most searched words

Words that sent Americans to the dictionary most often in 2023 were pyrrhic, sustainability, saleratus (main ingredient in baking powder), oligarchy, uncanny, canny, blasé, and metaphor.
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Metaphors are stronger comparisons that renounce connectors, such as like and as, and directly equate one thing to another. The characteristics of one thing “carry over.”

Origin: Greek meta, meaning “over,” and pherō, meaning “to carry.”
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Example: recusant Shakespeare’s As You Like It -- “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”

“Willie, though I didn’t really like your plays, excepting Julius Caesar, you were syntactical.”