Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 16, 2019 is:mellifluous \muh-LIFF-luh-wus\ adjective1 : having a smooth rich flow2 : filled with something (such as honey) that sweetensExamples:"As you explore each room, you also hear a mellifluous voice-over uttering the relevant environmental facts and recommendations…. The 13,000-square-foot exhibition, which was designed with social media in mind, requires a free iPhone app to experience fully." — Laurel Graeber, The New York Times, 23 Oct. 2019"Her voice alone is a stunner, a mellifluous soprano, more delicate than her big sister's powerhouse belt." — Peter Larsen, The Orange County Register (Anaheim, California), 10 Nov. 2019Did you know?In Latin, mel means "honey" and fluere means "to flow." Those two linguistic components flow smoothly together in mellifluus (from Late Latin) and mellyfluous (from Middle English), the ancestors of mellifluous. The adjective these days typically applies to sound, as it has for centuries. In 1671, for example, poet John Milton wrote in Paradise Regained of the "Wisest of men; from whose mouth issu'd forth Mellifluous streams." But mellifluous can also be used of flavor, as when wine critics Eric Asimov and Florence Fabricant used it to describe pinot grigio in the 2014 book Wine With Food: "Most pinot grigios give many people exactly what they want: a mellifluous, easy-to-pronounce wine that can be ordered without fear of embarrassment and that is at the least cold, refreshing, and for the most part cheap."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 15, 2019 is:delectation \dee-lek-TAY-shun\ noun: delight, enjoymentExamples:"All of Europe is in mourning for its past. Bookstores are stocked with albums of photographs offering up the vanished past for our delectation and reflex nostalgia." — Susan Sontag, Where the Stress Falls, 2001"Then it was on to the dining room for, among other delectations, Caesar salad, shrimp remoulade, turtle soup, Eggs Benedict, bread pudding and king cake French toast." — Nell Nolan, NOLA.com, 9 July 2019Did you know?Pleasure, delight, and enjoyment are all synonyms and all signify the agreeable emotion accompanying the possession or expectation of what is good or greatly desired. Why, then, use delectation, that not-so-familiar synonym? Because, as with most synonym groups, each word has its own subtle distinctions. Pleasure stresses satisfaction or gratification of the senses. Delight adds the idea of liveliness or obviousness in that satisfaction, often less enduring than pleasure. Enjoyment suggests a wide range of deep pleasure from merely transient, though complete, gratification to deep-seated happiness. Delectation (which is from the Latin word for "delight") suggests a reaction to pleasurable experience consciously sought or provided. More than all the others, it connotes amusement or diversion.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 14, 2019 is:impugn \im-PYOON\ verb: to assail by words or arguments : oppose or attack as false or lacking integrityExamples:The defense attorneys did their best to impugn the credibility of the prosecution's key witnesses."Terrible people hire good attorneys every day. Gripe with malfeasance by said legal teams, sure, but to impugn a lawyer for literally doing his job is unconscionable." — Tiana Lowe, The Washington (D.C.) Examiner, 13 May 2019Did you know?When you impugn, you hazard repugnant pugnacity. More simply put, you risk insulting someone so greatly that they may punch you in response. The belligerent implications of impugn are to be expected in a word that derives from the Latin verb pugnare, which means "to fight." In its earliest known English uses in the 1300s, impugn could refer to a physical attack (as in, "the troops impugned the city") as well as to figurative assaults involving verbal contradiction or dispute. Over time, though, the sense of physical battling has become obsolete and the "calling into question" sense has predominated. As you might expect, pugnare also gave English other fighting words, including repugnant and pugnacity.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 13, 2019 is:tractable \TRAK-tuh-bul\ adjective1 : capable of being easily led, taught, or controlled : docile2 : easily handled, managed, or wrought : malleableExamples:"He also looks … at the biological and cultural implications of 'self-domestication,' a process by which humans school themselves out of their feral nature and into habits of being that moderate violence—though, as he adds, while other domesticated species such as dogs and guinea pigs are 'delightfully tractable,' human adaptability and cultural learning add up to something more." — Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2018"The computer scientist Alan Turing noted that the question of whether a machine can think is incredibly difficult to determine, not least because of the lack of a clear definition of 'thinking'; he proposed investigating instead the more tractable question of whether a machine can convince a human interlocutor that it's human—the so-called Turing test." — William Egginton, The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2019Did you know?Docile, obedient, and amenable are synonyms of tractable, but those four words have slightly different shades of meaning. Tractable describes an individual whose character permits easy handling, while docile implies a predisposition to submit readily to authority. Obedient is often used to describe compliance with authority, although that compliance is not necessarily offered eagerly. Amenable, on the other hand, is usually used when someone cooperates out of a desire to be agreeable. Tractable dates from the early 16th century and derives from the Latin verb tractare ("to handle" or "to treat"). Despite the resemblance, this root did not give us the noun tractor or verbs such as contract or attract—those all derive from a loosely related Latin verb trahere ("to draw or pull").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 12, 2019 is:belle epoque \BEL-ay-POK\ nounoften capitalized Belle Epoque : a period of high artistic or cultural development; especially : such a period in fin de siècle FranceExamples:"Lest he become pigeonholed in the Belle Époque, [Jason] Jacques expanded his program in 2010 to include contemporary artists pushing the boundaries of clay. 'Siegfried Bing, the Art Nouveau gallerist in turn-of-the-century Paris, was selling contemporary decorative arts,' he explains. 'So I thought, Let's show living artists.' British ceramist Gareth Mason, who fires arresting forms over and over to near destruction, was the first to join the roster." — Hannah Martin, Architectural Digest, 24 Dec. 2018"Then comes the most elegant of Paris bridges: the Pont Alexandre III, a belle epoque confection linking the Invalides to the Champs-Élysées. Built for the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, it was named in honor of the father of the visiting Russian czar, Nicholas II." — Elaine Sciolino, The New York Times, 4 Nov. 2019Did you know?In the years before World War I, France experienced a period of economic growth that produced a wealth of artistic and cultural developments. That era has been described as excessive, glittering, gaudy, and extravagant, but the tumultuous days of war that followed it inspired the French to call that productive period la belle époque—literally, "the beautiful age." The term belle epoque soon found its way into English, where it came to be used to refer not only to the glory days of late 19th-century France, but to any similarly luxurious period. It is now used to more elegantly convey the sentiments of another nostalgic expression, "the good old days."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 11, 2019 is:sodden \SAH-dun\ adjective1 a : dull or expressionless especially from continued indulgence in alcoholic beveragesb : torpid, sluggish2 a : heavy with or as if with moisture or waterb : heavy or doughy because of imperfect cookingExamples:"… with these apt closing words Mr. Slyme fell forward with his head upon the table, and so declined into a sodden sleep." — Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, 1844"I'll never forget [football quarterback Eli] Manning repeatedly rising up from the sodden San Francisco turf, literally pulling pieces of the field from his facemask." — Tara Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 7 Oct. 2019Did you know?Nowadays, seethed is the past tense and past participle form of the verb seethe (which originally meant "to boil or stew"). Originally, however, seethe could also be conjugated in the past tense as sod and in the past participle as sodden. By the 14th century, sodden had become an independent adjective synonymous with boiled. And, by the 16th century, it had taken on the figurative sense used to describe someone who appears dull, expressionless, or stupid, particularly as a result of heavy drinking. Today, sodden is commonly used as a synonym of soaked or saturated. Seethe followed a different figurative path: while one who is sodden may appear dull, torpid, or sluggish, one who is seething is highly agitated, like a pot of boiling water.