6 ms·
Show HN: A word of the day that doesn't suck
I’ve long thought that the Word of the Day was a wasted genre. The goal should be to give you words you can use; to enrich your understanding of words you already know; or at least to use words to tell you something neat about the world.
Instead, what you usually get is words that will never be used in conversation, held up as curios. Some examples from Dictionary.com’s daily email: thewless, balladmonger, vagility, contextomy. These words are... not useful.
I’ve always thought I could do better. My friend Ben recently created a daily puzzle game, called Bracket City, launched here on HN [1], which I like because it takes about the same amount of time as Wordle but has some of the variety and artistry of a good crossword.
Ben agreed to let me write a word of the day for the game’s audience. We’ve collected them all here: https://bracket.city/words https://bracket.city/words. It’s such a joy to write -- every day, I pay homage to a word I love or use or have newly discovered. I find myself paying more attention to words I encounter, thinking if they deserve a place.
It’s also fun for another reason. Many years ago I wrote a blog post, "You’re probably using the wrong dictionary" [2], that made the rounds and actually still finds new readers today. It was about how the modern-day dictionaries we find by default on our iPhones and web browsers are actually kind of bureaucratic and lifeless. Through a writer I love, John McPhee, I rediscovered Webster’s 1913 dictionary, which feels like it was written by a thinking person who loved words. I still consult it all the time. Writing a word of the day has reminded me just how delightful and useful Webster’s old dictionary is -- and reacquainted me with the OED, which I now look to every day, and which I discovered you can access with your library card.
Some of my favorite entries so far: sophisticated, twee, gravitas, blockbuster, meteorologist, send, bid. There are more than 175 now -- and more coming once a day, every day, for as long as Bracket City stands.
To sign up to see each word of the day as it’s published, go to https://bracket.city/words https://bracket.city/words.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43622719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43622719
[2] https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary
- dang 1y agoRelated: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43622719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43622719 - April 2025 (169 comments) Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43160542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43160542 - Feb 2025 (53 comments)
- Y_Y 1y agoNo cap, but the first ten-ish were already well known to me. Might be worth mentioning you're pitching below not-particularly-well-read this guy.
- dankwizard 1y agoyes i too am really smart like this guy and this website is WAY below my reading level. Can somebody link me to the version for us smart guys?!
- wahnfrieden 1y agoWith entries like "marketing" the point must be in the elaboration and not in the introduction of the word
- Dilettante_ 1y agoBruh said "no cap" on HN
- janfoeh 1y ago> Bruh Those who live in glass houses should not attempt to hang paintings, methinks.
- 1attice 1y agoThey could use those little sticky velcro 'Commander' strips and it would work out ok
- janfoeh 1y agoPoint well taken.
- Dilettante_ 1y agoCould it be at all possible that I did that on purpose? Perchance I chose to make the exact "mistake" the GP made, and call him out for it at the same time because the irony of it would be funny? You must think other people are deeply, abysmally, troglodytically stupid if you thought one could make that comment without self-awareness.
- xnx 1y agohttps://wordsmith.org/words/today.html https://wordsmith.org/words/today.html doesn't suck
- wnc3141 1y agoI think it would be interesting to incorporate loan words or phrases. Often these words become loan words because there's no good English equivalents so loan words/phrases sort of expand our ability to grapple these concepts.
- InspGadget4343 1y agohow very entrepreneurial of you
- wnc3141 1y agotouché
- seabass 1y agoWhen it comes to getting a deeper understanding of words you already know, two of my favorite resources are Etymonline [1] and the 1913 edition of Webster’s dictionary [2]. And if you’re curious why 1913 specifically, this post [3] gives a great overview. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/ https://www.etymonline.com/ [2] https://www.websters1913.com/ https://www.websters1913.com/ [3] https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary https://jsomers.net/blog/dictionary
- rjh29 1y agoThe 3rd post was written by the OP!
- seabass 1y agoHahah how did I miss that! It’s even linked in the description. Glad you pointed it out. Let me also link the word enjoyers out there to another favorite of mine, then: https://carefulwords.com/ https://carefulwords.com/
- dang 1y agoUsing the Wrong Dictionary (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37368505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37368505 - Sept 2023 (33 comments) You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35635876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35635876 - April 2023 (1 comment) Using the wrong dictionary (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734242 - Dec 2021 (170 comments) You’re probably using the wrong dictionary (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763435 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763435 - April 2019 (87 comments) You're probably using the wrong dictionary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9294518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9294518 - March 2015 (2 comments) Using the wrong dictionary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7772557 - May 2014 (138 comments)
- n4r9 1y ago> Who decided that the American public couldn't handle "a soft and fitful luster"? I can't help but think something has been lost. I wonder how much of this is down to the corporatisation of dictionaries. I did a quick search and it turns out that Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com are owned by Rock Holdings, a multinational conglomerate registered in the Isle of Man and controlled by Aaron Banks (one of the shadowy powers responsible for Brexit). Obviously that would have happened well after the dumbing-down process began, but it illuminates the trend.
- fsckboy 1y agowhat would make a "word of the day" stream compelling to me would be a word that reflected recent news. William Safire did this to some extent in his weekly column in the NY Times and it was usually pretty interesting. a way to increase the discovery of relevance could be looking up the etymologies of words that pop up, I'm always fascinated by how complex and interesting etymologies are
- xnx 1y agoThe NY Times still does this: https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-word-of-the-day https://www.nytimes.com/column/learning-word-of-the-day
- deepzn 1y agoNice, anoter James Somers blog post/project, I like. Love your articles, dude. And have a bunch on my reading list to catch up on.
- robertlutece 1y agoI've had Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day [1] feed on my RSS reader for a while and I think these are quite usable. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/calendar https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/calendar
- styanax 1y agoI cannot seem to find the RSS link anywhere on this site, can you share which url you have directly in your RSS reader? thx
- robertlutece 1y agohttps://www.merriam-webster.com/wotd/feed/rss2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/wotd/feed/rss2
- styanax 1y agoMuch appreciated, thanks.
- domysee 1y agoIf that happens with other websites too, you can also use feed finder tools like https://lighthouseapp.io/tools/feed-finder https://lighthouseapp.io/tools/feed-finder
- jsejcksn 1y agoIs there a public API (or a plan for one)? I'd be interested to see each WOTD in my custom new tab page.
- falcor84 1y agoOn an tangential note, I actually found "contextomy" to be a really useful word in its original sense of quoting out of context [0], but I find it to be even more appropriate for the process of cleaning up an LLM's context to reduce "context rot". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoting_out_of_context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoting_out_of_context
- murrayb 1y agoVagility is a great word- it has a good sound and rhythm and the added bonus of sounding like it is probably something rude. Might be limited opportunities to work it into a conversation but I am willing to wait Thank you.
- johnfn 1y agoOoh, I really like this. I have spent quite a while scrolling the page and internally going "yes! this guy gets it!" after reading a particularly good line. If you want feedback, I think you should take the bit you said about "you're probably using the wrong dictionary" and put that right at the top as a sort of summary of the intent of your word of the day. It really helps contextualize what you're doing. For context, I have a strong prior (hey, that could be a wotd) that word of the day is some random garbage, and I spent a long time reading your site before I understood what your intent was, and why it is so much better than all existing wotds.