Word

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)

Words are the best toys you can give your brain.

Have you ever noticed that the only difference between »word« and »weird« are the vowels?

And then some more words come along and a paragraph is born.

My favourite word in the English language is »language«. However, if you gave me a slightly larger set of words to choose from I might have more difficulty expressing a preference.

A word after a word after a word is power.

(Margaret Atwood)

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

(Mark Twain)

Rotor is a fine palindrome, thought Frank Leigh Dearie as he ambled down the Lost Highway.

Words derive their meaning from the surrounding words, just as human beings derive their meaning from interacting with other humans around them.

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We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

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 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

“Be careful what you say—you may have to eat your words.”

I don’t think so much about eating my words as about wearing them. When someone sees me, the words come back to haunt like a miasma around me. No matter how colourful my dress, bad words turn everything grey and muddy brown.

The old folks say that the spoken word is the garment of the soul. What man of true wit would clothe his beloved in filth and tatters?

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.'