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 10, 2019 is:reiterate \ree-IT-uh-rayt\ verb: to state or do over again or repeatedly sometimes with wearying effectExamples:"Flanery reiterated that the new hotel, HRM facility and expanded seating will not require Churchill Downs to expand outside of its current property. Churchill Downs will continue to have a 'constant dialogue' with neighbors, Flanery said." — Sarah Ladd, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), 31 Oct. 2019"In addition to addressing the situation with Green, Durant reiterated that he won't be playing this season. He tore his Achilles tendon during Game 5 of the NBA Finals." — Connor Letourneau, The San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Oct. 2019Did you know?Can you guess the meaning of iterate, a less common relative of reiterate? It must mean simply "to state or do," right? Nope. Actually, iterate also means "to state or do again." It's no surprise, then, that some usage commentators have insisted that reiterate must always mean "to say or do again AND AGAIN." No such nice distinction exists in actual usage, however. Both reiterate and iterate can convey the idea of a single repetition or of many repetitions. Reiterate is the older of the two words—it first appeared in the 15th century, whereas iterate turned up in the 16th century. Both stem from the Latin verb iterare, which is itself from iterum ("again"), but reiterate took an extra step, through Latin reiterare ("to repeat").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 9, 2019 is:oxymoron \ahk-sih-MOR-ahn\ noun: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as cruel kindness); broadly : something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elementsExamples:"Truly antisocial celebrity-level pop is probably an oxymoron, but part of the thrill of one new arrival, Billie Eilish, is that she gets close to achieving it." — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 10 May 2019"'Liquid crystal' ought to be an oxymoron, but technology has rendered it sensible instead. A crystal is by definition a solid with a repeating, orderly, three-dimensional lattice. Liquid crystals are electrically activated to become quasi-crystals that act as polarizing filters. The wave nature of light manifests as oscillating electric and magnetic fields that wave like a rope tied to a post as it is shaken." — Richard Brill, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 20 Oct. 2019Did you know?The Greeks exhaustively classified the elements of rhetoric, or effective speech and writing, and gave the name oxymoron—literally "pointed foolishness"—to the deliberate juxtaposing of seemingly contradictory words. The roots of oxymoron, oxys meaning "sharp" or "keen," and mōros meaning "foolish," are nearly antonyms themselves, making oxymoron nicely self-descriptive. Oxymoron originally applied to a meaningful paradox condensed into a couple of words, as in "precious bane," "lonely crowd," or "sweet sorrow." Today, however, what is commonly cited as an oxymoron is often simply a curiosity of language, where one or both elements have multiple meanings (shrimp in "jumbo shrimp" doesn't mean "small"; it refers to a sea creature), or a phrase whose elements seem antithetical in spirit, such as "classic rock."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 8, 2019 is:circumscribe \SER-kum-skrybe\ verb1 a : to constrict the range or activity of definitely and clearlyb : to define or mark off carefully2 a : to draw a line aroundb : to surround by or as if by a boundary3 : to construct or be constructed around (a geometrical figure) so as to touch as many points as possibleExamples:"Perhaps most important, the government was given a circumscribed mission statement—to secure the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of its citizens, with their consent—and, in the form of the Bill of Rights, a set of lines it could not cross in its use of violence against them." — Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, 2011"But even hacking keyboards and old toys comes with limitations, circumscribed by the chips inside their circuit boards. You can make interesting sounds—especially if you incorporate effects pedals—but you're still building off the electronic guts you've inherited." — David Rees, The New York Times Magazine, 16 July 2019Did you know:Circumscribe has a lot of relatives in English. Its Latin predecessor circumscribere (which roughly translates as "to draw a circle around") derives from circum-, meaning "circle," and scribere, meaning "to write or draw." Among the many descendants of circum- are circuit, circumference, circumnavigate, circumspect, circumstance, and circumvent. Scribere gave us such words as scribe and scribble, as well as ascribe, describe, and transcribe, among others. Circumscribe was first recorded in the 15th century; it was originally spelled circumscrive, but by the end of the century the circumscribe spelling had also appeared.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 7, 2019 is:vexillology \vek-suh-LAH-luh-jee\ noun: the study of flagsExamples:"I was recently watching a rerun episode of The Big Bang Theory that featured one of the main characters. Sheldon Cooper was videoing a new episode of Sheldon Cooper Presents: Fun With Flags, a YouTube/podcast show that Sheldon makes to teach vexillology, the scientific study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags." — Alicia Vandine, The Brighton Independent (Belleville, Ontario), 12 July 2019"After self-study in vexillology—the art of flag design—and a lot of erasing, [Laurin] Stennis settled on the circle-star design. The 20 stars represent Mississippi's entry into the union as the 20th state; the blue star on the white background is an inversion of the white star on a blue field of 'Bonnie Blue Flag,' which was waved when the state seceded." — Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post,20 Jan. 2019Did you know?"The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history." Woodrow Wilson was speaking of the U.S. flag when he made that statement in an address in June of 1915, but those who engage in vexillology—that is, vexillologists—would likely find the comment applicable to any national banner. Vexillologists undertake scholarly investigations of flags, producing papers with titles such as "A Review of the Changing Proportions of Rectangular Flags since Medieval Times, and Some Suggestions for the Future." In the late 1950s, they coined vexillology as a name for their field of research, basing it on vexillum, the Latin term for a square flag or banner of the ancient Roman cavalry. The adjectives vexillologic and vexillological and the noun vexillologist followed soon thereafter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 6, 2019 is:gingerly \JIN-jer-lee\ adjective: very cautious or carefulExamples:"The reality: I am averse to wet clothes, squishy shoes and algae in my hair, so I cautiously stepped into a kayak, trying my darndest not to rock the boat, and set out at a gingerly pace on a still lake." — Liz Carey, The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), 15 May 2012"The 2019 Emmy Awards … were home to more than a few memorable moments. One we can't get out of our heads was owned by Gwyneth Paltrow, whose sleek-yet-restrictive silver dress made for a gingerly walk across the stage that caught the internet's attention." — Andy Moser, Mashable, 23 Sept. 2019Did you know?Etymologists take a gingerly approach to assigning any particular origins to this word. While it might have come from the name of the spice, there's nothing concrete to back up that idea. Another conjecture is that it's related to an Old French word, gensor, which meant "delicate." That's because in 16th century English an earlier sense of gingerly often referred to dancing or walking with dainty steps. Not till the 17th century did it change to apply to movements that were cautious in order to avoid being noisy or causing injury, and to a wary manner in handling or presenting ideas. Not too surprisingly, given its -ly ending, gingerly is also quite often correctly used as an adverb, as in "they moved gingerly on the icy pond."