The word “sanguine” has two definitions. The first refers to an adjective that describes someone, who is optimistic or ...

It’s like Google Maps for your cerebral cortex: A new interactive atlas, developed with the help of such unlikely tools as public radio podcasts and Wikipedia, purports to show which bits of your ...

Sample sentences have long been a standard feature of many online and offline dictionaries. Starting today, Google Translate will also feature sentences that put translated words into context. Unlike ...

Back in grade school, words like "onomatopoeia" and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" seemed insanely complicated and long. Surprisingly, neither of these is the ...

DEAR RICHARD: The word buck has nine different definitions as presented in dictionary.com. This set me to wondering “Is there a definition of words with many definitions? What words in the English ...

Commonly Confused Words: Have you ever used the word access where you should have used excess? Or Have you got confused about which to use-affect or effect? Well, don’t worry as this is not unusual.

In the brain, language pops up everywhere. All across the wrinkly expanse of the brain’s outer layer, a constellation of different regions handle the meaning of language, scientists report online ...

Even if you’re not a full-blown grammar nerd, you’ll find the origins of these words that changed meaning over time completely fascinating The English language is alive—and like any living thing, it ...

At the point that children utter their first words, a complex set of conceptual, social and linguistic mental capacities are at work, Yale researcher Paul Bloom reports in his new book, “How Children ...

Ever wonder why we have so many words with multiple meanings? Consider the word “mean,” which can convey hurtful behavior (as in “mean girls”), signify a mathematical middle or indicate intent — as in ...

An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link The English language is, indeed, a quirky one: it's notoriously difficult to learn, and often words have more than one meaning. Some of these ...