International Mother Language Day: What does it mean to have a mother language?

21st Feb 2014

Today is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. To celebrate the power of language, we’ve asked three non-native English speakers to write about their experiences of having a mother language. Valerie, native French speaker ‘Ome Sweet ‘Ome “Where are you going on holiday?”“‘ome”… Read More

We’re off for a bit of wreckreation, followed by a bunny chow. Welcome to Lucy Mangan’s latest CollinsDictionary.com article!

18th Feb 2014

In the Venn diagram of life there is for some reason I leave it to sociologists, psychologists and other people better qualified than I to fathom, a substantial overlap between eco-sensibility and word nerdery. I mean, I recycle everything, haven’t turned the heating on yet, and look at the sentence… Read More

Happy Valentines Day! Here are some international terms of endearment for your beloved

14th Feb 2014

It’s Valentine’s Day! We hope you have a lovely day with, or find, your sweetheart! With the help of Collins language guru Paul Noble and Collins Dictionary consultants, we’ve put together this list of terms of endearment from other languages and cultures. So why not spice up your day by… Read More

Watch out, Lucy Mangan’s about! Read her take on the first batch of submitted words of the New Year!

4th Feb 2014

As the new year wears on, we will probably have less need of it but while the scent of resolution and self-denial still hangs dispiritingly in the air, you might be in need of dingcap’s submission to our first batch of new dictionary entrants for 2014, “… Read More

Lucy Mangan has put together her New Year resolutions!

17th Jan 2014

Hello again, and happy 2014 to you all! I am informed that under new EU legislation it is possible to make New Year resolutions at any time up to January 31st, so here are mine: 1. Design – or, in view of the fact that I draw with… Read More

CollinsDictionary.com ‘Word of the Year’ – the changing face of words

16th Dec 2013

Collins has chosen a shortlist of emerging words submitted by its users this year, including ‘twerking’ and ‘phablet’, to capture the essence of 2013, but decided to appoint the established word ‘geek’ as its ‘Word of the Year’ following overwhelming public support in September 2013 to change the main definition… Read More

Collins Word of the Year 2013 is…

12th Dec 2013

Hurrah! Christmas is nearly here. Time to unpack the box of word-baubles the year has given us, wind a few glittering strings of semantics round the tree, sit back and drink deeply of their twinkling delights. Time, in short, to introduce Collins’ words of the year; welcome to our window… Read More

Sleepers – how a word can suddenly find fame!

3rd Dec 2013

When we think about new words coming into the dictionary, we often assume that the gap between a word being invented and being added to the dictionary is relatively short. However, a couple of interesting words that were recently selected for the dictionary have taken a long time to find… Read More

To stem the tide of ‘parentnoia’, how about a nice ‘shelfie’?

20th Nov 2013

Well, it’s taken a while but it’s here at last! Christmas – for word nerds at least – has come. Someone (DouglasWinton7, to be exact) has finally submitted ‘floccinaucinihilipiliphication’ – the act, as I’m sure you hardly need me to tell you, or habit… Read More