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 5, 2019 is:acquiesce \ak-wee-ESS\ verb: to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively —often used with in or toExamples:Eventually, the professor acquiesced to the students' request to have the seminar's final class be a potluck."Moving him back to second grade didn't seem like a realistic option. The third-grade teacher reassured us that he seemed ready both academically and socially. We acquiesced, and he became an official third-grader a few weeks later." — Lisa L. Lewis, The Washington Post, 8 Oct. 2019Did you know?Acquiesce means essentially "to comply quietly," so it should not surprise you to learn that it is ultimately derived from the Latin verb quiēscere, meaning "to be quiet." It arrived in English in the early 1600s, via the French acquiescer, with the senses "to agree or comply" and "to rest satisfied" (this latter sense is now obsolete). An early example of the word acquiesce in the sense of "to agree or comply" can be found in the writings of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes who, in his 1651 masterpiece, Leviathan, argued that people must subject themselves completely to a sovereign and should obey the teachings of the church. Encouraging his readers to adopt his position he wrote, "Our Beleefe … is in the Church; whose word we take, and acquiesce therein."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 4, 2019 is:coup de grâce \koo-duh-GRAHSS\ noun1 : a deathblow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded2 : a decisive finishing blow, act, or eventExamples:"Quarterback Jake Luton completed 18 of 26 passes for 285 yards and five TDs. He added the coup de grace in the fourth quarter with a 19-yard bootleg scamper for OSU's final score." — Ken Goe, The Oregonian, 7 Oct. 2019"The Bahama nuthatch was already thought to be extinct before Dorian hit, and the hurricane nailed Grand Bahama, where one or two nuthatches may have still been alive. 'This could have been the coup de grâce for the nuthatch,' Dr. Steadman said." — James Gorman, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2019Did you know?Borrowed directly from French and first appearing in English at the end of the 17th century, coup de grâce (also sometimes styled without the circumflex as coup de grace) translates literally as "stroke of grace" or "blow of mercy," and originally referred to a mercy killing, or to the act of putting to death a person or animal who was severely injured and unlikely to recover. (In some contexts the term is used to refer to the final act of executing a convicted criminal.) Later, coup de grâce had come to mean "an act or event that puts a definite end to something." Other coup terms that have made the jump from French to English include coup de main, for a sudden, forceful attack, and coup d’état for a violent overthrow of a government usually by a small group.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 3, 2019 is:ersatz \AIR-sahts\ adjective: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitationExamples:"If you want to keep your drinks cold without constantly running to the ice machine, using the laundry bag as an ersatz ice chest is a great option…." — Melissa Locker, Time, 7 Oct. 2019"Painting a cow to look something like a zebra has been found to reduce fly bites by 50%.... Only 55 flies were observed on the zebra cows, compared with 111 on the black-painted cows and 128 on the control cows. The ersatz zebras were observed to demonstrate only 40 fly-repelling behaviours (such as flicking their tails and shaking their heads) every 30 minutes, compared with 53 and 54 fly-repelling behaviours in the others. — Naaman Zhou, The Guardian (London), 11 Oct. 2019Did you know?Ersatz can be traced back in English to the 1870s, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to modify terms like coffee (made from acorns) and flour (made from potatoes)—ersatz products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language. Today, ersatz can be applied to almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 2, 2019 is:bon vivant \bahn-vee-VAHNT\ noun: a sociable person who has cultivated and refined tastes especially with respect to food and drinkExamples:"The Major was somewhat of a bon vivant, and his wine was excellent." — Sir Walter Scott, Waverley, 1814"The Swiss-born chef and bon vivant saw life through rose-colored beer glasses, preferring to keep negativity at bay by drinking, eating, laughing, loving and yodeling." — Mike Hale, The Monterey (California) County Herald, 4 Sept. 2019Did you know?Fans of fine French wine and cuisine won't be surprised to hear that the French language gave us a number of words for those who enjoy good living and good eating. Gourmet, gourmand, and gastronome come from French, as does bon vivant. In the late 17th century, English-speakers borrowed this French phrase, which literally means "good liver." No, we don't mean liver, as in the organ. We mean liver, as in "one who lives (in a specified way)"—in this case, "one who lives well."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 1, 2019 is:pointillistic \poyn-tuh-LISS-tik\ adjective1 : composed of many discrete details or parts2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of pointillism or pointillistsExamples:"[Herman] Wouk is often grouped with middlebrow writers of popular historical fiction … but his novels are better understood as pointillistic character studies in historical settings." — Adelle Waldman, The New York Times, 17 May 2019"For her first album in eight years, the English singer, songwriter, and author paired her rich alto with pointillistic lyrics about 21st-century life, keeping its emotions aloft with club-ready beats…." — Maura Johnston, The Boston Globe, 20 Dec. 2018Did you know?In the late 19th century, Neo-Impressionists discovered that contrasting dots of color applied side by side would blend together and be perceived as a luminous whole when seen from a distance. With this knowledge, they developed the technique of pointillism, also known as divisionism. By the 1920s, the adjective pointillistic was being used as a word describing something having many details or parts, such as an argument or musical composition; it was then applied to the art of pointillism and its artists, the pointillists.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 30, 2019 is:incognito \in-kahg-NEE-toh\ adjective or adverb: with one's identity concealedExamples:"Decades ago, [Prince Andrew] managed to pull off an incognito trip to Disneyland. He even went as far as fooling some of the guests with his incredible disguise." — Camille Heimbrod, The International Business Times, 5 Oct. 2019"[Constance] Messmer remembers the night that the cast of 'Beverly Hills 90210' came to eat, and there were kids trying to peer in through the windows. Or the time that Sharon Stone arrived incognito, hiding underneath a big floppy hat." — Geoff Currier, The Martha's Vineyard Times, 17 Oct. 2019Did you know?The ancient Greeks and Romans knew that there were times when you didn't want to be recognized. For example, a myth tells how Zeus and Hermes visited a village incognito and asked for lodging. The apparently penniless travelers were turned away from every household except that of a poor elderly couple named Baucis and Philemon, who provided a room and a feast despite their own poverty. The Romans had a word that described someone or something unknown (like the gods in the tale): incognitus, a term that is the ancestor of our modern incognito. Cognitius is the past participle of the Latin verb cognoscere, which means "to know" and which also gives us recognize, among other words.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 29, 2019 is:mutt \MUT\ noun1 : a stupid or insignificant person : fool2 : a mongrel dog : curExamples:Our family's new dog is an affable, shaggy-haired mutt who is a delight to anyone who visits our home."I worried that my new acquisition was unexceptional: a mutt on the small side of medium with a shiny black coat, an extra-long nose and ears that stick out at the angle of bat wings in flight. I fell in love at obedience class, where he demonstrated what I took for a drive to excel. " — Nora Caplan-Bricker, The New York Times Magazine, 17 Sept. 2019Did you know?Mutt can now be used with either affection or disdain to refer to a dog that is not purebred, but in the word's early history, in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century, it could also be used to describe a person—and not kindly: mutt was another word for "fool." The word's history lies in another insult. It comes from muttonhead, another Americanism that also means essentially "fool." Muttonhead had been around since the early 19th century but it was not unlike an older insult with the same meaning: people had been calling one another "sheep's heads" since the mid-16th century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 28, 2019 is:comestible \kuh-MESS-tuh-bul\ adjective: edibleExamples:"After all the figs have fully ripened on our farm…, we'll start collecting grapes if the birds haven't nabbed them first and then comes the olive harvest, our most precious comestible commodity." — Carol Drinkwater, The Daily Mail (London), 16 Aug. 2019"My kids eat Spam because I ate it, and I eat it because my mother ate it: two generations and counting of comestible nostalgia, a sort of legacy." — Sabina Murray, The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2019Did you know?Did you expect comestible to be a noun meaning "food"? You're probably not alone. As it happens, comestible is used both as an adjective and a noun. The adjective is by far the older of the two; it has been part of English since at least the 1400s. In fact, one of its earliest known uses was in a text printed in 1483 by William Caxton, the man who established England's first printing press. The noun (which is most often used in the plural form comestibles) dates to the late 1700s.