Word Origins & Facts trivia

Question packs in this category

• Words Borrowed From Other LanguagesAbout 250 questions English words borrowed from French, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, Japanese and many other languages, plus loan translations and English words used abroad.
• Brand Names, Eponyms and Coined WordsAbout 250 questions Where company names, product names and trademarks come from, words named after people, and words that someone deliberately coined or blended together.
• Dictionary Facts and LinguisticsAbout 250 questions How dictionaries are made and who made them, record-setting words and letters, how English changed over time, and facts about how language works.
• Food and Drink Word OriginsAbout 250 questions Where the names of foods and drinks come from: fruits, vegetables, meats, dishes, sweets, spirits and kitchen words, with their borrowed, invented and surprising histories.
• Latin and Greek RootsAbout 250 questions English words built from Latin and Greek: what the roots literally meant, how everyday and scientific words were put together, and the surprising stories behind them.
• Surnames and First Name OriginsAbout 250 questions Where family names and first names come from: trades, places, fathers, nicknames, and the meanings behind common given names.
• Phrase Origins and Famous ExpressionsAbout 250 questions Where well known phrases come from: Shakespeare, the Bible, sailors, soldiers, sports, trades, Latin and French expressions, proverbs, and the popular stories about phrases that turn out to be myths.
• Place Name OriginsAbout 250 questions How countries, states, provinces, cities, rivers and landmarks got their names: explorers, saints, kings, Indigenous words and a few well-known mix-ups.
• Science and Medical Word OriginsAbout 250 questions Where scientific and medical words come from: anatomy, chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and the people behind named discoveries.
• Slang and Informal Language HistoryAbout 250 questions Where slang comes from: OK and other American coinages, Cockney rhyming slang, internet and text speak, military and money slang, decade by decade youth talk, and British versus American informal words.
• Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation FactsAbout 250 questions The stories and rules behind English spelling, grammar and punctuation: Webster and Johnson, silent letters, British versus American spelling, the origins of punctuation marks, commonly confused words and grammar myths.
• Idioms and SayingsAbout 250 questions Everyday idioms and where they came from: phrases from sailors, soldiers, sports, Shakespeare and old trades, what animal, food and colour idioms really mean, proverbs and sayings from around the world, and common misquotes.
• Word OriginsAbout 500 questions Where English words come from: words named after people and places, words borrowed from other languages, mythology in everyday speech, coined words and portmanteaus, dictionaries, record-breaking words and wordplay.
• Long Words and Word RecordsAbout 300 questions The longest, strangest and most record-breaking words in English and beyond: famous long words and place names, palindromes, anagrams and pangrams, vowel and keyboard tricks, words with no repeated letters, spellings that changed over time, dictionaries, spelling bees and Scrabble records.
• Weird and Wonderful WordsAbout 350 questions Odd, funny and rare English words and what they mean, words that mean the opposite of what they sound like, the names of everyday things you never knew had names, plus animal groups, phobias, borrowed and regional words, rhyming doubles, Shakespeare's coinages and Internet-era additions.