You can’t call someone a frutescent snollygoster anymore—at least not officially. Those words have been deleted from the dictionary, so you’ll have to come up with alternate terms to describe a ...

Jan Baptist Weenix, “Ancient Ruins” (n.d.), oil on canvas, 80.5 x 68.3 cm, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest (image via Web Gallery of Art) This week, NATO was obsolete until it wasn’t. Either war is ...

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I retired a few years ago. I use words like stewardess, actress and waitress. My sister tells me that these words are no longer in use. Are these words obsolete? Has the woke mob ...

The dictionary isn’t forever. Here’s the lowdown on why certain words are not in the dictionary and how they got removed. If you, too, have been left puzzled by words not in the dictionary—even ones ...