7 US political terms to baffle Brits

The United States holds its presidential election on November 3rd after a long and sometimes rancorous campaign. While observers in Europe will have become accustomed by now to some of the terminology of the American political scene, with its caucuses, conventions, superdelegates, and running mates, some more arcane American political… Read More

Months of awareness

Last month, this month and the next two are great for practising Latin numerals, as you do: septem, octo, novem, decem (7, 8, 9, 10). But hang on a moment. Decem means ‘ten’, but December isn’t the tenth month. Or is it? Well, it was once, in the original Roman… Read More

From hiraeth to washi: discover the latest words added to the Collins Dictionary

Language experts are in broad agreement that English has one of the richest vocabularies of any language. Speakers of English have about twice as many words at their disposal than speakers of Spanish or Chinese have. This abundance is due to the way English was born out of a collision… Read More

‘Hepatomegaly’ and ‘hydronephrosis’ are among the most frequently looked-up words in September

You can get a certain insight into human nature from analysing the words that people look up in dictionaries. There are some words that seem to be of perennial interest, so if you compare the list of words that were looked up most often in March with the words that… Read More

World Space Week

Today, 9 October, is the penultimate day of this year’s World Space Week, a UN event launched in 1999. Space Week falls at this calendar juncture because this first October week is bookended by two key dates. The fourth of October 1957 saw the launch of the Soviet… Read More

Scrabble™ Word Finder

An instant check for words allowed in Scrabble™. Includes Scrabble word definitions and scores. Collins is the only online Scrabble word checker to use the official tournament word list, including over a quarter of a million permissible words. It’s endorsed by Mattel and the World English-Language Scrabble™ Players’ Association. Read More

Scrabble™ Tools

Scrabble™ Software Downloads Based on Collins English Dictionary, Collins Official Scrabble™ Words 2021 is the most comprehensive Scrabble™ word list ever, including World English from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, and USA brought together in a single list. With more than 279,000 permissible words, including inflected forms, this is a must… Read More

Scrabble™ Help

Collins is the Official Scrabble™ publisher, with over 279,000 playable words, Collins Scrabble™ books are used across the globe to settle Scrabble™ squabbles at every level. Whether a tournament player, a Scrabble™ champion-in-training or just playing for fun, the Collins Scrabble™ range caters for players’ needs. Discover the full range… Read More

From moonshoot to balconing: discover the latest words added to the Collins Dictionary

The online version of the Collins Dictionary has just been updated again, with another batch of new words and meanings inspired by the events of the summer. Perhaps the most newsworthy word of the past month was moonshot, which hit the headlines thanks to Boris Johnson using it in… Read More