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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 historical region of northeast Italy between the Po River and the Alps. Named after the Veneti, a people who settled the area c. 1000 BC, it was joined with Istria by Augustus to form a separate province. The area was devastated by the Huns in the 5th century, but its towns later became powerful city-states, with Venice becoming dominant by the 15th century. It passed to Austria in 1797 and to Italy in 1866.
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.