious, such as words used to describe food traditionally from other countries (such as ‘bratwurst’ or ‘hamburger’ or ‘frankfurter’), whereas others were borrowed so long ago that you might be surprised...
The month January takes its name from Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions (and so it is appropriate that January is the month that marks the transition into the New Year). Janus is usually depicted with two heads – one looking back into the past, and the other looking forward to the future. Last January we looked at 20 Janus words. A Janus word is a word with contradictory meanings. These words are also known as contronyms and auto antonyms. Here are some more examples of Janus words: Apology: an expression of regret for causing someone trouble, a formal written defence of something I owe you an apology for using your computer without asking first. She w...
The Christmas carol We Three Kings tells the story of three kings who followed a star to visit Jesus in a stable just after he was born. Many British school children learn this story at a very young age and can recite the names of the gifts each king gave to Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. While gold is still well-known today, what are frankincense and myrrh? Do the three gifts have a special significance? The verses to the carol give us a hint – let’s look at them a little more closely. Gold ‘Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain Gold I bring to crown Him again, King forever, ceasing never, Over us all to reign.’ Gold is a precious metal which has ...
There’s no doubt that spelling is scary. But fear not – Spellzone is here to help. With Halloween just around the corner, we’ve noticed many of our users are looking at spellings related to the spooky celebration. The Halloween word list was created by one of our users – you can find it here or, if you’d prefer, you can create your own word list here. For some advice on how to get the most out of our word list feature, click here. If spooky spellings aren’t for you, find some of our other favourite word lists here. Once you’ve found the perfect spelling list for you, click on the ‘eye’ icon at the top of each list to take a ‘L...
Corduroy The word corduroy has been used in the English language since 1780. While some origin stories like to suggest that the word derives from ‘corde du roy’ meaning ‘king’s cord’, the actual etymology of the word is much less interesting. Corduroy is most likely a combination of the words cord (twisted string or rope) and duroy (a coarse woollen fabric). Denim While jeans didn’t become popular until the nineteenth century, people have been wearing denim since the seventeenth century or earlier. The word comes from the French ‘serge de Nîmes’ – serge cloth from the town of Nîmes. The word was corrupted in English to &l...
Over the years, here on the blog, we’ve looked at many of the interesting stories or rumours about where certain words and phrases in the English language originate from. One reason for this is because we believe that knowing the origin can really help trigger your memory when trying to figure out how to spell a word (particularly in the case of word roots). The other reason, of course, is that many of these stories are so interesting and unexpected. If you’re new to our site, here are five of our favourite articles on word origins to get you started. From Avada Kedavra to Abracadabra! Have you ever wondered where our words for magic spells come from? In this article we...
Have you ever said the word ‘octopuses’ and had someone tell you that the correct plural of the word is ‘octopi’? Or perhaps you’ve said ‘octopi’ and had someone tell you the correct plural is ‘octopuses’? Which one is actually correct? What plural form should you use? In our blog post Ten Tips for Forming Plurals, number eight deals with loanwords: 8. Watch out for loanwords. Usually foreign words take on English plural endings, and in some cases it is acceptable to use either the plural from the original language or the English plural. In a few cases (usually technical terms such as ‘algae’ or ‘larvae’), th...
The Spellzone dictionary defines ‘phobia’ as: ‘an anxiety disorder characterized by extreme and irrational fear of simple things or social situations’. The word has been used in English since the 1780s, perhaps modelled on its use in French. It originally comes from the Greek ‘phobia’, from ‘phobos’ meaning ‘fear, panic, terror, outward show of fear, object of fear or terror’. Before this ‘phobia’ meant ‘flight’ and the word took on the meaning ‘fear’ from the idea of fleeing in panic or fright. Today we’re going to look at a list of different type of phobias – how many do you re...
Many of us can’t get through the day without our caffeine fix, but how many of know the origins behind our coffee words? Today we’re going to take a look at five different types of coffee beverage and how they got their names. To learn more about the origin of the word ‘coffee’ itself, click here. Espresso Espresso is made by forcing steam through finely ground coffee beans. The word comes from the Latin ‘exprimere’ meaning ‘press out, squeeze out’. The rest of the coffees explored in this blog post are made using espresso as a base. Macchiato A macchiato is an espresso with a small amount of milk added to it. In Italian, the...
