✨📕 The NEW Collegiate Dictionary, 12th Edition Over 5,000 words added — Learn More!
✨📕 The NEW Collegiate Dictionary — Learn More!
play video healthy vs healthful
Up Next
Title
CANCEL
video healthy vs healthful
Commonly Confused

Healthy vs. Healthful

Why both words are equally good for you.

Why both words are equally good for you.

Up next

play video healthy vs healthful
Healthy vs. Healthful

 

Why both words are equally good for you.

play video soup vs soop
An Abbreviated History of American English Spelling

 

Soop, wimmen, and headake did not make the cut

play emily-brewster-with-the-words-effect-affect-on-screen
How to Remember 'Affect' and 'Effect'

 

A simple way to keep them apart. (Most of the time.)

play serial comma
The Serial Comma Explained

 

Why don't they call it the Merriam-Webster comma?

play serenity carr next to an illustration of a refrigerator with the letter d in it
Why is there a 'd' in 'fridge' but not in 'refrigerator'?

 

Thawing one of the mysteries of English

play video cynic
The History of 'Cynic'

 

How an ancient philosophical movement devoted to the pursuit of virtue came to describe eye-rolling criticism.

play hot mess
Hot Mess

 

Our research turned up two archaic literal meanings

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
thank-you-different-languages
Dutch, Yiddish, Japanese, or Hindi? Quiz Guess the language these English words come from.
See All