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The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions.
A landlocked country of western South America. Once a part of the Inca Empire, the area was conquered by Spain in the 16th century. The country was named after Simón Bolívar, who helped win its independence from Spain in 1825. Sucre is the legal capital and the seat of the judiciary. La Paz is the administrative center and the largest city.
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.