The recent wonderful rainbows have made us wonder – where do we get our names for the colours from? The word ‘rainbow’ originates from the Old English ‘renboga’ – ‘regn’ meaning ‘rain’ and ‘boga’ meaning ‘bow’. Imagine the arch shape an arrow might make when flying through the air, or the way your body curves when you bow down – both meanings of ‘bow’ descend from the Proto-Germanic ‘bugan’. Another Old English word for rainbow is ‘scurboga’ meaning ‘shower bow’. Like ‘rainbow’, ‘red’ also comes from Proto Germanic roots. The ...
The identity of the longest word in English has long been disputed and many words have even been created specifically to take the title. Normally such words are purely technical terms and don’t make it into any recognised dictionaries but there are some exceptions. The name of the largest known protein, Titin is a whopping 189.819 letters long, taking around 3.5 hours just to pronounce! It is therefore given the short hand: ‘Methionylthreonylthreonylglutaminylarginyl...isoleucine’ But is this really a word? It is disputed, since naming a chemical compound by its individual molecules could mean ending up with words much, much longer than this. The longest word fe...
Click here for part one. Mentor Definition: Noun 1: a wise and trusted guide and advisor Verb 1: serve as a teacher or trusted counsellor Mentor was the advisor to Telemachus (the son of Odysseus and Penelope – the central characters in Homer’s Odyssey). In many versions of the myth, the goddess Athena disguised herself as Mentor and convinced Telemachus to stand up to his mother’s suitors and search for his missing father who had not returned from the Trojan War. Morphine Definition: Noun 1: an alkaloid narcotic drug extracted from opium; a powerful, habit-forming narcotic used to relieve pain Remember Morpheus, the god of dreams, from...
Atlas Definition: Noun 1: a collection of maps in book form Atlas and his brother fought with the Titans in a war against the Olympians. When they were defeated, Zeus, the King of the Gods, condemned Atlas to hold up the heavens on his shoulders as punishment. Chaos Definition: Noun 1: a state of extreme confusion and disorder 2: the formless and disordered state of matter before the creation of the cosmos The god Chaos personified the empty void that preceded the creation of the universe. Chronological Definition: Adjective 1: relating to or arranged according to temporal order The god Chronoswas the personification of time. He is i...
Around Easter time, this question gets asked a fair amount: what came first, the chicken or the egg? It’s a touchy debate. People often get wound up - so much so that the phrase ‘chicken-and-egg’ is sometimes now used to describe a situation where it is impossible to agree which of two connected things existed first, and which thing caused the other. Personally, I am adamant that the egg must have come first. You won’t be able to convince me otherwise. Except for in one particular circumstance – within the English language. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word ‘chicken’ comes from the Old English ‘cicen’ m...
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Every year, on March 17th, Irish people all over the world celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and is known for bringing Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century. According to legend, St. Patrick used the shamrock as a tool for explaining the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish (with the leaves representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and so it has become traditional to wear the shamrock symbol on St Paddy’s day. Here are ten words with Irish roots: Banshee In Irish mythology, a ‘banshee’ is a female spirit who wails when someone is about to die. In English, the word dates back to th...
It’s Pancake Day! Today we’re going to look at five traditions associated with this time of year and find out where their names originate from. Pancake Here in the UK, we celebrate Shrove Tuesday by feasting on pancakes. Given that a pancake is essentially a type of cake that’s cooked in a pan, we don’t need to tell you where the word comes from, but it dates back to the early fifteenth century. The Old English ‘panna’ or ‘ponne’, comes from the Proto-Germanic ‘panna’, which is probably borrowed from the Latin ‘patina’ meaning ‘shallow pan, dish, stew pan’. The word ‘cake’ dates back t...
January 25th marks Burns Night, an event celebrates the life and work of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. It has been celebrated on the poet’s birthday every year since the eighteenth century. Even if you haven’t heard of Robert Burns, you may be familiar with his poem Auld Lang Syne which is often sung at New Year’s and translates to ‘old long since’ (i.e. ‘long long ago) – why not click here to read more about the poet and his life? You can also read about how a typical Burns Night celebration might go here. This week we’re going to take a look at two very important components of a Burns Night celebration: food and drink. Or mor...
