Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2019 is:pedagogical \ped-uh-GAH-jih-kul\ adjective: of, relating to, or befitting a teacher or educationExamples:New teachers will be evaluated on pedagogical skills such as lesson planning and classroom management."If Americans agree on anything these days, it's that our schools could be much better, and that internet culture is harming our children. I have a simple proposal to address both problems: high school classes on how to use the internet more effectively. By now the internet has such far-reaching influence that such a pedagogical intervention is called for." — Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg, 2 July 2019Did you know?Pedagogical, which has the somewhat less common variant form pedagogic, was coined in the early 17th century from a Greek adjective of the same meaning. That adjective, paidagōgikos, in turn, derives from the noun paidagōgos, meaning "teacher." The English word pedagogue (which can simply mean "teacher" but usually suggests one who is particularly pedantic or dull) derives from the same root. Although the words educational and teacher make the grade in most contexts, pedagogical and pedagogue are useful additions to the class.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 26, 2019 is:aerie \AIR-ee\ noun1 : the nest of a bird on a cliff or a mountaintop2 : an elevated often secluded dwelling, structure, or positionExamples:"Cradled in the limbs of an ancient (unharmed) oak, the rustic Barn Owl Tree House is a cedar-paneled aerie overlooking the valley." — Dale Leatherman, The Washingtonian, February 5, 2019"A quarter-mile uphill from a cul-de-sac…, there is a 30-foot-wide gate beyond which lies another place of mythic proportions …, a 157-acre hilltop aerie with a series of sprawling, manicured fields on an escarpment rising to 1,360 feet in California's Santa Monica Mountains…." — Alex Bhattacharji, Town & Country, February 2019Did you know?English poet John Milton put a variant of aerie to good use in Paradise Lost (1667), writing, "… there the eagle and the stork / On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build." But Milton wasn't the first to use the term, which comes to us via Medieval Latin and Old French and probably traces to an earlier Latin word, ager, meaning "field." English speakers had been employing aerie as a word for a bird's nest for more than a century when he penned those words. Eventually, aerie was applied to human dwellings as well as birds' nests. At first, this sense referred to dwellings nestled high up in mountains or hills. These days, you're also likely to hear high-rise city apartments or offices referred to as "aeries."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 25, 2019 is:coruscate \KOR-uh-skayt\ verb1 : to give off or reflect light in bright beams or flashes : sparkle2 : to be brilliant or showy in technique or styleExamples:"You can sense [Mickaline] Thomas's affection for these ostentatiously fabulous women. They sport towering Afros, floral-print shifts, gold lamé belts…. Lips and eyelids coruscate enough to light the way at night." — Ariella Budick, The Financial Times, 7 Nov. 2012"Think of the Amalfi Coast and visions come to mind of verdant hillsides brimming with pastel-color buildings reflected in the coruscating Tyrrhenian Sea." — Sahar Khan, Vogue, 10 Nov. 2017Did you know?To help you gain a flash of recognition next time you see coruscate (or to prompt you when you need a brilliant synonym for sparkle), remember this bit of bright imagery by George Bernard Shaw, describing a centuries-old abbey: "O'er this north door a trace still lingers / Of how a Gothic craftsman's fingers / Could make stones creep like ivy stems / And tilings coruscate like gems." Or you could just remember that coruscate developed from Latin coruscare, which means "to flash." That word also gave us the noun coruscation ("glitter" or "sparkle") and the adjective coruscant ("shining" or "glittering").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 24, 2019 is:Noachian \noh-AY-kee-un\ adjective1 : of or relating to the patriarch Noah or his time2 : ancient, antiquatedExamples:"So you thought the weather of 2009 was a bit on the insane side, with a spring that seemed to last until fall and Noachian levels of rainfall? Not really, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center in Ithaca, N.Y." — Thomas J. Morgan, The Providence Journal, 21 Nov. 2009"Elendil, a Noachian figure, who has held off from the rebellion, and kept ships manned and furnished off the east coast of Númenor, flees before the overwhelming storm of the wrath of the West…." — J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, (1977, posthumously)Did you