A Latin word for “cleverness” or “skillfulness,” facetiae came to be used to refer to a collection of witty sayings in 16th-century English. But things took a turn for the worse in Victorian slang, ...

The French for “going-and-coming” was borrowed into English during the First World War to describe a to-ing and fro-ing, chopping-and-changing movement or pattern, or a bandying, back-and-forth ...

English is full of words that sound alike, look alike, or seem so familiar that we stop questioning how we use them. But even ...