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 27, 2019 is:fawn \FAWN\ verb1 : to court favor by a cringing or flattering manner2 : to show affection — used especially of a dogExamples:"Like tech C.E.O.s today, Edison attracted an enormous following, both because his inventions fundamentally altered the texture of daily life and because he nurtured a media scrum that fawned over every inch of his laboratory and fixated on every minute of his day." — Casey Cep, The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2019"I had planned to dislike Remo, the acting professor whose Chekhov class I took last spring. I had planned to feel this way because all the theater people I knew who took his classes fawned over him in a way that drove me nuts." — Eliya O. Smith, The Harvard Crimson, 10 Oct. 2019Did you know?Some people will be glad to learn the origins of fawn—and there's a hint about the word's etymology in that declaration. Middle English speakers adapted an Old English word meaning "to rejoice" to create the verb faunen, which shifted in spelling over time to become fawn. That Old English word, in turn, derives from fagan, meaning "glad." Fagan is also an ancestor of the English adjective fain, whose earliest (now obsolete) meaning is "happy" or "pleased." This fawn is not, however, related to the noun fawn, referring to a young deer. For that we can thank the Latin noun fetus, meaning "offspring."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 26, 2019 is:retinue \RET-uh-noo\ noun: a group of retainers or attendantsExamples:"The Handkerchief Prince was trailed by a retinue of 40 or so Japanese media members, complete with satellite trucks." — Anthony Rieber, Newsday, 29 Mar. 2014"Russian mezzo-soprano Alisa Kolosova, as the duchess who fully expects to marry Rodolfo, enjoyed the Entrance of Entrances, high on the statue of a horse, dressed in royal velvet, and surrounded by a retinue of similarly dressed minions. " — Nancy Malitz, The Chicago Sun-Times, 13 Oct. 2019Did you know?Retinue derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French verb retenir, meaning "to retain." Another word deriving from retenir is retainer, which means, among other things, "one who serves a person of high position or rank." In the 14th century, that high person of rank was usually a noble or a royal of some kind, and retinue referred to that person's collection of servants and companions. Nowadays, the word is often used with a bit of exaggeration to refer to the assistants, guards, publicists, and other people who accompany an actor or other high-profile individual in public. You might also hear such a collection called a suite or entourage, two other words derived from French.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 25, 2019 is:sempiternal \sem-pih-TER-nul\ adjective: of never-ending duration : eternalExamples:"For those who don't ride public transit and for most of their adulthoods travel via automobile between a few tightly curated situations ... Bourbon Street's sempiternal carnival gives them unmediated contact with all sorts of people they might not otherwise encounter." — Jules Bentley, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 20 Aug. 2018"But by Page 10, I knew I'd never read 'Moby-Dick.' The novel—if you can call such an idiosyncratic book by any generic name—hit me like a storm out of nowhere. It contained a wild deluge of thoughts and ideas and sempiternal images." — Amy Wilentz, The Los Angeles Times, 1 May 2011Did you know?Despite their similarities, sempiternal and eternal come from different roots. Sempiternal is derived from the Late Latin sempiternalis and ultimately from semper, Latin for "always." (You may recognize semper as a key element in the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps: semper fidelis, meaning "always faithful.") Eternal, on the other hand, is derived, by way of Middle French and Middle English, from the Late Latin aeternalis and ultimately from aevum, Latin for "age" or "eternity." Sempiternal is much less common than eternal, but some writers have found it useful. 19th-century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, wrote, "The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, … to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why…."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 24, 2019 is:billingsgate \BIL-ingz-gayt\ noun: coarsely abusive languageExamples:A steady stream of billingsgate could be heard coming from my brother's room as he tried to recover the files lost when his computer crashed. "The torrent of involuntary filth that spewed from my mouth at those points couldn't have been good for my son's linguistic development. He, too, is in his gibberish phase. God help him if he ends up with my Billingsgate vocabulary." — Benjamin Preston, Jalopnik, 29 July 2019Did you know?From its beginnings during the time of the Roman occupation, the Billingsgate fish market in London, England, has been notorious for the crude language that has resounded through its stalls. In fact, the fish merchants of Billingsgate were so famous for their swearing centuries ago that their feats of vulgar language were recorded in British chronicler Raphael Holinshed's 1577 account of King Leir (which was probably William Shakespeare's source for King Lear). In Holinshed's volume, a messenger's language is said to be "as bad a tongue … as any oyster-wife at Billingsgate hath." By the middle of the 17th century, billingsgate had become a byword for foul language.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 23, 2019 is:jilt \JILT\ verb: to cast off or reject (someone, such as a lover) capriciously or unfeelinglyExamples:"A Georgia court ruled that a man who jilted his fiancée is liable for $50,000 in damages." — Robert W. Wood, Forbes, 8 Dec. 2013"He went back to Fargo, where on May 5, 1924, he broke into a home and walked away with a $700 beaver coat, intending it as a present for his girlfriend. Before long, the young woman jilted him, moved to Valley City and took up with another man." — Merry Helm, The Williston (North Dakota) Daily Herald, 8 Oct. 2019Did you know?Jilt traces back to the English dialect noun jillet ("a flirtatious girl"), itself from Jill or Gill (used both as a proper name and as a noun meaning "girl") plus the diminutive suffix -et. Jilt itself came into use in the second half of the 17th century as a noun meaning "an unchaste woman" (a sense that is now obsolete) or "a woman who capriciously casts a lover aside," and also as a verb used for the actions of such a woman. These days, the person doing the jilting can be either male or female, and though _jilt_ usually implies the sudden ending of a romantic relationship, it can also be used beyond the context of a romantic relationship with the broader meaning "to sever close relations with."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 22, 2019 is:heterodox \HET-uh-ruh-dahks\ adjective1 : contrary to or different from an acknowledged standard, a traditional form, or an established religion : unorthodox, unconventional2 : holding unorthodox opinions or doctrinesExamples:"His heterodox moves have been the ones requiring most careful explanation on social media. He bucks his party in not voting for measures he supports … because he disagrees with the underlying legislative approach." — Isaac Stanley-Becker and Felicia Sonmez, The Washington Post, 20 May 2019"Why, you're ashamed to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only thing you're not ashamed of is to judge me for it without having read it; and even that only means that you're ashamed to have heterodox opinions." — George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, 1903Did you know?It's true: individuals often see other people's ideas as unconventional while regarding their own as beyond reproach. The antonyms orthodox and heterodox developed from the same root, Greek doxa, which means "opinion." Heterodox derives from doxa plus heter-, a combining form meaning "other" or "different"; orthodox pairs doxa with orth-, meaning "correct" or "straight."