know?Students of the Bible know that Noah survived the Great Flood by stowing himself, his family, and male and female specimens of every kind of creature on his Ark. Noachian is derived from the Hebrew name for Noah. Modern contexts find Noachian used in reference to the Great Flood or, more humorously, to describe torrential rainstorms and flooding reminiscent of the Biblical event. It could be said that usage of Noachian spans even beyond planet Earth. Astronomers studying the surface of the planet Mars use _Noachian_ to refer to the epoch between 4.6 and 3.5 billion years ago when that planet's oldest craters were believed to be formed. This usage is based on Noachis Terra, the name of one of the landmasses of Mars, which translates as "Land of Noah" and was chosen in the 19th century by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli.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 23, 2019 is:spoonerism \SPOO-nuh-riz-um\ noun: a transposition of usually initial sounds of two or more words (as in tons of soil for sons of toil)Examples:"The girlfriend is part of the origin story of Ritt Momney [instead of Mitt Romney]. That was the name Rutter and his friends at East High School gave to the band they formed their junior year. There wasn't much of a thought process behind the name, a spoonerism of Utah's junior senator and the czar of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City." — Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 July 2019"Spoonerisms… occur when the first letter or letters of at least two words are transposed to form a nonsensical or humorous new phrase. My favorite, from childhood, is the usher who offers to 'sew you to your sheets' instead of show you to your seats.…" — Caitlin Lovinger, The New York Times, 7 Apr. 2018Did you know?Poor William Archibald Spooner! That British clergyman and educator, who lived from 1844 to 1930, often had to speak in public, but he was a nervous man and his tongue frequently got tangled up. He would say things like "a blushing crow" when he meant "a crushing blow." Spooner's sound reversals became the stuff of legend—and undoubtedly gave his listeners many a laugh. By the end of the 19th century, his name had inspired the term spoonerism, which lives on to this day.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 22, 2019 is:fiduciary \fuh-DOO-shee-air-ee\ adjective: of, relating to, or involving a confidence or trust: such asa : held or founded in trust or confidenceb : holding in trustc : depending on public confidence for value or currencyExamples:"A pet trust can be part of an existing trust or it can be drawn up separately. In a trust, you name the caretaker and you establish a fiduciary obligation for them to care for the pets in the manner and style you choose." — Charlie Powell, The Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Idaho & Washington), 24 Aug. 2019"This is an essential piece of insider trading that many people get wrong. The key element of insider trading is not the information. It is the fiduciary relationship breached when an insider uses that information." — Eric Reed, TheStreet.com, 5 Feb. 2019Did you know?Fiduciary relationships often concern money, but the word fiduciary does not, in and of itself, suggest financial matters. Rather, fiduciary applies to any situation in which one person justifiably places confidence and trust in someone else and seeks that person's help or advice in some matter. The attorney-client relationship is a fiduciary one, for example, because the client trusts the attorney to act in the best interest of the client at all times. Fiduciary can also be used as a noun for the person who acts in a fiduciary capacity, and fiduciarily or fiducially can be called upon if you are in need of an adverb. The words are all faithful to their origin: Latin fīdere, which means "to trust."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 21, 2019 is:comprise \kum-PRYZE\ verb1 : to be made up of2 : compose3 : to include especially within a particular scopeExamples:The city developers' plans include a massive recreational complex that comprises a concert hall, four restaurants, two hotels, and a theater."He said the city's commission, currently comprised of three members but set up for five, is supposed to meet monthly but usually convenes only in times of need, which is rare." — Kevin Duffy, The Morning Call, 29 Aug. 2019Did you know?Comprise has undergone a substantial shift in usage since first appearing in English in the 15th century. For many years, grammarians insisted that the usage of comprise meaning "to be made up of," as in phrases like "a team comprising nine players," was correct, and that comprise meaning "to make up," as in phrases