Blah-blah-blah… 6 unusual words when you’re lost for words

The climate emergency continues to be an urgent challenge for the planet, with a whole wave of new words entering the dictionary to describe its impact and influence, from single-use and plogging to climate strike. Last week, Greta… Read More

Spanish word of the week: esperar

This week's Spanish word of the week is 'esperar'. 'Esperar' is an verb that means 'to wait, to wait for; to expect; to hope. Read More

Celebrate National Poetry Day

This year’s annual National Poetry Day, the thirty-eighth, falls on Thursday 7 October. National Poetry Day (NPD) was founded in 1994 by an arts charity – the Forward Arts Foundation – and has gone from strength to strength, boosting, inter alia, sales of poetry: the graph… Read More

Is the autumn equinox the start of a new season?

There are just a handful of astronomical events that non-specialists like me know of, and one of them will be upon us very soon: the autumn equinox. On 22 September 2021, day and night will be equal in length across the whole world. How so?… Read More

9 new words in Collins Dictionary

Here are 9 new words recently added to Collins English Dictionary online. There is a scientific bent to the latest update. Along with ‘haplogroup’, three types of ‘blot’ test – Southern, northern, and western – make an appearance. The differences in capitalization among these three are significant, as the Southern… Read More

Spanish word of the week: igual

This week’s Spanish word of the week is 'igual'. 'Igual' is an adjective that means 'the same'. Read More

Brush up on your Latin this Back to School

The UK Education Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, has recently decreed that as part of the government’s strategy to level up, funds will be devoted to a pilot study into… Read More

A little bird told me… 7 animal idioms

It’s new words time at Collins Dictionary and this month we see the addition of words like fingerling, net zero and emotional support animal. This month, there were a few animal-related additions, including the delightful animal idiom to… Read More

9 new words added to Collins Dictionary

Here are nine words recently added to Collins English Dictionary online. The words we use reflect the preoccupations of our time, and with the possibility of holidays and travel returning to the agenda, the dictionary welcomes ‘capsule hotel’, ‘tourist tax’, and the American informal shortening ‘vacay’ (from ‘vacation’). And, in… Read More