40 facts about words that will blow your mind

These words will change the way you display the English language.


The words are the constituent elements of the communication, but again, there is a lot that you do not know probably. Even some of themost words have surprising stories or hidden meanings. And at the same time, the English language is loaded withwords that perfectly describe things everydayBut the chances are that you do not use them because you did not even know they existed. It is, of course, so far. Here are 40 facts of wild words that will add from the flavor to your future conversations and perhaps even help lead your team to victory on your next night Trivia.

1
A sign of the infinite is called a "lemniscate. »

Infinity symbol on a graph in a math question
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The term refers to a plan curve in which two loops meet at a central point, creating what might be called an eight on the side. AsMerriam Webster explains, it is derived fromThe Latin word For "with hanging ribbons. »

2
The longest English word is almost 190000 letters.

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This would be the chemical name of Titin, the largest known protein. It starts, "methionyl threonyl threonyl glutaminyl alanyl prolyl threonyl phenyl alanyl threonyl glutaminyl prolyl leucyl glutaminyl seryl valyl valyl valyl leucyl glutamyl glycyl seryl threonyl alanyl threonyl phenyl alanyl glutamyl alanyl-histidyl isoleucyl, seryl glycyl-phenyl alanyl-prolyl valyl prolyl valyl glutamyl seryl tryptophyl phenyl alanyl arginyl aspartyl Glycyl Glutaminyl Valyl Isolecyl Herryl Threonyl Threonyl Leucyl Pro "and continues for tens of thousands of letters. (You can read everything youhere and hear it pronouncehere.)

3
The longest word found in a major dictionary is 45 letters.

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The word, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, technically refers to a type of pulmonary disease caused by silica dust. But according tolexicoHe was actually invented in the 1930s byEverett Mr. Smith, The president of the National League Puzzlers, for the express purpose of becoming the longest word in the English language, so it is a bit of a cheater.

4
The word "bankruptcy" comes from the Italian term for "broken bench. »

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According toOnline Eymology DictionaryThe word "bankruptcy" was born from an Italian phrase that refers literally to break something and not just the bank. This Italian phrase isBanca Rotta, Which means "broken bench", and it refers to an old custom that involved breaking literally the bench of the money merchants who missed funds.

5
There is a word for all the breakfast things.

Breakfast in Bed
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Pancakes, corn flakes, coffee, orange juice, they are all "jentular, "Or" about breakfast. »Impress your friends the next time you are brunch by declaring:" These scrambled eggs are a great Jentular dish! »

6
The word "heroin" used to be a registered trademark.

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At the end of the 19th century, the Bayer pharmaceutical company published a revolutionary over-the-counter drug that could have all the help of the throat of tuberculosis pain. This medicine was heroin. His name comes from the word GermanHeroish For "powerful", which is appropriate, given the power of the addictive substance is. For a while, Bayer hadtrademark at heroin, but in 1919, they lost these rights in the Treaty of Versailles according to theBBC.

7
A single piece of confetti is called "confetto. »

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Of course, the plural "confetti" is the most commonly used word, but you can use the singular "confettoTo designate each piece of color paper.

8
"School Master" is an "class" anagram.

better parent over 40
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Think about cooling? Here are some other impressive:

Western Union = No single wire
Clint Eastwood = Old West Action
astronomers = Moon starters

9
"Walrus" can literally mean "whaling horse. »

Walrus
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Where does the name "Morses" come from? Well,Oxford University Press's blog,Podictionary hostCharles Hodgson note that he is derived from the old English wordHorschwael, Which literally means "horse whale. Hodgson theorize that this word was finally reversed to createWaelhorsch, And later, the same consonance "morses. »

10
"Penguin" means "white head. »

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According toMerriam Webster, The name of this goodbye bird comes from Welsh words for "head" (pen) and white" (Gwyn) She referred to the origin of the big penguin bird today disappeared, but finally been applied to these adorable creatures of the living Arctic, even if their heads are usually black and their white belly.

11
"Adultery" and "adult" do not share original.

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It seems that these two words would share a common ancestor, but in fact they grow from two completely different roots. While "adultComes from the Latin verbteens, or "Growing," the word "adultery"Greater Latin Wordadulterare, which means "commit adultery" or "corrupt".

12
The longest words without vowels are "crwth" and "cwch".

crwth instrument
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Believe it or not, there are two letters of five lettersWords in English which contain zero vowels: "crwth" and "cwch". According toCollins English DictionaryThese two words are Welsh and this language treats the letter "W" as a vowel.