like "the nine players who comprise the team," was not. This disputed use is most common in the passive construction "to be comprised of," as in "a team comprised of nine players." Until relatively recently, this less-favored sense appeared mostly in scientific writing, but current evidence shows that it is now somewhat more common in general use than the word's 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 October 20, 2019 is:knackered \NAK-erd\ adjectiveBritish : tiredExamples:"Even the most perky 20-something is going to age, have kids and get knackered eventually. And like millions before them they will turn on their TV for respite, rescue, recreation and Ready Steady Cook as their lives unfold." — Mark Ritson, Marketing Week, 14 Feb. 2019"There are usually some after parties, but I haven't made them over the past few years as I've been knackered!" — Daniel Ricciardo, quoted in Forbes, 15 Sept. 2017Did you know?Knackered is derived from the past participle of knacker, a slang term meaning "to kill," as well as "to tire, exhaust, or wear out." The origins of the verb knacker are uncertain, but the word is perhaps related to an older noun knacker, which originally referred to a harness-maker or saddlemaker, and later referred to a buyer of animals no longer able to do farm work (or their carcasses) as well as to a buyer of old structures. The origins of the noun knacker, however, remain obscure. Knackered is used on both sides of the Atlantic but is more common among British speakers.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 19, 2019 is:deke \DEEK\ verb: to fake an opponent out of position (as in ice hockey)Examples:"[Carl Yastrzemski] led the league in (outfield) assists seven times. He was great at deking the runner into thinking he'd catch the ball or it was over the wall. Most of the assists were on guys trying for doubles." — Jon Miller, quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, 13 June 2019"After taking a pass from Diego Rossi and avoiding a sliding defender, Vela stepped around another defender inside the box, deked keeper Daniel Vega to the ground then dribbled around him…." — Kevin Baxter, The Los Angeles Times, 21 Aug. 2019Did you know?Deke originated as a shortened form of decoy. American writer Ernest Hemingway used deke as a noun referring to hunting decoys in a number of his works, including his 1950 novel Across the River and into the Trees ("I offered to put the dekes out with him"). In the 1940s, deke began appearing in ice-hockey contexts in Canadian print sources in reference to the act of faking an opponent out of position—much like how decoy is used for luring one into a trap. Today, deke has scored in many other sports, including baseball, basketball, soccer, and football. It has also occasionally checked its way into more general usage to refer to deceptive or evasive moves or actions.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 18, 2019 is:hobbyhorse \HAH-bee-horss\ noun1 a : a figure of a horse fastened about the waist in the morris danceb : a dancer wearing this figure2 a : a stick having an imitation horse's head at one end that a child pretends to rideb : rocking horsec : a toy horse suspended by springs from a frame3 a : a topic to which one constantly revertsb : a pursuit outside one's regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation : hobbyExamples:"Apologies for hopping back on my hobbyhorse, but the lifeblood of every program is recruiting. The first thing Tech's next coach must do is rustle up pro-style quarterbacks and tight ends because, for 11 years, Tech hasn't had one." — Mark Bradley, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 28 Nov. 2018"When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion,—or, in other words, when his Hobby-Horse grows headstrong,—farewell cool reason and fair discretion." — Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, 1759Did You Know?The hobbyhorse is a toy of yesteryear, dating back to a homespun era predating automobiles. In the 1400s, the word hobby could refer to a real-life horse of small or average size. It soon came to refer to the horse costume worn by a person participating in a morris dance or a burlesque performance, and then, later, to the child's toy. Another meaning of hobbyhorse was "a favorite pursuit or pastime"; our modern noun hobby (referring to an activity that one does for pleasure when not working) was formed by shortening this word. From pastime, the meaning of hobbyhorse was extended to "a subject to which one repeatedly returns." The sense is typically encountered as part of such phrases as "get on one's hobbyhorse" or "ride one's hobbyhorse."