Finds
- moth-wing Fragile or fleeting — and a noun for the thing itself
- stickybeak Nose becomes beak, and the word gets better
- dogleg Named for the angle in a dog's hind leg
- Chumocracy Rule by the people you already know
- Obganiate To annoy someone by saying the same thing again. And again.
- Solivagant A word for wandering alone, in writing since 1621
- gangway A word that says "way" twice
- concomitance A word that arrives accompanied by its own companion
- hapchance Luck luck — English decided one word for good fortune wasn't enough
- circumambient A word that goes around, and then goes around again
- Pismire The word for an ant, from urine and mire
- Mordant The word for a cutting remark is also the chemical that bites into the plate
- Skirr The searching and the sound the searching makes
- Rapture To seize, and to be seized
- Assart One word for the field and for the clearing of it
- dowfart The rudest-looking word that isn't
- Don't just do something. Sit there. Widely credited to Thich Nhat Hanh; first found in 1954, as orders written for men stationed alone on radar platforms at sea.
- Crotchet The etymological twin of crochet, and no relation to the word you're hearing
- Disannul A prefix that agrees with itself instead of reversing
- European Country Names Explained One of them means land of the rabbits
- Withsay The 'with' in it means against
- Etymologue Word origins you can walk forwards as well as back
- Misdoubt A prefix that reinforces instead of reversing
- Antipelargy A word for the care children return to their parents
- Bellwether The sheep that named the trend
- Expiscate To fish out — the verb for finding something by patient investigation
- Ettercap The Old English word for spider, still the best insult for a gossip
- Auspicate To begin an undertaking is, etymologically, to birdwatch first
- Gamy Six unrelated senses, one word — and no relation to '-gamy'
- Noodle One spelling, three unrelated word histories
- Cucumbers Were Once Called 'Cowcumbers' An archaic English name for cucumbers, still used in some 18th-century texts
- Smithfield match A 1703 phrase for marriage of convenience, from a London livestock market
- Rake's progress A 1733 Hogarth series became a phrase for decline by folly
- Pythagoras on the Philosopher at the Olympics Where the word 'philosopher' actually came from
- Silphium and the Origin of the Heart Symbol The plant that gave us ❤ — and is being un-extincted