13
There is a word to refer to yesterday's watch.

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When it's Thursday and you try to remind someone from something that happened on Tuesday, you usually go with the phrase clunky "yesterday's watch." But guess what? There is a word a word to say that "nutriustertien. "Of course, given the time it will take you to explain to your friends what the word means means it might be easier to say" yesterday's watch ".

14
The word "ambulance" refers to the march.

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According toOnline etymology dictionary, the word "ambulance" is rooted in the word Latinambulare, which means "walking". It might seem against intuitive - you do not need an ambulance when younot Walking to get an emergency help? -But theword initially refers to Contracts called "walking hospitals".

AsMedicalenet Explains, in the 19th century,Napoleon came with the idea of ​​recovering wounded soldiers on a cart and running them at night. The mobile unit used to transport soldiers has been called aambulant hospital, or a "walking hospital".

15
"Funk" is from an Elizabethaine England.

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George Clinton Perhaps the godfather of Funk (music), but the floor was before. According toHubbubIt is native to the 16th century Europe to describe the unpleasant smell or muse of omnipresent tobacco at the time. He probably grew up from the old French wordfunkier, which means "blowing the smoke."

16
"Bogus" was once a name.

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Although we generally thought of "false" as an adjective describing something wrong, the word really started as a name of a type of machine. AsMerriam Webster Notes, a "false" was a machine that would produce counterfeit pieces. Over time, the word has come to be used as a stenography for "counterfeit" itself.

17
There is a sentence that describes the opposite of already seen.

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We all know the concept ofalready seen: The feeling we have experienced something before, even if it's the first time we are experimenting with it. But what aboutNever seen? It's theFrench term For the exact opposite phenomenon, in which something familiar looks like abroad. Translate in "never seen", it is a phenomenon that can be caused by medical problems likeepilepsy.

18
The word "Bellwether" comes from sheep farming.

Sheep in Vineyard
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When someone or something is a leader and innovator in their respective domains, they are like a sheep who runs the pack. At least, that's what the person who used the word "Bellwether" to describe a leader was trying to say.

Centuries ago, it was common that shepherds hang bells around the "lead sheep" in their flock, that they called the "you are guessed" "Bellwether." According toMerriam Webster, the word started to be used to describe a trendset in the 13th century.

19
One word in English contains the letters "X", "Y" and "Z" in order.

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It would be "hydroxyzine, "and it refers to amedicine type This helps to sneeze and anxiety.

20
The word "pandemonium" was invented as the name of the capital of hell.

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In his epic poemlost paradise,John Milton invented the word "Chaos"As the name of the capital of the underground world.Timer The Greek words for "all" and "little mind / demon", "the term is just about something like" place for all demons ". When we use the word today, it usually refers to a kind Chaos, but Milton invented the word to describe a really unpleasant place.

21
"Algorithm" originally refers to a specific system system.

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The word "algorithm" actually goes back to the 9th century. According toNasait is derived from the Latin of the name of the Persian mathematicianMuhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, one of the founding fathers of algebra. ThisInitially mentioned "The Arabic numbers' system", but over time, the term grew up to generally describe a set of rules for making calculations.

22
"Quarantine" literally means "40 days".

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As theOnline etymology dictionary Notes, the word "quarantine" comes from Italian wordsQuarantine Giorni, which literally translate into "space of 40 days". Why? In the fourteenth century, it's the way long vessels were kept in isolation - or quarantined - when they could potentially wear sick passengers.

23
There are two words of 15 letters that repeat no letter.

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According toLexiconThey are "non-criteria" - not very important that can not be protected by copyright - and "dermatoglyphs" - the study of the brands of the skin. These two words are linked as the longest English words that do not repeat a letter.

24
"Apron" started starting with the letter "N" "

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"Apron"Back to the Latin wordmappa For serving, become "Napron" in the 14th century. But over time, through a process called "malignancy" Where "rebracketing"The phrase" a napron "has become" an apron ", eliminating the" n "and give us the spelling we know today.

25
"The nickname" has not always started with a "n".

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"Nickname" is another classic misdivision case. According toOnline etymology dictionaryIt was originally "ekename", but in the middle of the 15th century, it became somehow "Name Neke". The "eke" comes from the old English wordEAATo "increase"-that makes sense when one considers that a nickname is aAdditional Name.

