Regex Dictionary - for those times when you want a web-based dictionary you can search with regular expressions.
posted by Wolfdog on Dec 21, 2009 - 31 comments

Tip of My Tongue: Find that word you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember.
posted by Miko on Jun 27, 2009 - 26 comments

The 50 words that generate the most click-throughs to the dictionary from the New York Times. The Nieman Journalism Lab reveals the words that sent NYT readers running to the Merriam-Webster. Key fact: Maureen Dowd is overly fond of the word "louche." If the post is TL;DR for you, here's the list in Wordle.
posted by escabeche on Jun 15, 2009 - 132 comments

Save the Words. Do lost words still have meaning? Just because society has neglected them doesn't make them any less of a word. How do you get lost words back in the dictionary? With lexicographers scanning publications and other communication for words not currently housed in the dictionary, all you need do is use your adopted words as often as possible. Go, Adopt a Word. Like graocracy.* * - government by an old woman or women. [more inside]
posted by Tufa on Jan 29, 2009 - 37 comments

The Photographic Dictionary defines words through the personal meaning found in each picture. M is for mask, E is for ephemeral, T is for twin, A if for alone.
posted by netbros on Nov 27, 2008 - 5 comments

Ever wonder what a quocker-wodger was? Just what did they mean when they said that you were all kippers and curtains? Worldwidewords.org has the answer. "More than 1600 pages on the origins, history, evolution and idiosyncrasies of the English language worldwide." Word geeks, say goodbye to the rest of your afternoon.
posted by freshwater_pr0n on Oct 20, 2008 - 17 comments

Wordchamp lets you view foreign-language web pages with definitions in your language as mouseovers (registration-only). [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 5, 2008 - 10 comments

The Dictionary of Coming to Terms with the Past (Wörterbuch der 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung') examines over 1,000 German words that have Nazi connotations, such as Endlösung (Final Solution) and Selektion, It is featured in a review by der Spiegel. Such loaded words still constitute a minefield for Germans today, as the Archbishop of Cologne discovered last year in a situation analogized to Senator Biden's use of the term "articulate" when referring to Senator Obama. [more inside]
posted by Rumple on Feb 17, 2008 - 49 comments

Visuwords - an online graphical dictionary that uses Princeton's WordNet. Input a word and watch the branching associations.
posted by Burhanistan on Apr 25, 2007 - 20 comments

Wikiwords is a collaborative project to create a dictionary of all terms in all languages.
posted by anjamu on Aug 11, 2006 - 18 comments

Were you a minger, sporting a mullet, looking a bit naff when you were getting mullered while out on the pull, anytime before 1988? Or were you posh and minted, looking snazzy after spending your dosh to get a nip and tuck before 1980? If so, the Oxford English Dictionary and the BBC need you for their Wordhunt – a call to help find the earliest verifiable usages of a list of words from the past decades whose origin is still uncertain.
posted by funambulist on Jan 9, 2006 - 28 comments

Grandiloquent Dictionary For all the logophiles. Not intended for those afflicted with ultracrepidarianism or logorrhea.
posted by caddis on Jan 9, 2006 - 23 comments

Merrian-Webster open dictionary "Have you spotted a new word or a new sense for an old word that hasn't made it into the dictionary yet? Well, here's your chance to add your discovery (and its definition) to Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary"
posted by robbyrobs on Dec 11, 2005 - 22 comments

If you don't like dictionary posts, look away, NOW!
But if you like to play with words, the dictionarians at Merriam-Webster have announced the winners in their poll for the Ten Favorite Words for 2004:
defenestration, serendipity, onomatopoeia, discombobulate, plethora, callipygian, juxtapose, persnickety, kerfuffle and flibbertigibbet
Also, a list of runners-up with more of my personal faves: oxymoron, copacetic, curmudgeon, conundrum, euphemism, superfluous, and of course, Smock! Smock! Smock!
[more inside] Via vidiot.
posted by wendell on Jun 12, 2004 - 41 comments

Give me a Glasgow kiss! The OED's newest English words. Glasgow kiss, n. [ Glasgow, the name of a city in west central Scotland + KISS n., in humorous allusion to the reputation for violence accorded to some parts of the city. Cf. earlier Liverpool kiss s.v. LIVERPOOL n.] A head-butt.
posted by mfoight on Jun 10, 2004 - 19 comments