Tonight is bonfire night, that means the skies tonight across Britain will be illuminated, playing host to a wide array of wails, cackles and screeches to the accompaniment of thunderous booms, snaps and bangs. I’m not really selling it am I? For the pyromaniacs out there, the fifth of November is always spectacle to behold, with displays becoming increasingly impressive every year. Extravagant pyrotechnics aside, there are a handful of other traditions associated with bonfire night: the burning of Guy Fawkes effigies upon the bonfires themselves, toffee apples (a delicious favourite of mine) and of course, sparklers; which allow us to embrace our inner Prometheus, at arm’s...
Blatant The word ‘blatant’ was first used in the sixteenth century by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen to describe a monster, and by the seventeenth century it was generally used to mean ‘clamorous’ or ‘noisy in a vulgar way’. From the nineteenth century, the word started being used to mean ‘obvious’. Some sources suggest that Spenser may have used ‘blatant’ as a variation on the Scots word ‘blatand’ (meaning ‘bleating’). Caddie ‘Caddie’ is the Scottish form of the French word ‘cadet’. It took on its meaning as a ‘golfer’s assistant’ in the ninet...
What is a portmanteau word? A portmanteau word is made up of two or more existing words that have been blended together. Often portmanteau words start off as slang or nonsense words but later become part of Standard English due to being widely used. The rise of technology and the internet, in particular, has led to many portmanteau words being created, e.g. pixel, emoticon, and vlog. Why ‘portmanteau’? It was the famous British children’s writer, Lewis Carroll, who first used ‘portmanteau’ to describe these word blends in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. A portmanteau was a type of suitcase which had two compa...
Do you hate making small talk? Today we’re sharing the unusual origins of five commonly used words/phrases – read on and maybe one of them will come in use the next time you’re stuck in a boring conversation! To steal someone’s thunder Playwright John Dennis created a new method for replicating the sound of thunder for his 1704 play Appius and Virginia. The play was a flop and its run was cancelled, but Dennis’s thunder-creating device caught on and was used in other productions without his permission. Dennis, unimpressed, was later quoted saying “They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder!” Snob Did you know that...
Last week we shared the first half of our twenty English words of Indian origin – click here to read it. Because Sanskrit is such an old language, Sanskrit words have entered the English language in a variety of ways. Some are direct loanwords, while others have travelled across the world, evolving as they move from language to language, before finally being adopted into English. This week we’re going to take a look at ten more words – scroll down to find out more! Dinghy "a small boat of shallow draft, with cross thwarts for seats and rowlocks for oars with which it is propelled" The Hindi word ‘dingi’ means ‘small boat’. ...
Often, when you come across a new word, you can break it down into parts in order to try and figure out what it means and how to spell it. To help you do this, it is worth paying attention to word roots. Once you accept that English words come from all over the world, you can group them depending on where they are from and start to look out for word patterns. For example, if you recognise that the Greek ‘phob’ means ‘fear’, you can usually assume that English words which include ‘phob’ also describe fear in one way or another,for example ‘phobia’ or 'claustrophobic' If you know that the Greek ‘acr’ means ‘height ...
At Spellzone, we often talk about how one of the reasons English is such a difficult language to learn is because it has roots all over the world. Once you take this into consideration, however, you can begin to look out for word patterns. Many English words come from Latin origins. Word roots are useful for both figuring out how to spell a word, and figuring out what it might mean. For example if you know that the Latin prefix ‘ab’ means ‘away from’ in English, you can work out that ‘abnormal’ might describe something that is ‘away from what is normal’. Or if you know that the Latin ‘cent’ refers to a ‘hundred’...
An onomatopoeic word imitates the sound of the action or thing it describes. The words we use to describe the sounds animals make, for instance, are examples of onomatopoeia: chirp, hiss, meow, oink, squeak, etc. Onomatopoeic words are also often used to describe collisions (crash, bang, wallop!); voice-related sounds (grunt, giggle, guffaw, rasp, wheeze, etc.); and water-related sounds (drip, gush, trickle, pitter-patter, etc.). Here are ten examples of onomatopoeia! Bumblebee – The obvious onomatopoeic word associated with bumblebees is ‘buzz’, but the name of the creature itself is onomatopoeic too. ‘Bumblebee’ dates back to the 1520s and replaced...
What is a loanword? A loanword is the term given to a word which is directly borrowed from another language and used in the recipient language without being translated first. One of the reasons why English is such a difficult language to learn (and why its spellings are so inconsistent!) is because the language is full of loanwords. Some loanwords are obvious, such as words used to describe food traditionally from other countries (such as ‘tsatsiki’ or ‘chow mein’), whereas others were borrowed so long ago that you might be surprised to discover they are loanwords at all (such as: ‘pyjamas’ or ‘breeze’). Last week we shared a list of Japa...