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 17, 2019 is:maunder \MAWN-der\ verb1 : chiefly British : grumble2 : to wander slowly and idly3 : to speak indistinctly or disconnectedlyExamples:The bed-and-breakfast was delightful but we felt a bit captive in the morning as our host maundered on while we hovered at the door, hoping to escape before the morning had passed."Listening to [Kenneth Branagh playing Hercule Poirot] feels like chatting with your neighbor over the garden hedge, and it's all too easy to be distracted by the foliage, I'm afraid, as he maunders on about knife wounds and sleeping potions and missing kimonos." — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2017Did you know?Maunder looks a lot like meander, and that's not all the two words have in common—both mean "to wander aimlessly," either physically or in speech. Some critics have suggested that while meander can describe a person's verbal and physical rambling, in addition to the wanderings of things like paths and streams, maunder should be limited to wandering words. The problem with that reasoning is that maunder has been used of the physical movements of people since the 18th century, whereas meander didn't acquire that use until the 19th. These days, meander tends to be the more common choice, although maunder does continue to turn up in both applications.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 16, 2019 is:genial \JEE-nee-ul\ adjective1 : favorable to growth or comfort : mild2 : marked by or freely expressing sympathy or friendliness3 : displaying or marked by geniusExamples:"What country seems more sensible? The even discourse, the reflexive politeness, the brilliant yet genial wit, that easy embrace of hellish cold: Canada is a rock. Canada is the neighbor who helps clean out your garage.… Canada is always so … solid." — S. L. Price, Sports Illustrated, 12 Mar. 2019"… Sony Pictures confirmed that its upcoming Fred Rogers film will be called 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.' The announcement came by way of Twitter…, with the studio again sharing a picture of its star Tom Hanks seated on a trailer stoop in character as the genial children's programming pioneer—cardigan and all." — Nardine Saad, The Los Angeles Times, 28 December 2018Did you know?Genial derives from the Latin adjective genialis, meaning "connected with marriage." When genial was first adopted into English in the mid-16th century, it meant "of or relating to marriage," a sense that is now obsolete. Genialis was formed in Latin by combining the -alis suffix (meaning "of, relating to, or characterized by") with genius, meaning "a person's disposition or inclination." As you may have guessed, Latin genius is the ancestor of the English word genius, meaning "extraordinary intellectual power"—so it's logical enough that genial eventually developed a sense (possibly influenced by the German word genial) of "marked by very high intelligence."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 15, 2019 is:belfry \BEL-free\ noun1 : a bell tower; especially : one surmounting or attached to another structure2 : a room or framework for enclosing a bell3 : the seat of the intellect : headExamples:"The mission stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather collection of buildings, in the centre of which is a high tower, with a belfry of five bells…." — Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, 1840"In 1963, a stone steeple over the belfry was removed after settling of the foundation compromised its integrity." — Stephen Mills, The Times Argus (Barre-Montpelier, Vermont), 12 July 2019Did you know? Surprisingly, belfry does not come from bell, and early belfries did not contain bells at all. Belfry comes from the Middle English berfrey, a term for a wooden tower used in medieval sieges. The structure could be rolled up to a fortification wall so that warriors hidden inside could storm the battlements. Over time, the term was applied to other types of shelters and towers, many of which had bells in them. This association of berfrey with bell towers, seems to have influenced the dissimilation of the first r in berfrey to an l, and people began representing this pronunciation in writing with variants such as bellfray, belfrey, and belfry (the last of which has become the standard spelling). On a metaphorical note, someone who has "bats in the belfry" is insane or eccentric. This phrase is responsible for the use of bats for "insane" (as in "Are you completely bats?") and the occasional use of belfry for "head" ("He's not quite right in the belfry").