Check out all my Words of the Day posts HERE. Etymologies (thanks to Clare’s questions): lexicon – Lexicon comes from the Greek word lexis, which means… word. Lexus – Lexus (like the car) is the short form of Alexus, which is a variant of the name Alexis. Alexis comes from G[...]
Archive for the ‘vocabulary’ Category
September 10th, 2009 - 1:42 pm § in lexicon, vocabulary
How Many Words Do You Know?
How many words (lexemes) do you think the average person knows? How many lexemes are there in the entire English language? Neither of these questions have a real answer. An individual’s lexicon (the number of words he knows) will vary considerably depending on his career(s), hobbies, reading h[...]
Words of the Day (9/4)
Check out all my Words of the Day posts HERE. Note: OE = Old English; ME = Middle English; MnE = Modern English. Here are two etymologies that I find interesting. They come from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. silly – This comes from the OE word sælig – ‘happy&[...]
Words of the day
Every Friday I’m going to post about the etymology (origins) of a few choice words or phrases. “for ever and a day” – meaning indefinitely. This comes from Shakespeare. He used it in two of his plays…1. The Taming of the Shrew (1596): BIONDELLO: I cannot tell; expect th[...]