At this time of year, here in England, you can find a ‘grotto’ almost anywhere. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Christmas Grottos – they are rooms (or sometimes entire floors) in places like department stores, shopping centres, or Christmas fêtes, where an actor dressed as Father Christmas gives out small gifts to children. The Online Etymology Dictionary defines the word ‘grotto’ as ‘from Italian grotta, ultimately from Latin crypta “vault, cavern,” from Greek krypte “hidden place”’. I don’t know about you but that description reminds me more of ‘Open Sesame!’ than it does ‘Merry Christ...
From sandwiches to wellington boots to the Nobel Prize, many words take their names from people or fictional characters, and these people and characters are known as eponyms. You might remember some examples of these eponymous figures from our past posts, such as Don Quixote and Mrs Malaprop from our ‘Words from Literature’ series, or Julius and Augustus Caesar from our post on where the months of the year originate from. Today we’ll take a look at five words which derive from the names of people or characters – perhaps one or two of them will surprise you! Adam’s Apple There are two theories as to why this feature of the human neck (the laryngeal promi...
Like with the months, the names of the days in English hark back to the Romans. They are named after the seven ‘planets’ of classical astronomy: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Later, the Germanic peoples adjusted the names of the days so that they reflected their own mythology rather than that of the Romans. As English is part of the West Germanic family of languages, the English words for the days (mostly) derive from these Germanic names. Monday – The word ‘Monday’ comes from the Old English ‘Monandaeg’, which translates to ‘day of the moon’, and comes from Máni, the North Germanic Moon-god. &...
Have you ever wondered where the months got their names from? In the Western world, the most widely used calendar is the Gregorian calendar, but some of the names of the months come from the calendars used by the ancient Romans. The calendar of Romulus had ten months, beginning with the spring equinox in March and ending in December. After many calendar reforms since Romulus’s calendar, the following mnemonic rhyme sums up the features of the calendar we use today: “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one, Excepting February alone, And that has twenty-eight days clear, And twenty-nine in each leap year.” We love a go...
Today we’re back with more Latin phrases. You may think of Latin as a dead language, but in actuality we still use many Latin phrases as part of modern English. If you would like to read Part 1 of this series (including terms like ‘et cetera’ and ‘in camera’), you can click here. Ad hoc is one of those terms that is thrown around in the workplace all the time. For years, I was too scared to ask anyone what it meant. When I finally did, the person who used it said: ‘You know, I actually have no idea…’ . The phrase translates to ‘for this’, and describes something that is created or done for a specific and immediate purpos...
You may think of Latin as a dead language, and though it is true that it is no longer spoken outside of classrooms, Latin is the root of many English words. Furthermore, many Latin phrases and expressions have survived and are often used interspersed with English. Let’s take a look at a few. Et cetera, often abbreviated to ‘etc.’, is perhaps one of the most commonly used Latin phrases in day-to-day conversations. The expression directly translates to ‘and the rest’ and we usually use it at the end of a list as a way of saying ‘and all the other things’ or ‘and so on’. Example sentence: The Spellzone course uses a range of spell...
Nonce words are words invented for a particular occasion usually made by blending of two existing words; often blending two concepts or objects in response to a specific context. Family slang can be littered with these. Here are few of my daughter´s, invented during early language development which have become common usage in our house: Birdknocker (woodpecker) Bounceline (trampoline) Quackling, (a baby duck - quack and duckling) Floudery (flour and powdery) Examples found in books by Roald Dahl Snozzcumber Grumptious Examples used by Ken Dodd, a British entertainer Titilifarious (titilating and hilarious) Plumtuous (plump and sumptuous) Some have e...
Being born and raised in York, England and looking forward to my holiday visiting friends in Sweden, I started to think about the words that connect our cultures. Many of these words are still used in Yorkshire and are of Old Norse origin. Here are a few examples: Barn (pronounced Bairn) - a young child Beck - a stream Berserk - going mad Brigg - a bridge Cleg - a horse fly Crake - a crow (my parents live in a village called Crayke) Dale - a valley Fell- a hill or mountain Flags - paving stones Flit - to move house ( Are you flitting? ) Foss - waterfalls or rapids - (there is a River Foss in York) Gat - got Gate - Street - Micklegate is a street in York Gawp - look Hey up (s...
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