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2019 is:fortitude \FOR-tuh-tood\ noun: strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courageExamples:"She showed fortitude in 2013, when the restaurant, known for its cheery pink exterior, had a major fire. The taqueria soon reopened with a new, brick exterior and the same great food, and Perez said business is better than ever." — Cassidy McDonald, The Wisconsin State Journal, 22 Sept. 2015"… Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance." — Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851Did you know?Fortitude comes from the Latin word fortis, meaning "strong," and in English it has always been used primarily to describe strength of mind. For a time, the word was also used to mean "physical strength"; William Shakespeare used that sense in Henry VI, Part 1: "Coward of France! How much he wrongs his fame / Despairing of his own arm's fortitude." But despite use by the Bard, that second sense languished and is now considered obsolete.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2019 is:expedite \EK-spuh-dyte\ verb1 : to accelerate the process or progress of : speed up2 : to execute promptly3 : issue, dispatchExamples:To expedite the processing of your request, please include your account number on all documents."The task force stemmed from an executive order issued earlier this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis that said the state should expedite work on water quality problems across the Sunshine State over the next five years." — Chad Gillis, The News-Press (Fort Myers, Florida), 8 Oct. 2019Did you know?If you're really intent on expediting something, you jump in with both feet—or place a single foot where it will be most effective! And when you do, you're drawing on the etymology of expedite itself. The word comes from the Latin verb expedire ("to extricate, prepare, be useful"), a word that traces back to the root ped- or pes, meaning "foot." Expedite has been used in English since at least the 15th century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2019 is:recondite \REK-un-dyte\ adjective1 : difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend : deep2 : of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure3 : hidden from sight : concealedExamples:"Ocampo (1903-1993) is a legend of Argentinian literature, and this collection of her short stories brings some of her most recondite and mysterious works to the English-speaking world." — Publisher's Weekly Review, 25 June 2019"Deforestation, desertification, and sea-level rise are topographic, horizontal crises of land-clearing, creeping dunes, and saltwater surges. The realm of rocks, by contrast, seems too motionless and too recondite to be shaped by unnatural shifts above." — Rebecca Giggs, The Atlantic, July 2019Did you know?While the adjective recondite may be used to describe something difficult to understand, there is nothing recondite about the word's history. It dates to the early 1600s, when it was coined from the synonymous Latin word reconditus. Recondite is one of those underused but useful words that's always a boon to one's vocabulary, but take off the re- and you get something very obscure: condite is an obsolete verb meaning both "to pickle or preserve" and "to embalm." If we add the prefix in- to condite we get incondite, which means "badly put together," as in "incondite prose." All three words have Latin condere at their root; that verb is translated variously as "to put or bring together," "to put up, store," and "to conceal."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2019 is:mot juste \moh-ZHEWST\ noun: the exactly right word or phrasingExamples:"At best, thesauruses are mere rest stops in the search for the mot juste. Your destination is the dictionary." — John McPhee, The New Yorker, 29 Apr. 2013"My most potent talisman is the late Ted Hughes' impressive writing lectern … which I bought last year at auction. I used to fish with him, and I imagine he would have been amused to see me stand here at it, looking out over my Perthshire loch, biting a ballpoint and straining for the mot juste." — David Profumo, The Daily Telegraph (London), 8 June 2019Did you know?English was apparently unable to come up with its own mot juste to refer to a word or phrase that expresses exactly what the writer or speaker is trying to say, and so borrowed the French term instead. The borrowing was still very new when George Paston (the pen name of Emily Morse Symonds) described a character's wordsmithery in her 1899 novel A Writer's Life thusly: "She could launch her sentences into the air, knowing that they would fall upon their feet like cats, her brain was almost painlessly delivered of le mot juste…." As English speakers became more familiar with the term, they increasingly gave it the English article the instead of the French le.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2019 is:carouse \kuh-ROWZ ("OW" as in 'cow')\ verb1 : to drink liquor freely or excessively2 : to take part in a drunken revel : engage in dissolute behaviorExamples:Each fall the campus newspaper runs an editorial urging students to recognize that studying and getting involved in official campus activities benefits them far more than carousing does."Maroon leather chairs still line the high-ceilinged reading room where once area businessmen in white shirts and ties repaired to enjoy a Scotch and a fine cigar. And a grand staircase still leads to the basement, where members caroused around a four-lane bowling alley." — Tom Mooney, The Providence (Rhode Island) Journal, 29 Sept. 2019Did you know?Sixteenth-century English revelers toasting each other's health sometimes drank a brimming mug of spirits straight to the bottom—drinking "all-out," they called it. German tipplers did the same and used the German expression for "all out"—gar aus. The French adopted the German term as carous, using the adverb in their expression boire carous ("to drink all out"), and that phrase, with its idiomatic sense of "to empty the cup," led to carrousse, a French noun meaning "a large draft of liquor." And that's where English speakers picked up carouse in the 1500s, first as a noun (which later took on the sense of a general "drunken revel"), and then as a verb meaning "to drink freely."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2019 is:officious \uh-FISH-us\ adjective1 : volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed : meddlesome2 : informal, unofficialExamples:"There are too many yellow flags being thrown around the NFL. Whether it's too many rules or too many officious officials, it's gotten ridiculous." — Brent Musburger, The Las Vegas Review Journal, 21 Sept. 2019"Instead we docked briefly at the Lionhead Campground before being chased off by an officious campground host because we'd overstayed the 15-minute loading and unloading limit." — Eli Francovich, The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), 16 Aug. 2019Did you know?Don't mistake officious for a rare synonym of official. Both words stem from the Latin noun officium (meaning "service" or "office"), but they have very different meanings. When the suffix -osus ("full of") was added to officium, Latin officiosus came into being, meaning "eager to serve, help, or perform a duty." When this adjective was borrowed into English as officious in the 15th century it described dutiful people and their actions. That use shifted a bit semantically to describe those eager to help or serve. By the late 16th century, however, officious was beginning to develop a negative sense describing a person who offers unwanted help. This pejorative sense has driven out the original "dutiful" and "eager to help" senses to become the predominant meaning of the word in modern English. Officious can also mean "of an informal or unauthorized nature," but that sense is not common.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2019 is:white elephant \WYTE-EL-uh-funt\ noun1 : a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit2 : an object no longer of value to its owner but of value to others3 : something of little or no valueExamples:"The white elephant exchange—aka dirty Santa, aka Yankee swap—has many names and many, many rules.