Words and What They Mean is an attempt to gather links to some of the more informative, useful, interesting, or entertaining places on the internet. When it began, in 2003, this effort was made as a matter of personal convenience. Over time, it became apparent it had a significant number of visitors besides.

The name "Words and What They Mean" was not originally meant to suggest a collection of dictionaries, but because people thought that's what the name suggested, it eventually became a collection of dictionaries indeed. It is one of the largest collections of working links to online dictionaries and glossaries on the web, with well over a thousand at last count.

The site is also entirely commercial free, with no ads of any kind, no requests for information, and no commission-based relationship with any commercial or other entity.