Words have come a long way since they were invented as a nifty tool to help us communicate. We have played with them, made up rules for them, added bits to them and taken bits off. We've gathered them into languages, adopted and defined them. The words we use say so much about who we are, yet most of them slip from our mouths without a second thought.

The Book of Words is a brief pause for reflection in the ever-changing life of words, a snapshot of the English language and how we use it today.

Long words

Short words

Old words

New words

Brilliant words

Annoying words

From the historical to the grammatical, the biographical to the sociological, this is an A to Z of words about words for word lovers, from 'aardvark' to 'zythum' and beyond.