glimmer - definition and synonyms. What are red words? 90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing. These words appear in red, and are graded with stars. One-star words are frequent, two-star words are more frequent, and three-star words are the most frequent.
John Donne first wrote the words, Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. It is the last part of a longer passage in Mediation XVII of his Devotions Upon Emergent... Star Gazing
Langsland is also responsible for the next-oldest record, dated in 1362. This time it comes from the poem The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman. A translation from Old English reads: Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail. As you can see, contrary to popular belief, William Shakespeare did not coin the phrase. It was around long before Shakespeare was writing his plays and sonnets. The bard did, however, have a hand in making the phrase popular.