Save the Words is my absolute favourite new website.

Run by Oxford Dictionaries, the aim is to get people to ‘adopt’ a word to ensure that it stays in usage. The website states:

Every year hundreds of words are dropped from the English language.

Old words, wise words, hard-working words. Words that once led meaningful lives but now lie unused, unloved and unwanted.

Today, 90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words.

You can change all that. Help save the words!

Click on a word on the site and it will tell you the definition. If you like it, you can adopt it! By adopting, you promise to “use [the] word, in conversation and correspondence, as frequently as possible to the very best of [your] ability”. The site offers suggestions to help you use the word in everyday life, and you can also sign up to receive a word a day. It’s the vanmost thing on my mind right now.

(Sidenote: Whilst the word vanmost (foremost) appears on the Save the Words homepage, a search of the online Oxford Dictionary comes up with no exact matches…)