Words catch on, words work when they have a function.
And this word seems to be doing what it's meant to do.
Sometimes the meanings of words remind me of the prices of commodities,
which means to say that they're established by a marketplace.
Coming up on Word Matters.
matriculate, and borrowing from French.
I'm Emily Brewster, and Word Matters is a new podcast from Merriam-Webster,
produced in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Neil Servin, Amin Shea, Peter Sokolowski,
and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
We've noticed an interesting pattern in lookups at mariamwebster.com that correlates with the National Football League's schedule.
Each week, during football season, searches go up for a rather unexpected word, matriculate.
How did a word for enrolling in school make its way to the gridiron?
Next up, I'll take a look at a developing sense of a, formerly, solely academic word.
Sometimes words develop in ways that are unexpected.
As lexicographers, we're all familiar with language change.
Words start with one meaning and they develop another meaning,
and usually it's a pretty clear path that they take.
A transitive verb may develop in transitive use, or a word may go from literal to figurative.
But I recently became aware of a word that has developed a new meaning that seems wholly unrelated to any of its existing meanings.