Have you ever wondered where all the weird words in English come from? For example, when someone refers to the presence of small children as "hearing the pitter-patter of little feet" — where on earth ...

It's not just the quintessential corporate jargon word. "Synergy" goes back hundreds of years, with history in Christianity, ...

Otherwords is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio ...

While countries in northern Africa use different terms, in South Africa and surrounding areas, “dagga” is commonly used to describe cannabis. Dagga is the Afrikaans word for cannabis that became ...

Linguist Gareth Roberts joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about the etymologies of English words. How did the first languages first form? Was there once a single common language ...

Etymology is the study of the origins of words and how their usage has changed over time. It's every bit the serious academic discipline you might expect it to be — except when it's not. As it turns ...

The study of word origins (that is, etymology) is every bit the serious academic discipline you might expect it to be — except when it's not. As it turns out, people have a propensity to make false ...

We often hear fascinating stories about how things originated: the universe, the wheel, even pizza. But when it comes to the words we toss around every single day without a second thought, it’s wild ...