… Guests arrive with a wrapped gift, usually under a certain price point, and aim to leave with the 'best' gift in the room." — Becky Hughes, Parade, 10 Nov. 2018"The foundation's application for tax credits is formal recognition that The Avalon plays a role in economic development. That's pretty good validation for a theater that has been criticized for being a white elephant." — editorial, The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), 18 Sept. 2019Did you know?The real white elephant (the kind with a trunk) is a pale pachyderm that has long been an object of veneration in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar. Too revered to be a beast of burden, the white elephant earned a reputation as a burdensome beast—one that required constant care and feeding but never brought a single cent (or paisa or satang or pya) to its owner. One story has it that the kings of Siam (the old name for Thailand) gave white elephants as gifts to those they wished to ruin, hoping that the cost of maintaining the voracious but sacred mammal would drive its new owner to the poorhouse.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2019 is:incongruous \in-KAHN-gruh-wus\ adjective: lacking congruity: asa : not harmonious : incompatibleb : not conforming : disagreeingc : inconsistent within itselfd : lacking propriety : unsuitableExamples:The sight of a horse and carriage amongst the cars on the road was a bit incongruous."The gunplay scene was so incongruous with the rest of the film that one wonders if [director Michael] Engler added the assassination storyline to simply beef up the movie's runtime." — John Vaaler, The Middlebury (Vermont) Campus, 3 Oct. 2019Did you know?Incongruous is a spin-off of its antonym, congruous, which means "in agreement, harmony, or correspondence." Etymologists are in agreement about the origin of both words: they trace to the Latin congruus, from the verb congruere, which means "to come together" or "to agree." The dates of these words' first uses in English match up pretty well, too. Both words are first known to have appeared in English in the early 1580s.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2019 is:gambit \GAM-bit\ noun1 : a chess opening in which a player risks one or more pawns or a minor piece to gain an advantage in position2 a (1) : a remark intended to start a conversation or make a telling point (2) : topicb : a calculated move : stratagemExamples:"The tournament, first held in 1934, was Roberts's gambit for attracting attention, members, and money. He persuaded Jones to come out of retirement to compete in it—an instant lure to fans and players alike—but at first Jones wouldn't agree to calling it the Masters, finding the word too grandiose." — Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 24 June 2019"Obviously, most suspense novels rely on keeping the reader in the dark about something. But a big, glaring omission in what is presented as first-person interior monologue—as if the person is redacting their own thoughts—is one of the least impressive gambits." — The Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2019Did you know?In 1656, a chess handbook was published that was said to have almost a hundred illustrated gambetts. That early spelling of gambit is close to the Italian word gambetto, from which it is derived. Gambetto, which is from gamba, meaning "leg," was used for an act of tripping—especially one that gave an advantage, as in wrestling. The original chess gambit is an opening in which a bishop's pawn is sacrificed to gain some advantage, but the name is now applied to many other chess openings. After being pinned down to chess for years, gambit finally broke free of the hold and showed itself to be a legitimate contender in the English language by weighing in with other meanings.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2019 is:bruit \BROOT\ verb: report, rumor — usually used with aboutExamples:"Analysts have bruited about the notion that Comcast and Disney might team up and divide Fox's assets to prevent a drawn-out bidding war—a turn of events that Mr. Iger has dismissed." — Edmund Lee, The New York Times, 20 June 2018"In the new bio-pic 'Judy,' Renée Zellweger stars as Judy Garland…. The narrowly focussed yet emotionally expansive film has been bruited about as a likely springboard for a statuette for its lead actress ever since the movie's première, last month, at the Telluride Film Festival." — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, Sept. 25, 2019Did you know?Back in the days of Middle English, the Anglo-French noun bruit, meaning "clamor" or "noise," rattled into English. Soon English speakers were also using it to mean "report" or "rumor" (it was applied especially to favorable reports). They also began using bruit the way the verb noise was used (and still occasionally is) with the meaning "to spread by rumor or report" (as in "The scandal was quickly noised about"). The English noun bruit is now considered archaic, apart from a medical sense that is pronounced like the French word and refers to one of the abnormal sounds heard on auscultation.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2019 is:armistice \AHR-muh-stus\ noun: temporary stopping of open acts of warfare by agreement between the opponents : truceExamples:The Korean War ended with an armistice signed in July of 1953, though a permanent peace accord was never reached."[Ralph] Bunche, a Howard University professor, was an African-American scholar and diplomat who achieved prominence in 1949 after negotiating armistice agreements between Israel and four Arab states, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." — Richard Freedman, The Vallejo (California) Times-Herald, 24 Sept. 2019Did you know?Armistice descends from Latin sistere, meaning "to come to a stand" or "to cause to stand or stop," combined with arma, meaning "weapons." An armistice, therefore, is literally a cessation of arms. Armistice Day is the name that was given to the holiday celebrated in the United States on November 11 before it was renamed Veterans Day by Congress in 1954. The original name refers to the agreement between the Allied Powers and Germany to end hostilities that constituted the First World War—an agreement designated to take effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 10, 2019 is:teleological \tel-ee-uh-LAH-jih-kul\ adjective: exhibiting or relating to design or purpose especially in natureExamples:"The standard story about mass printing is a story of linear, teleological progress. It goes like this: Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were precious objects, handwritten by scribes and available primarily in Latin. Common people … were left vulnerable to exploitation by powerful gatekeepers—landed élites, oligarchs of church and state—who could use their monopoly on knowledge to repress the masses. After Gutenberg, books became widely available, setting off a cascade of salutary movements and innovations…." — Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 23 Sept. 2019"A team of psychology researchers at Boston University (BU) asked chemists, geologists and physicists … to evaluate explanations for different natural phenomena. The statements included purpose-based (or teleological) explanations such as 'Trees produce oxygen so that animals can breathe,' or 'The Earth has an ozone layer in order to protect it from UV light.' Scientists who were not under time pressure tended to accurately reject these purpose-based explanations. Meanwhile, scientists who were instructed to assess the statements quickly were more likely to endorse these teleological explanations…." — Live Science, 29 Oct. 2012Did you know?Teleological (which comes to us, by way of New Latin, from the Greek root tele-, telos, meaning "end or purpose") and its close relative teleology both entered English in the 18th century, followed by teleologist in the 19th century. Teleology has the basic meaning of "the study of ends or purposes." A teleologist attempts to understand the purpose of something by looking at its results. A teleological philosopher might argue that we should judge whether an act is good or bad by seeing if it produces a good or bad result, and a teleological explanation of evolutionary changes claims that all such changes occur for a definite purpose.