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 14, 2019 is:exoteric \adjective\ ek-suh-TAIR-ik1 a : suitable to be imparted to the publicb : belonging to the outer or less initiate circle2 : relating to the outside : externalExamples: As a specialist writing for a broader audience, Annette faces the challenge of producing an exoteric synthesis of complex information."Mainstream Judaism is primarily an exoteric, or outwardly oriented, religion, with a focus on reason, philosophy and ethics. Yet it has always had an esoteric side, expressed in the kabbalah and other mystical teachings." — Rodger Kamenetz, The San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Dec. 1990Did you know? Exoteric derives from Latin exotericus, which is itself from Greek exōterikos, meaning "external," and ultimately from exō, meaning "outside." Exō has a number of offspring in English, including exotic, exonerate, exorbitant, and the combining form exo- or ex- (as in exoskeleton and exobiology). The antonym of exoteric is esoteric, meaning "designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone"; it descends from the Greek word for "within," esō.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 13, 2019 is:triskaidekaphobia \triss-kye-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\ noun: fear of the number 13Examples:"We've gathered a list of 13 local theater productions to help you get into that eerie Halloween feeling. Just don't let triskaidekaphobia—fear of the number 13—stop you from seeing one of these theater productions opening across the state this month." — Whitney Butters Wilde, The Deseret News, 1 Oct. 2018"If you've got triskaidekaphobia, this event is not for you.... On Friday, April 13, some fans of the horror movie 'Friday the 13th' will get a chance to stay overnight at the New Jersey camp where the original film in the slasher series was shot." — Amy Lieu, The New York Post, 21 Feb. 2018Did you know?It's impossible to say just how or when the number thirteen got its bad reputation. There are a number of theories, of course. Some say it comes from the Last Supper because Jesus was betrayed afterwards by one among the thirteen present. Others trace the source of the superstition back to ancient Hindu beliefs or Norse mythology. But if written references are any indication, the phenomenon isn't all that old (at least, not among English speakers). Known mention of fear of thirteen in print dates back only to the late 1800s. By circa 1911, however, it was prevalent enough to merit a name, which was formed by attaching the Greek word for "thirteen"—treiskaideka (dropping that first "e")—to phobia ("fear of").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 12, 2019 is:wheedle \wheedle\ verb1 : to influence or entice by soft words or flattery2 : to gain or get by coaxing or flattering3 : to use soft words or flatteryExamples:Suzie and Timmy wheedled the babysitter into letting them stay up an hour past their bedtime."As we were saying, if you've noticed an increase recently in robocalls—those automated calls to your cellphone or landline with come-ons to lower your credit card debt or ploys to wheedle your Social Security number and other information from you—you're hardly alone." — editorial, The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington), 2 July 2019Did you know?Wheedle has been a part of the English lexicon since the mid-17th century, though no one is quite sure how the word made its way into English. (It has been suggested that the term may have derived from an Old English word that meant "to beg," but this is far from certain.) Once established in the language, however, wheedle became a favorite of some of the language's most illustrious writers. Wheedle and its related forms appear in the writings of Wordsworth, Dickens, Kipling, Dryden, Swift, Scott, Tennyson, and Pope, among others.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 11, 2019 is:idée fixe \ee-day-FEEKS\ noun: an idea that dominates one's mind especially for a prolonged period : obsessionExamples:"When Byrne arrived, he noticed the trees stood close together—far too narrow a space for something with broad shoulders and big feet to make a clean egress. And there, between three and five feet off the ground, snagged in the bark, he spotted the tuft of hair and piece of skin he hoped would bring him one step closer to his idée fixe, the sasquatch itself, a towering hominid of North American lore." — Reis Thebault, The Washington Post, 6 June 2019"Though it takes a shocking turn toward the horrific, [Flannery O'Connor's] 'Wise Blood' is in fact a comedy of aberrant humors, in which every character is driven by a compulsive idée fixe." — David Ansen, Newsweek, 17 Mar. 1980Did you know?The term idée fixe is a 19th-century French coinage. French writer Honoré de Balzac used it in his 1830 novella Gobseck to describe an obsessive idea. By 1836, Balzac's more generalized use of the term had carried over into English, where idée fixe was embraced as a clinical and literary term for a persistent preoccupation or delusional idea that dominates a person's mind. Although it is still used in both psychology and music, nowadays idée fixe is also applied to milder and more pedestrian obsessions.