Bedroom tax, reshuffle, and digital make-up – Trending Words in July 2014

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s been heating up this summer. July saw some interesting developments in the world of politics. One term that’s popping up a lot is the so-called “bedroom tax”. This is not an official name. In fact, there is no official name, because… Read More

Word-lover interview: Yousuf AlBader

Word-lovers abound in the Collins Dictionary community, and so we’re running an interview series with some of the ones we’re lucky enough to count as friends of the blog. Following our interviews with Lynne Murphy of Separated By A Common Language, Tim Gorichanaz from ScratchTap and… Read More

Crosswords – 7 Facts You Didn’t Have a Cryptic Clue About

From simple black and white word exercises to the most masterful, multi-layered of cryptic constructs, crosswords entertain, educate, comfort, and compel. Here are seven things you might not have known about this recent centenarian of the puzzle world. 1. Crosswords initially appeared in England in… Read More

Do you know what chronotype or cynosure mean? Lucy Mangan is here to explain all!

It’s thought that we acquire pretty much the whole of our working vocabularies by the time we’re 18. We can and do, of course, learn new words after that but the knowledge of them, our comfort with them, does not flow as deep. It is hard to identify them from… Read More

Cryptic Crossword Success: 5 Ways to Crack Those Crafty Clues

A good cryptic clue contains three elements: ● a precise definition ● a fair subsidiary indication (wordplay) ● nothing else The beauty of cryptic crosswords is that solvers can immediately be certain that their solutions are correct. This is because there… Read More

Scrabble Addict? 16 Ways to Mix up your Word Game Addiction!

Discover the best Scrabble hints, tips and secrets by clicking on any of the book covers below: Although Scrabble played the standard way is an endlessly varied game in itself, below are a number of alternative… Read More

21 Cycling Words to Set You Up For the Tour de France

Running from Saturday July 5th to Sunday July 27th 2014, the 101st Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,664 kilometres. This annual bicycle race was first organized in 1903, and has run every year except for… Read More

Gramping and ramscootering: Lucy Mangan takes on more of your submissions to Collinsdictionary.com

I once wrote this about camping, having been forced to undertake the activity for the first time by an editor with pages to fill and sadistic urges to satisfy. “It’s insanity, is what it is. For thousands of years mankind has sought to improve his condition; to protect himself from… Read More

Slender Man, Spornosexuals, and Smartphones – Trending Words in June 2014

Of course June is mostly about the World Cup. Which, if you’re English, is pretty bad news (but hey, there’s always Wimbledon!). Unfortunately, this month has yielded bad news of a more serious nature. Violence in Iraq has made ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) a household… Read More