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 9, 2019 is:aphorism \noun\ AF-uh-riz-um1 : a concise statement of a principle2 : a terse formulation of a truth or sentiment : adage3 : an ingeniously terse style of expressionExamples:"Michael sighed…. He had known that his mother had told Gina that cryptic aphorism, but he'd long since forgotten and could not think why it had any particular significance, now. No more significance than his father's cryptic aphorism: What are people for, except to let you down." — Joyce Carol Oates (as Rosamond Smith), Snake Eyes, 1992"'Brevity is the soul of wit,' Shakespeare's Polonius says, issuing the greatest unintentional aphorism in literature: at the time, scholars say, the line meant merely that concision is the essence of useful intelligence, and, of course, it was uttered as part of a deliberately long-winded speech. But it now captures … a subtler truth: a joke is improved by compression." — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 15 July 2019Did you know?Aphorism was originally used in the world of medicine. Credit Hippocrates, the Greek physician regarded as the father of modern medicine, with influencing our use of the word. He used aphorismos (a Greek ancestor of aphorism meaning "definition" or "aphorism") in titling a book outlining his principles on the diagnosis and treatment of disease. That volume offered many examples that helped to define aphorism, beginning with the statement that starts the book's introduction: "Life is short, Art long, Occasion sudden and dangerous, Experience deceitful, and Judgment difficult." English speakers originally used the term mainly in the realm of the physical sciences but eventually broadened its use to cover principles in other fields.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 8, 2019 is:lyric \LEER-ik\ adjective1 a : suitable for singing to the lyre or for being set to music and sungb : of, relating to, or being drama set to music; especially : operatic2 a : expressing direct usually intense personal emotion especially in a manner suggestive of songb : exuberant, rhapsodic3 of an opera singer : having a light voice and a melodic styleExamples:Critics are praising the novel as a lyric masterpiece that bravely lays out the emotional tensions experienced by its young protagonist."Norgren's encores were dazzling, as the cosmic cowboy tune 'The Power' combined psychedelic guitar lines and his headlong rush of lyric imagery careening into the chorus…." — Jay N. Miller, The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), 29 Sept. 2019Did you know?To the ancient Greeks, anything lyrikos was appropriate to the lyre. That elegant stringed instrument was highly regarded by the Greeks and was used to accompany intensely personal poetry that revealed the thoughts and feelings of the poet. When the adjective lyric, a descendant of lyrikos, was adopted into English in the 1500s, it too referred to things pertaining or adapted to the lyre. Initially, it was applied to poetic forms (such as elegies, odes, or sonnet that express strong emotion, to poets who write such works, or to things meant to be sung. Over time, it was extended to anything musical or rhapsodic. Nowadays, lyric is also used as a noun naming either a type of poem or the words of a song.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 7, 2019 is:espouse \ih-SPOWZ\ verb1 : marry 2 : to take up and support as a cause : become attached toExamples:"Tradition associates [the period of the Lyrid meteor showers] with the Chinese teacher and philosopher Confucius, one of the first to espouse the principle: 'Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.'" — The Telegraph (UK), 10 Oct. 2019"The beloved musical [Fiddler on the Roof] was revived entirely in Yiddish…. Directed by Oscar and Tony Award-winner Joel Grey, the timeless show captures the strength of Jewish people and their traditions, while espousing universal themes of love, belonging and community." — Madeleine Fernando, Billboard.com, 3 May 2019Did you know?As you might guess, the words espouse and spouse are related, both deriving from the Latin verb spondēre, meaning "to promise" or "to betroth." In fact, the two were once completely interchangeable, with each serving as a noun meaning "a newly married person" or "a husband or wife" and also as a verb meaning "to marry." Their semantic separation began in the 18th century, when the noun espouse fell out of use. Nowadays, espouse is most often seen or heard as a verb used in the figuratively extended sense "to commit to and support as a cause." Spouse continued to be used in both noun and verb forms until the 20th century, when its verb use declined and it came to be used mainly as a noun meaning "husband or wife."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 6, 2019 is:chilblain \CHIL-blayn\ noun: an inflammatory swelling or sore caused by exposure (as of the feet or hands) to coldExamples:"If you thought chilblains only belonged in 19th century novels, think again. They crop up in response to extreme cold…. You're more likely to get chilblains in extreme weather through sitting in an under-heated house or working in a chilly office than walking through sub-zero temperatures outside." — JR Thorpe, Bustle, 7 Feb. 2019"Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute…; she had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands." — Jane Austen, Emma, 1815Did you know?Given that chilblains are caused by exposure to cold conditions, it may not surprise you to know that the first element of this word comes from the noun chill. The second element, blain, may be less familiar, though the word blain ("an inflammatory swelling or sore") is still used by English speakers. Both elements of chilblain have Anglo-Saxon roots. Chill comes from Old English ciele ("frost" or "chill"), which is akin to ceald, an Old English ancestor of the modern cold. Blain comes from Old English blegen (of the same meaning as blain). These two words were first brought together (as the compound chyll blayne) in the 1500s.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 5, 2019 is:posthaste \POHST-HAYST\ adverb: with all possible speedExamples:"You must leave posthaste," Virginia theatrically admonished her guests, "or you'll miss your ferry!""These goats show almost nothing of the skittishness that we tend to expect of wild, hoofed mammals such as deer and elk, which almost always flee posthaste the instant they see a person (or, often as not, given the sensitivity of their senses, they smell or hear one)." — Jayson Jacoby, Baker City (Oregon) Herald, 9 Aug. 2019Did you know?In the 16th century, the phrase "haste, post, haste" was used to inform posts (as couriers were then called) that a letter was urgent and must be hastily delivered. Posts would then speedily gallop along a route with a series of places at which to get a fresh horse or to relay the letter to a fresh messenger. William Shakespeare was one of the first to use a version of the phrase adverbially in Richard II. "Old John of Gaunt ... hath sent post haste / To entreat your Majesty to visit him," the Bard versified. He also used the phrase as an adjective (a use that is now obsolete) in Othello: "The Duke ... requires your haste-post-haste appearance," Lieutenant Cassio reports to the play's namesake. Today, the word still possesses a literary flair attributable to the Bard.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 4, 2019 is:sobriquet \SOH-brih-kay\ noun: a descriptive name or epithet : nicknameExamples:"As a member of Congress, he voted against so many bills that he earned the 'Dr. No' sobriquet…." — Ben Terris, The Washington Post, 3 Sept. 2019"[H]e had a rather flightly and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'The Artful Dodger'…." — Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1839Did you know?This synonym of nickname has the same meaning in modern French as it does in English. In Middle French, however, its earlier incarnation soubriquet referred to both a nickname and a tap under the chin. Centuries later, the connection between these two meanings isn't clear, but what is clear is that the "nickname" meaning of sobriquet was well established in French by the time English speakers borrowed the term in the 17th century—and was the only meaning that was adopted. In current English, the spelling sobriquet is most common, but soubriquet is also an accepted variant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 3, 2019 is:fraught \FRAWT\ adjective1 : full of or accompanied by something specified — used with with2 : causing or characterized by emotional distress or tension : uneasyExamples:"Ruth didn't think of herself as the kind of person who cared deeply about the outcome of a game played by fifth graders … but even she found it impossible not to get swept up in the excitement as the clock wound down, and every play became fraught with danger and possibility." — Tom Perrotta, The Abstinence Teacher, 2007"… The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards … will be loads of fun for the nominees and presenters, and for the audience at home, but this one is fraught. With television in a state of flux that was once unimaginable—multiple new streaming services will launch between now and next year's Emmys—and bristling tensions among writers, their agents and studios, there's a lot at stake." — John Doyle, The Globe and Mail, 20 Sept. 2019Did you know?"The drowmound was so hevy fraught / That unethe myght it saylen aught." That verse, from the 14th-century poem Richard Coer de Lion, says that a large ship (a dromond) was so heavily loaded that it could barely sail: originally, something that was "fraught" was laden with freight. Fraught came to Middle English from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German noun vracht, which meant "load" and which is also the source of freight. For centuries, fraught continued to be used of loaded ships, but its use was eventually broadened for situations that are heavy with tension or some other weighty characteristic.