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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · 2d

In Halloween season 2025, is it acceptable to speak of "spooks" and "spooky?" Don't ask us; we live in the past. But those words have twisty history:

www.etymonline.com/columns/post...

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · 16d

Today's Etymonline weather report and daily Jumble clues.

etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · 29d

"And the fire and the rose are one." Cut 5 and 8 and it flows top to end like a sermon heard from a distant room.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Sep 11

Today's etymonline weather forecast and Emily Dickinson rough draft. Feels more cheerful than usual. "Hello, enigma!" "Good morning, Science!" Do you like this hat? No.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Sep 5

Hot off the press and educational as all:

but she is!

www.etymonline.com/columns/post...

The Shadow

www.etymonline.com/columns/post...

underpants

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Cinderella Undercover

The imposition of modern senses onto an old word for shock value.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Sep 3

Today's etymonline weather forecast and aria libretto. It opens mundane but comes to life midway. "Gauze philosophy." "Holy resilience!" Then the villain-name du jour, "Histamine Rigmarole."

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 27

thanks for the tip. Numbers are endless fun to sift and stack. Sometimes, very occasionally, you can stack them in ways that catch a glimpse of insight into the past. But they are deadly because the internet thinks everything is reducible to code. It is not. The important things are not.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 22

Today's Etymonline Weather Forecast and Poetry Slam Stage Name Generator (dibs on Resilient Doughnut)

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 20

Today's Etymonline Weather Report and Wierdle Answers

[must have been a quiz out there somewhere yesterday, involving place names in "-mouth." As for the rest of it, there's a "trending" trend for the last five or six words on the list to form a subplot of their own, occasionally whimsical].

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 19

www.patreon.com/posts/cousin...

English and French get along like step-sisters raised together. English and German are twins separated at birth.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 16

Today's Etymological Weather Report and Bridge Hand

The top two cards offer devilish clever twists in the forked senses of "assumption."

From about no. 5 to the end they begin to draw pairs. "Nice morning. Spooky culture. Gossip. Memoir." A casual chat or a life story in six words?

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 13

lol, of course there will be two American calendars. The parody writes itself.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 13

sssh! it only gives them notions.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 13

heh. or Trumpuary (that 'yoo' face). But the shortest month? He'd slap that back.

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Aug 2

Keep it under your hat that Roman emperors also got whole months renamed after themselves. Once word is out that branding the calendar is the badge of a mighty ruler, brace yourself for Dontober.

www.etymonline.com/word/august

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etymonline @etymonline.bsky.social · Jul 31

Today's etymonline "trending words" weather report-slash-band-name-generator. Better jump on "Nifty Kamchatka" before it's taken. Sage advice at 4.-5. Current Events from 6. to the end, Punctuate at will, Gridley: