Trivia fast facts about words
The origin and meaning and other interesting fast facts about words.
You would have to count to one thousand to use the letter “A” in the English language to spell a whole number.
The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
“Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
“Rhythms” is the longest English word without a vowel.
“Stewardesses” is the longest English word that can be typed on a keyboard with only the left hand.
The seven-letter word “therein” contains 10 words without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, here, ere, therein, herein.
There are only four words in the English language which end in “-dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
The second longest word in the English language is “antidisestablishmenterianism.”
The longest word in the English language is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses.”
No word in the English language rhymes with “month.”
No word in the English language dictionary rhymes with “orange.”
No word in the English language dictionary rhymes with “silver.”
No word in the English language dictionary rhymes with “purple.”
There are 6 words in the English language with the letter combination “uu”: Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate and duumvir, residuum.
“Bookkeeper” and “bookkeeping” are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
The word “queueing” is the only English word with five consecutive vowels.
The two longest one-syllable words in the English language are “screeched” and “strengths.”
The word TIP is an acronym for “To Insure Prompt Service” and originated in a coffee shop.
The oldest word in the English language is “town.”
The English word with only one vowel that occurs six times is “indivisibility.”
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order.
“Strengths” is the longest word in the English language with just one vowel.
One of the longest English words that can be typed using the top row of a typewriter (allowing multiple uses of letters) is “typewriter.”
If you say you’ll “be back in a jiffy” you better be quick; a “jiffy” is the unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
In Chinese, the words for crisis and opportunity are the same.
Race car is a palindrome.
When two words are combined to form a single word (e.g., motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch) the new word is called a “portmanteau.”
AM and PM stand for “Ante-Meridian” and “Post-Meridian.”
A.D. stands for “Anno Domini” – the Medieval Latin for “In the year of the Lord.” B.C. stands for “Before Christ.”
The “D” in D-day means “Day” or “on the day” as opposed to D+3 (the planned date plus 3 days).
“Quisling” is the only word in the English language to start with “quis.”
The shortest French word with all five vowels is “oiseau” meaning bird.
The word denim comes from ‘de Nimes’, or from Nimes, a place in France.
The word malaria comes from the words mal and aria, which means bad air. This derives from the old days when it was thought that all diseases are caused by bad, or dirty air.
The word “testify” is said to be based on men in the ancient Roman court having to swear (promise to tell the truth) on their testicles.
“Freelance” comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire, i.e. not pledged to one master.
The word “Boondocks” comes from the Tagalog (Filipino) word “Bundok,” which means mountain.
The word “moose” was originally Algonquin.
The word “sneaker” was coined by Henry McKinney, an advertising agent for N.W. Ayer & Son.
“Evian” spelled backwards is naive.
The word “rodent” originates from the Latin word ‘rodere,’ meaning to gnaw.
The word “queue” is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.