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 2, 2019 is:dilapidated \duh-LAP-uh-day-tud\ adjective: decayed, deteriorated, or fallen into partial ruin especially through neglect or misuseExamples:Although extensive renovations would be needed to convert the dilapidated warehouse into apartments, Sam still thought it was a sound investment."The 11-by-16-foot room is a sun-washed garret, taller than it is wide, on the fifth floor of a dilapidated 19th-century commercial building on lower Broadway that the artist has rented since January." — Alice Newell-Hanson, The New York Times, 20 Sept. 2019Did you know?Something that is dilapidated may not have been literally pummeled with stones, but it might look that way. Dilapidated derives (via the English verb dilapidate) from dilapidatus, the past participle of the Latin verb dilapidare ("to squander or destroy"). That verb was formed by combining dis-, meaning "apart," with the verb lapidare, meaning "to pelt with stones." Other English descendants of lapidare include the verb lapidate ("to pelt or kill with stones") and the noun lapidary, which is used to refer to a person who cuts or polishes precious stones. Both words share as a root the Latin noun lapis, meaning "stone." We also find lapis in the name lapis lazuli, a bright blue semiprecious stone.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 1, 2019 is:apocryphal \uh-PAH-kruh-ful\ adjective1 : of doubtful authenticity : spurious2 often capitalized Apocryphal : of or resembling the ApocryphaExamples:"The first official sighting of the creature dates from 1912, although apocryphal stories have the monster overturning the canoe of a Quapaw Indian and sinking a Confederate gunboat during the Civil War." — Scott Liles, The Baxter Bulletin (Mountain Home, Arkansas), 28 Aug. 2019"In the chapter on cetology, we have to plow through a dozen pages of whale species, some of them possibly apocryphal, before we get to the payoff, a motto for freelance writers: 'Oh Time, Strength, Cash and Patience!'" — Mary Norris, The New York Times, 26 June 2019Did you know?In Bible study, the term Apocrypha refers to sections of the Bible that are not sanctioned as belonging to certain official canons. In some Protestant versions, these sections appear between the Old and New Testaments. More generally, the word refers to writings or statements whose purported origin is in doubt. Consequently, the adjective apocryphal describes things like legends and anecdotes that are purported to be true by way of repeated tellings but that have never been proven or verified and, therefore, most likely are not factual. Both apocrypha and apocryphal derive, via Latin, from the Greek verbal adjective apokrýtein, meaning "to hide (from), keep hidden (from)," from krýptein ("to conceal, hide").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 31, 2019 is:phantasm \FAN-taz-um\ noun1 : a product of fantasy: asa : delusive appearance : illusionb : ghost, specterc : a figment of the imagination2 : a mental representation of a real objectExamples:"In each maze, you will follow in the footsteps of the Ghostbusters—Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston—as they venture through recreated scenes from the film, including the firehouse, New York Public Library and the Temple of Gozer, as an army of ghoulish spirits, specters and phantasms attack." — Devoun Cetoute, The Miami Herald, 17 July 2019"Finally I had to admit defeat: I was never going to turn around my faltering musical career. So at 31 I gave up, abandoning my musical aspirations entirely, to pursue a doctorate in public policy. … After finishing my studies, I became a university professor, a job I enjoyed. But I still thought every day about my beloved first vocation. Even now, I regularly dream that I am onstage, and wake to remember that my childhood aspirations are now only phantasms." — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, July 2019Did you know?Phantasm is from Middle English fantasme, a borrowing from Anglo-French fantasme, which itself is a derivative of Latin and Greek words—and ultimately the Greek verb phantazein, meaning "to present to the mind." The Greek verb took shape from phainein, meaning "to show," and this root appears in several English words that have to do with the way things seem or appear rather than the way they really are. Phantasmagoria and diaphanous are examples. Also from this root are words such as fanciful and fantasy, in which the imagination plays an important part.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2019 is:respite \RESS-pit\ noun1 : a period of temporary delay2 : an interval of rest or reliefExamples:The station's meteorologist had predicted that the bad weather would continue throughout the week without respite."Such small, shady public spaces provide a welcome respite from busy street life and enhance the livability of the city." — David Ross Scheer, The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 Sept. 2019Did you know?Respite is first known to have been used at the turn of the 14th century to refer to a delay or extension asked for or granted for a specific reason—to give someone time to deliberate on a proposal, for example. Such a respite offered an opportunity for the kind of consideration inherent in the word's etymology. Respite traces from the Latin term respectus (also the source of English's respect), which comes from respicere, a verb with both concrete and abstract meanings: "to turn around to look at" or "to regard." Within a few decades of its earliest known use, English speakers had granted respite the sense we use most often today—"a welcome break."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2019 is:lackadaisical \lak-uh-DAY-zih-kul\ adjective: lacking life, spirit, or zest : languidExamples:"What used to be a bar with barely passable food, boring décor and lackadaisical service has a new incarnation. Everything has been improved, starting with its transformation into a lively tavern with a menu of popular comfort foods, as well as choices for more adventurous eaters." — Marc Bona, Cleveland.com, 6 Apr. 2017"But it was not that they lost— … but how they lost, mired in lackadaisical play. Jose Iglesias was thrown out at third base trying to advance in a ball on the dirt for an easy out. Blaine Hardy forgot to cover first base. And then … J.D. Martinez caught a fly ball in rightfield and assumed Jason Kipnis would hold at third base." — Anthony French, The Detroit Free Press, 8 July 2017Did you know?Alas, alack, there are times when life seems to be one unfortunate occurrence after another. We've all had days when nothing seemed to go right. When folks had one of those days back in the 17th century, they'd cry "Lackaday" to express their sorrow and disappointment. Lackaday was a shortened form of the expression "alack the day." By the mid-1700s, lackadaisical was being used (coined through the addition of the suffix -ical). The word lackadaisy also was used around that time as an interjection similar to lackaday, and this word, though never as prevalent as lackaday, might have influenced the coinage of lackadaisical.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2019 is:undulate \UN-juh-layt\ verb1 : to form or move in waves : fluctuate2 : to rise and fall in volume, pitch, or cadence3 : to present a wavy appearanceExamples:"He could hear the muffled fart of a tuba from the German oompah band warming up in Feltman's beer garden. Beyond the garden was the Ziz coaster, hissing and undulating through the trees with the peculiar sound that gave it its name." — Kevin Baker, Dreamland, 1999"Mats of bright green duckweed undulated in the slow current of the La Crosse River, reminding an observer of the shape shifting in a lava lamp." — Dave Skoloda, The La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, 4 Sept. 2019Did you know?Undulate and inundate are word cousins that branch from unda, the Latin word for "wave." No surprise there. But would you have guessed that abound, surround, and redound are also unda offspring? The connection between unda and these words is easier to see when you learn that at some point in their early histories each of them essentially had the meaning of "to overflow"—a meaning that inundate still carries, along with its "overwhelm" sense.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.