The answer is BLOG, four letters. A blog is a website built from dated posts, usually shown newest first, which is why it reads like a public diary. If you have six squares, the answer is WEBLOG, the original form that BLOG was clipped from.
BLOG carries a ship’s logbook inside it
The second half of BLOG is the nautical log. A ship’s logbook recorded its daily speed and progress, and the name came from an actual piece of wood: a weighted chip of log tied to a line and dropped over the side, where it stayed put in the water while sailors timed how much line ran out. The line carried knots at regular intervals, which is where the nautical unit called the knot comes from. By the early 1900s log had widened to any record of facts entered in order.
Put web in front and you get weblog, a record kept on the World Wide Web. The widely repeated account credits Jorn Barger with coining weblog in December 1997 and Peter Merholz with the short form in 1999, when he jokingly split the word into we blog in the sidebar of his own site. The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the words a little differently, because weblog had earlier technical uses for server records, but both accounts agree on the direction: BLOG is WEBLOG with the front clipped off.
Online journal answers by length and form
Most grids want the four-letter word, but the form of the clue can change it:
| Letters | Answer | What tips it |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | BLOG | The standard answer |
| 5 | BLOGS | A plural clue, such as Online journals |
| 6 | WEBLOG | The original, longer name |
| 7 | BLOGGER | Someone who keeps one |
| 7 | BLOGGED | Past tense, kept an online journal |
| 12 | PERSONALBLOG | Long slots worded as an online diary |
Clues keep the grammar of their answers, so the form of the wording matters as much as the meaning. A plural clue wants BLOGS. A clue describing a person wants BLOGGER, and a past-tense clue wants BLOGGED. Those last two match for six squares and differ only at the end, R for the person and D for the action, so the final crossing is the one to get.
What a blog is, and what a journal usually is
A blog is a website whose basic unit is the post or entry, with posts typically presented in reverse chronological order. That structure is what makes the diary comparison work. A journal is a running record in which the newest entry is the one that matters, and a blog puts that newest entry at the top of the page. A blog made up of videos is called a vlog, a separate word with clues of its own.
A plain Journal clue, with no online in it, usually wants an older kind of record. LOG, DIARY, DAYBOOK and GAZETTE are all standard fills for that bare word, and DIARY is the natural paper equivalent of what this clue describes. The word online is what moves the answer from those records to BLOG, so read the full clue before you write anything in.
Why the definition has aged but the fill has not
Online journal was a natural way to explain BLOG when the word was new. The word now covers everything from personal diaries to company news pages, yet the clue survives because it is short and still accurate enough. That gives this entry an unusually stable answer. Where a bare clue like Character or Bar can point in many directions, Online journal points almost straight at four letters. It helps that the older record words cannot compete at that length: LOG needs three squares and DIARY needs five, so a four-square slot under this clue leaves very little room for doubt.
For solving, that means BLOG is the answer to test first, and WEBLOG is the only realistic alternative at six squares. If neither fits, reread the clue for a plural, a person or a past tense before assuming the puzzle wants something exotic. The online diary wording in long slots is the one place a phrase like PERSONAL BLOG takes over.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to the Online journal crossword clue?
BLOG is the standard four-letter answer. If the slot has six squares, the answer is WEBLOG, the longer original form. A plural clue needs BLOGS, and wording about the writer or the act of writing points to BLOGGER or BLOGGED.
Where does the word blog come from?
Blog is a clipped form of weblog, which joins web to log. The log part is the ship's logbook, named for a floating wooden log used to measure a vessel's speed. The usual account credits Peter Merholz with the short form in 1999.
What does a plain Journal clue usually want?
Without the word online, Journal clues usually want older kinds of record. LOG, DIARY, DAYBOOK and GAZETTE are all standard fills. Adding online is what moves the answer to BLOG, so check the full wording of your clue before writing.
