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noun the quality of being full of words

Lexyness

A reading guide to English words

Every word has a story worth looking up

1. Where words come from. 2. How they play. 3. How to use them well.

Lexyness is a slow, friendly guide to the English vocabulary: origins, wordplay and usage, written for curious readers rather than examiners.

Start with Word Origins
An open dictionary on a plum velvet desk with a brass magnifying glass, a fountain pen, wooden type blocks and pink sweet peas
Look closer: most of the fun is in the small print.

Three ways in

Pick a door into the dictionary

A wooden printer’s type case filled with metal letter blocks i.Word Origins Latin roots, borrowed words, words named after people, and words that changed their meaning. A newspaper crossword with a pencil and a cup of tea ii.Wordplay Palindromes, anagrams, pangrams, spoonerisms and the misheard lyrics called mondegreens. A handwritten index card with a fountain pen resting on it iii.Usage Notes Fewer or less, affect or effect, singular “they” and the rules that were never really rules.

Then and now

Six words that used to mean something else

Tap a card to turn it over and see where the word started.

A stack of cloth-bound hardback books in plum, rose and gold

How English grew

A language built from borrowed bricks

English began as the speech of Germanic settlers in Britain, then took in Norse words from the Vikings, a huge layer of French after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and Latin and Greek during the Renaissance. Trade and empire added words from almost everywhere.

  1. Old English house, bread, water, love
  2. Old Norse sky, egg, window, they
  3. French beef, court, justice, river
  4. Latin & Greek educate, telephone, theory
  5. Everywhere else shampoo, tea, ketchup, kangaroo

A minute of wordplay

Same letters, different words

Palindrome

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

Reads the same backwards, ignoring spaces and punctuation.

Anagram

listen → silent

The same letters rearranged into a new word.

Pangram

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

Uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.

More in Wordplay

Questions readers ask

Quick answers

Short versions. The Usage Notes go into more detail.

Is it wrong to end a sentence with a preposition?

No. The “rule” was borrowed from Latin grammar by writers in the 17th and 18th centuries and has never matched how English works. “What are you looking at?” is perfectly good English.

Can “they” refer to one person?

Yes. Singular “they” has been used in English since at least the 14th century, and most modern style guides accept it.

Is “irregardless” a word?

It is in dictionaries, which record words people use, but it is labelled nonstandard. Use “regardless” in formal writing.

Where do new words come from?

Mostly from blending (brunch, smog), shortening (flu, phone), borrowing from other languages, turning names into words, and giving old words new jobs.

Which dictionary is right?

Dictionaries describe how words are used, so they can differ. For formal writing, pick one and use it consistently.

A plum armchair beside tall bookshelves at dusk, lit by a brass reading lamp, with an open book on the arm

One more word before bed

Pick any section and follow a word back to where it began.

Read the Usage Notes