The Wingnut Debate Dictionary - spice up your political screeds with some colorful new terms like Colmestrato (n.) - an emasculated, harmless "liberal" stand-in included for purposes of fairness and balance and Condiment - a statement that needs to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. I am so adding Deus ex rectum and Stepford Democrat to my vocabulary. And how is it that fucksimilie hasn't found it's way here long before now?
This is a game that MeFi wags of all political persuasions can play...anyone have any terms to add to the lexicon? (compiled by Ethel the Blog)
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 7, 2003 - 25 comments

The Encyclopedia of Cajun Culture features everything from Acadiana to Zydeco. Two of the more interesting entries I've found are the Un-Cajun Committee and the unknown to me genre of Swamp Pop
posted by Ufez Jones on Sep 4, 2003 - 15 comments

The Compendium of Lost Words
posted by ttrendel on Sep 3, 2003 - 9 comments

Compendium of lost words You may have been wondering what "triclavianism" means. You may have been disappointed when dictionary.com couldn't help. Look no further.
posted by adamrice on Aug 16, 2003 - 19 comments

The Online Etymology Dictionary. I'll be spending most of my day here.
posted by Ufez Jones on Jul 18, 2003 - 18 comments

Dungeons and Dragons, bigorexia, arse-licker, bass-ackward... The online OED (Oxford English Dictionary) quarterly adds a host of new words to the canon of what has become the standard dictionary of the english language(s). Some of the new and spicey words are: arsehole, arseholed, arse-lick,arse-licker, ass-backward, ass-backwards, bass-ackward, bass-ackwards, dragon lady, Dungeons and Dragons, telenovela, and transgenderist!! Thank the gods of language for these new words! So what is you favorite new word and why?
posted by mfoight on Mar 17, 2003 - 26 comments

Worthless Word for the Day. Ever feel as if an "obscure, abstruse and/or recondite word" was forced into a newspaper/magazine/quote? Now there's a site that finally finds and provides wwftd! Impress your friends.
posted by geoff. on Oct 21, 2002 - 13 comments

Taticular Nucyoular Weapons Dubya mispronounced the word "nuclear" "\nu"cle*ar\" in his speech 17 times this evening (take your own tally here). Wait. That's not a simple mispronunciation. It's a "folk etymology." Thanks, Ike. (Thanks, Homer.) Thanks also to Merriam-Webster. Apparently, this scourge of English is in the dictionary.
posted by NedKoppel on Oct 7, 2002 - 105 comments

Jedi (n) and Klingon (n) will now be listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. As will Ass-Backward. Given MetaFilter's interest in grammar this seems worth noting. How the editors decided that "Jedi" is worth inclusion but "Stormtrooper" is not is a conversation I would have loved to have heard. Naturally, people complaining about such inclusions ain't new. However, when words are removed from the same dictionary it's hardly noticed. Clearly unused words go away, so why do people make a stink about this year after year? Slow news cycles? Or is it an extension of the Prescriptivist - Descriptivist Argument with the Prescripts making a push for the "hearts and minds" of the public?
posted by herc on Sep 26, 2002 - 35 comments

Logophilia Heard any good words lately? Emo, tribal marketing, google bombing, adultescent, go commando, alpha girl, hand salsa, shoegaze, alcopop, suicide magnet.
posted by andrewzipp on Jul 9, 2002 - 24 comments

While trying to write some silly poetry, I found this good resource for finding all things "rhymes". Glad I found a counterpart to my French Dictionnaire de Rimes.
I love words sites.
posted by XiBe on Nov 10, 2001 - 7 comments

Uber-dictionary! If you're a student and get your access through a university, there's a fairly good chance the university subscribes to the Oxford English Dictionary online. Which means you get the OED too! regardless, it's 100x the dictionary m-w is.
posted by clockwork on Oct 18, 2001 - 23 comments

Not that this link is of any importance. I just wanted to recognize Schadenfreude as "Word of the Day" today at merriam-webster.com.
posted by 120degrees on Jun 26, 2001 - 11 comments