How words change meaning
Words never sit still. They grow, shrink, rise, fall and move into new worlds. Linguists sort these changes into a few families. Learn the 19 types here, then look for the coloured badges in every Word Story: they show where each change happens.
The big picture
Five families
Your turn
Which change is it?
Based on the classic types of semantic change (Bréal, Ullmann, Traugott), with word histories from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Online Etymology Dictionary.