Days, Weeks, Months and More

A day dedicated to dictating diction

National Dictionary Day – October 16

Leila Harper, Beyond the Gates editor|October 15, 2020

What words do you want to know?

Fun fact! There’s a Dictionary Day that honors the creator of the dictionary, and by extension, the wonder of words! National Dictionary Day is on October 16, the birthday of Noah Webster. Webster was a lexicographer whose prized work was An American Dictionary of the English Language, a transformative take on the dictionaries people already had.

Webster studied 26 languages to figure out the origins of English in order to accurately write 70,000 entries for this book. He, too, liked to experiment with the way certain words were spelled, leading to the beauty of “music” rather than “musik,” for example. He was an innovator, an inventor, a wordsmith of the ages.

To commemorate creative communication, certain collaborative concepts concur. I, personally, love word puzzles. So pick up a game of Scrabble, whether that be board or app. Perhaps a crossword or a word search would do. Or, you could pick up some prime poetry to improve your prose. Can you tell I like words? Or maybe, alliteration.

National Dictionary Day reminds us that expanding our vocabulary isn’t just an English class chore. Words are wondrous, and there are so many interesting ways to use them. On October 16, try to tamper with our trusty, tailored diction, and maybe find a new word of the day. At the very least, you could stump people playing Hangman.

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