26
There is a word to describe the first person you see after leaving the house.

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When you go out of the house and run in your neighbor, do not hesitate to call them a "qualitating. "Although it can look like an insult, it really refers to the first person you see after leaving your home. Alternatively, it can refer to the first person who enters your home after the New Year.

27
A word with two opposite meanings is called a "contrame".

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A "control"Is it a word with two opposite and seemingly contradictory meanings. Examples of contrames are" cleavage "(which can describe both the act of dividing something and an object adhering to a surface) and" sanction "(which Can describe both a punishment to disobscure the law and permission to do something).

28
The English word with most of the meanings is "defined".

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According toGUINNESS WORLD RECORDS, this verb - and sometimes the name - has the best way of any English word, with 430 listed in the second edition of the English Oxford dictionary. It also has the longest dictionary entry to 60,000 words!

29
The word "haltbell" has nothing to do with intelligence.

Pink Dumbbells
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This is a question that most people have at some point while working: why are dumbbells called "dumbbells"? Well, like Hodgson explains on theOxford University Press Blog, the word "dumbbell" comes from the fact that the exercise equipment was originally made by attaching silent metal bells to the rope. You see, before the word "mute" meant "stupid", it meant "unable to speak".

30
Samuel Johnson had an interesting definition for "lunch".

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Samuel Johnson, Celebrated writer and pioneer of the English dictionary, was also famous for his appetite. And some of the reason he grew up to be such a great guy may have had to do with the way he saw meals.Its definition From "lunch" had nothing to do with the time of day, but the amount of food consumed - precisely, "as much food as his hand can hold".

31
He also had a particular definition for "lizard".

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Not one to use a lot of technical jargon for something that could be described in simpler terms,Johnson called these reptiles "An animal looks like a snake, with legs added to it."

32
"Alligator" raised Spanish wordsEl Lagarto.

Alligator
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Back in the day, the Spaniards mentioned what we now know like an alligator likeEl Lagarto. Translate to "The Lizard", the sentence was blurred together with time with repetition, finally becoming a vaguely Spanish-probing word:alligator.

33
"Goodbye" is derived from the phrase "God be with you".

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"Goodbye" has surprisingly religious origins. TheOnline etymology dictionary Explains that this goodbye Common comes from the English term of the 16th century "Godbwye", which is stenographic for "God be with you".

34
"TL; DR" is an official word in the dictionary.

Woman reading and flipping through the dictionary, common word origins
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Merriam Webster addedacronym "Too long, did not read"to his dictionary in 2018.

35
So, it's "lol."

asian mother and daughter looking at a phone screen together, laughing in a cafe
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It wasAdded in 2011, with "Fyi" and "OMG".

36
One of the first references to baseball was in a book Jane Austen.

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We could not think ofJane Austen As a pioneer of sporting coverage, but it turns out that the author celebrated wasone of the first writers to use the word "Baseball" in their work. His new novelNortanger Abbey, Published in 1817 after his death, includes mentioning one of the first written words in the introduction of heroin Catherine Morland. "It was not wonderful that Catherine, who is nothing heroic, should prefer cricket, baseball, horseback, and run the country at the age of fourteen, books," the novel reads as follows.

37
"E" is the most commonly used letter in the English language.

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At least, it was in 1995, the case whereAn analysis of the entries In the concise Oxford Dictionary found that 11.1607 percent of the letters in the entrances were the letter "E" The second most common letter was "A", the accounting of 8,4966 per cent of all the letters. The letter "Q" represents the smallest percentage only 0,1962 percent of all letters.

38
The "cobalt" element has been named after Gobelins.

Miner working in the mines common cancer causes
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German minors who have encountered cobalt are not fans of the metal element. As a scientific writerSusan Watt written inCobaltThey used to meet him trying to extract money, and they would say that the wicked and goblin spirits were the cause "of toxic problems and fumes. As such, when the metal was discovered in 1739 byGeorg BrandtHe was named "Kobold", which is the German word for "goblin".

39
"Ammonia" is the name of an Egyptian God.

Statues of Egyptian gods Amun
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A word of chemistry with mythological roots is the "ammonia" gas, which refers to the Egyptian god amon, or "ammon" in Greek.Merriam Webster Explain that he was near his temple at Oasis Siwa that the colorless compound was found at the end of the 18th century.

40
There is a word for the plastic coating at the end of a shoe lace.

man putting on converse shoes while wearing a suit
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He is called "aglet, "And comes from the French word for" needle "(agubillette)

Extra Reporting from Morgan Greenwald


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