"Ghost" is a pretty old word. "Ghoul," as an English word, not so much.Door The Grammar Geek

The names of "October" and a few other months make a lot more sense if we look at Latin and the Roman calendar.Door The Grammar Geek

The everyday meaning of "sympathy" has shifted over the years, but it's always had some connection to its Latin and Greek roots.Door The Grammar Geek

Before it entered everyday English, "hysterical" was medical Latin.Door The Grammar Geek

Do you say "autumn" or "fall" to describe the season between summer and winter? Get the lowdown on the history of both words.Door The Grammar Geek

"Dead" and "duck" go way back, but the term "dead duck" is only a couple of centuries old.Door The Grammar Geek

The often miswritten and mispronounced "landlubber" goes back a few centuries.Door The Grammar Geek

"Nice" has had at least a dozen definitions over the last few centuries.Door The Grammar Geek

The Modern English "peruse" came from the Middle English "peruse" . . . or maybe it came from French.Door The Grammar Geek

With Labor Day approaching, let's look at "factory" and "manufacturing." They were both borrowed from Latin.Door The Grammar Geek

"Escalate" is fairly new word, and the current definition has been around since just the 1950s.Door The Grammar Geek

"Put up your dukes," which has been around since at least the 1800s, is one example of Cockney rhyming slang.Door The Grammar Geek

The transition from "ekename" to "nickname" is a fine demonstration of the transition from Middle English to Modern English.Door The Grammar Geek

"Posh," as it is used today, first appeared in print a little more than a century ago. But where did it come from?Door The Grammar Geek

It took several languages to bring "karaoke" to English in the 1970s.Door The Grammar Geek

"Honey" and "moon" are very old. "Honeymoon" is relatively new, meaning it's a mere 500 years old.Door The Grammar Geek

"Aioli" comes from French, as do the words for many prepared foods.Door The Grammar Geek

"Mascara" is linked to many words from many languages, many of which go back centuries before commercially available mascara hit store shelves.Door The Grammar Geek

The word "liar" goes way back. As it turns out, people have been lying for a long time.Door The Grammar Geek

"Salary" is related to something in your kitchen, and it's not celery.Door The Grammar Geek

Like a lot of food-related words, "omelet" comes from French. Its origin has nothing to do with eggs.Door The Grammar Geek

"Humble" came from French, which took it from Latin. It's always meant "lowly," although that's not how people use it today.Door The Grammar Geek

A lavaliere is a fancy pendant. It's also a type of microphone. To find the origin, we go back to 17th-century France.Door The Grammar Geek

"Memorial" comes from Latin and is related to a slew of other English words, including "remember" and "memorandum."Door The Grammar Geek

"Waxing," "waning," "crescent" and "gibbous" go back a long, long time.Door The Grammar Geek

"Whiskey" has been through some changes in its journey to English from (no surprise) Gaelic.Door The Grammar Geek

May 1 is May Day (two words) in the United States. Don't confuse it with "mayday" (one word), the distress call for pilots.Door The Grammar Geek

The often misused "verbiage" has been around for a few centuries, and its corrupt offspring, "verbage," is older than you might think.Door The Grammar Geek

"Easter" goes back to Old English and then goes back further. Celebrations of spring are older than Jesus.Door The Grammar Geek

"Rhythm" and "rhyme" are related words, both in meaning and etymology.Door The Grammar Geek

"Stay" and "home" and "parent" are old words, going back centuries. Words to describe someone who tends to the home and children are also very old. English speakers began using the term "stay-at-home parent" very recently.Door The Grammar Geek

"Leverage" has been in the English language since the 18th century, but its position in everyday corporate speak is fairly recent.Door The Grammar Geek

Tea has been around for thousands of years, but English speakers didn't need a word for it until they started trading it in the 1590s.Door The Grammar Geek

"Butt" and "cheek" have been around for centuries. It took a while for English speakers to put them together.Door The Grammar Geek

"Ambulance" has been an English word since the 18th century, before motor vehicles, and is related to the word "amble."Door The Grammar Geek

"Selfie" is a fairly new word, but its root word and suffix are centuries old. Some people don't like "selfie," but resistance is futile.Door The Grammar Geek

By tracing "hiatus," meaning a break, back to its ancient Proto-Indo European roots, we find it has some modern cousins with similar meanings but very different sounds.Door The Grammar Geek

"Penultimate" and its cousin, "ultimate," both come from Latin. As the meaning of "ultimate" shifts, poor "penultimate" is being left behind.Door The Grammar Geek

The current popular meaning of "carnival" goes back to the 1920s, but the original meaning, which involves meat, goes back centuries.Door The Grammar Geek

We've been using the word "buck" as slang for money since the 1850s. There are two theories to explain why.Door The Grammar Geek

The slang term "booze" goes back many years as a noun and many more years as a verb. And what's a boozeroo?Door The Grammar Geek

The proper noun "Lent" evolved from a series of longer words ultimately related to spring.Door The Grammar Geek

On Valentine's day, you might send a valentine to your valentine. All of those uses share the same origin.Door The Grammar Geek

"Complicit" is Dictionary.com's 2017 Word of the Year. It's less than a century old, but the original "complicity" is much older.Door The Grammar Geek

Which came first, "OK" or "okay"? And what does Martin Van Buren have to do with it?Door The Grammar Geek

The American Dialect Society named "fake news" its 2017 Word of the Year. The term has been around for a while, but the past few years, it seems to be everywhere.Door The Grammar Geek

"Unkempt," which means "sloppy or disheveled," goes back centuries. It's not the same as "unkept."Door The Grammar Geek