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A Quest Is a Search for Something; Sometimes, It Can Be a Long and Difficult Pursuit or as Easy as Using Internet Links

There are at least two interpretations as to what a quest may be. One perspective is that it is a search, an exploration, and a pursuit. A second view is that it is a goal, an aim, a mark, an objective; or it may be a destination, an end, or a target that someone is striving to achieve.

Speaking of goals, Sid Taylor once said, “It is better to be ten percent effective in achieving a worthwhile goal than one hundred percent efficient in doing something worthless.”

It is the purpose of this site to simplify your desired quest for words and to provide access to the many avenues available to achieve your word explorations and searches.

It was Bergen Evans, a well-known word expert, who said, “Words are one of our chief means of adjusting to all the situations of life. The better control we have over words, the more successful our adjustment is likely to be.” If you have a quest for word knowledge, then links to various forms of vocabulary knowledge will be provided so you may achieve your quest.


Do You Have a Quest for Word Knowledge? Where Can You Find Extensive Vocabulary Information?

According to Samuel Johnson, “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it.” Or to express it another way, Franklin P. Adams said, “I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.”

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known of everything, we certainly ought to know where we can acquire knowledge about many of the things that we want to learn about and the World Wide Web is no doubt the most convenient and the greatest resource of information mankind has ever been able to devise. It is a terrible shame and waste not to utilize this vast wealth of knowledge that is provided by so many sources on the Internet!


Thumbs up, thumbs down; original Roman meanings. While it is no secret that many English words have Greek and Latin roots, few people know that we quote from the classics nearly every day; for example, giving someone the thumbs-up meant people wanted that person to be killed; however, that is not what it means today. See what caused the confusion.

The importance of Latin and Greek in English words can scarcely be exaggerated. It is safe to say that more than half the words we use in our daily talk come to us from or through Latin and, to a lesser degree, directly from Greek. It should be understood that quite a significant number of Latin words were influenced (if not replicated with different suffixes) from Greek. The language of the Roman Republic and Empire, were greatly influenced by Greek, with a literary standard and popular forms from which the Romance languages were derived.

Particularly since the Renaissance, Latin has also been the scholarly and literary source for the vernacular European languages. English has proven to be the most receptive among the Germanic languages to direct as well as indirect Latin influence, largely as a consequence of the Norman Conquest.

The importance of Greek in English words has had special significance in the development of the language. The influence of classical Greek on English has been largely indirect, through Latin and French, and largely lexical and conceptual, with some orthographic and other effects.

For many, tracing the history of words back to their origins has been the best guide to their "true meanings" or etymons. Etymology is now understood to be the search for the historical explanations of how words came to have their present forms and meanings.

See all kinds of vocabulary resources with a simple click.



This particular site was set up on January 6, 2002,
and was updated on December 22, 2005.


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Words fascinate me. They always have. For me, browsing in a dictionary is like being turned loose in a bank.

—Eddie Cantor
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