The OED’s unique resources can bring these words to light, and show that even everyday words can have amazing histories. Very often the most interesting words are those which seem all too familiar and which we may take for granted words with long lives, whose meanings have changed over the years, have the power to surprise. Indeed, quite often such words have little beyond their immediate novelty to recommend them their very obscurity can limit their power to do more than simply divert or amuse. Our word of the day will regularly reveal something you never knew before.īut it is the OED’s aim to do more than simply provide novelty in the form of obscure offerings since, as a historical dictionary, the OED has so much more to offer than just weird words. One day the highlighted entry could be an old Cornish word for a coastal cave ( zawn), and the next a modern cricketing term taken from Hindi ( doosra).

With hundreds of thousands of entries available on OED Online and many more being added every three months, there is the most diverse range to choose from. The OED is singularly well-suited to this. Of all the reasons to subscribe to a word of the day service, the most obvious is, perhaps, a desire to learn new words, particularly unusual or amusing ones that could add spice to a vocabulary. The hope is that readers will learn something from each one: even apparently prosaic words can be revealed to have hidden depths. It can also work as an introduction to the OED for those who have not had the opportunity to learn about it before, or can be a daily reminder of its worth for those who have already learned to love it.Įach word is carefully selected for a particular reason, whether it has an interesting etymology, a long and fascinating history, or sometimes simply the quality of being novel and amusing. The OED displays the richness of the English language in a way no other dictionary can, which makes the word of the day a wonderful opportunity for anyone who is interested in English to discover some of its hidden treasures.

Interesting word of the day