Vocabulary

Every school day, we define a new vocabulary word in our Word of the Day column and provide an example of how the word has been used in The New York Times. But you don’t have to be a Times journalist to contextualize a vocabulary word within a piece of writing — students can do…

“TikTok is the biggest thing that happened to me in my career, and honestly the reason why I am where I am today,” he said. In 2018, when TikTok was officially introduced in America — it was already enormously popular elsewhere around the world — the app was lip syncs and dance challenges. But food…

“It wasn’t a helicopter. And it wasn’t an airplane. It was a _____ between the two, with a curved hull, two small wings, and eight spinning rotors lined up across its nose and tail.”Which one of these words — breakdown, chaos, cross or mix-up — best completes this sentence from a New York Times article…

Winners From Our May Vocabulary ChallengeCongratulations to Shannon, Julia and Montgomery, who wrote about a fisherman’s hairdo, an intense athletic practice and a poisonous berry bush. Each of these students used several challenging vocabulary words to bring their characters and scenes to life.Shannon Arnold, age 14, Mark T Sheehan High School, Wallingford, Conn.The JAUNTY fisherman’s…

Each window was inspired by children’s drawings of holiday dreams — of homes, beaches and games. “The style is sort of candy-coated imagination,” said Andrew Winton, the senior vice president of creative at Saks, who oversees the holiday displays. Mrs. Obama was there to promote a partnership between Saks and the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity…

On the beaches of Western Australia, by California’s crashing waves and in sight of Hawaii’s blue depths, “shark attacks” are slowly disappearing, at least as a phrase used by researchers and officials who have been rethinking how to describe the moments when sharks and humans meet. Last week, two Australian states drew mockery when The…

Note: The winners of the September Vocabulary Challenge have been announced.Fervid, hasten, enclave, meander: What stories could these words tell? Our story-writing challenge is back for a second school year. Middle and high school students are invited to choose four or more of the Words of the Day we published in October, then use them…

Monks once hoped to turn lead into gold through alchemy. But consider the cauliflower instead. It takes just two genes to the ordinary stems, stalks and flowers of the weedy, tasteless species Brassica oleracea into a formation as marvelous as this fractal, cloudlike vegetable. This is the true alchemy, says Christophe Godin, a senior researcher…

Winners From Our April Vocabulary ChallengeCongratulations to Sophia, Samuel and Adam, who imbued their entries with personality and style while adhering to our stringent guidelines. Many of the pieces we read were jam-packed with vocabulary words, but these stood out for their fluid incorporation of words from our word list into three coherent stories.In our…

Then, create a 50-word piece of writing in which you correctly and creatively use at least four of the words. Submit your story (or poem, or song) by commenting on this post between now and May 31.Here is what we are looking for:It is most important that you use each vocabulary word correctly — according…