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 10, 2019 is:blandish \BLAN-dish\ verb1 : to coax with flattery : cajole2 : to act or speak in a flattering or coaxing mannerExamples:"… and all that was left of Pym, it seemed to me, as I wove my lies and blandished, and perjured myself before one kangaroo court after another, was a failing con man tottering on the last legs of his credibility." — John Le Carré, A Perfect Spy, 1986"What happened, and what few expected, was the birth of open-access journals that will take just about any paper, for a fee.... They send blandishing emails to scientists, inviting them to publish with them." — Gina Kolata, The New York Times, 30 Oct. 2017Did you know?The word blandish has been a part of the English language since at least the 14th century with virtually no change in its meaning. It ultimately derives from blandus, a Latin word meaning "mild" or "flattering." One of the earliest known uses of blandish can be found in the sacred writings of Richard Rolle de Hampole, an English hermit and mystic, who cautioned against "the dragon that blandishes with the head and smites with the tail." Although blandish might not exactly be suggestive of dullness, it was the "mild" sense of blandus that gave us our adjective bland, which has a lesser-known sense meaning "smooth and soothing in manner or quality."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 9, 2019 is:scapegoat \SKAYP-goat\ noun1 : a male goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness in the biblical ceremony for Yom Kippur2 a : one that bears the blame for othersb : one that is the object of irrational hostilityExamples:The financial advisor was a convenient scapegoat for some of the ill-fated business ventures that the company had undertaken over the years."The French framed [Mata Hari] for espionage, making her the scapegoat for their losses on the Western Front, but it's also clear that some of her inquisitors really believed she was guilty…." — Mick LaSalle, The San Francisco Chronicle, 19 Aug. 2019Did You Know?On Yom Kippur, the ancient Hebrews would sacrifice one goat for the Lord and lead another one into the wilderness bearing the sins of the people. The ceremony is described in Leviticus, where it is said that one lot shall be cast for the Lord and one for "Azazel." Modern scholars usually interpret Azazel as being the name of a demon living in the desert, but ancient biblical translators thought Azazel referred to the goat itself, apparently confusing it with the Hebrew phrase ez ozel, meaning "goat that departs." The mistranslation was carried through Greek and Latin into a 16th-century English translation, where the word for the goat was rendered as scapegoote; that is, "goat that escapes." The extended senses of scapegoat we use today evolved from this biblical use.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 8, 2019 is:caustic \KAWSS-tik\ adjective1 : capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action : corrosive2 : marked by incisive sarcasm3 : relating to or being the surface or curve of a causticExamples:A caustic substance had eaten away at the metal of the plaque, and the inscription was now impossible to read."The lauded satirist's caustic send-up centers on a cabal of hucksters … working to turn a phony self-help guru into a moneymaking messiah." — Michelle Hart and Hamilton Cain, O, The Oprah Magazine, 14 Jan. 2019Did You Know?If you have a burning desire to know the origins of caustic, you're already well on the way to figuring it out. Caustic was borrowed into English in the 14th century from the Latin causticus, which itself derives from the Greek kaustikos. Kaustikos, in turn, comes from the Greek verb kaiein, meaning "to burn." Other kaiein descendants in English include cautery and cauterize, causalgia (a burning pain caused by nerve damage), and encaustic (a kind of paint that is heated after it's applied).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 7, 2019 is:redound \rih-DOWND\ verb1 : to have an effect for good or ill2 : to become transferred or added : accrue3 : rebound, reflectExamples:"When no one is an expert, everyone becomes an expert, and authority thus redounds to the person who is least troubled by that paradox." — Justin Peters, Slate, 10 Sept. 2018"General George B. McClellan … was an admirer principally of George B. McClellan; and although he was an excellent organizer and motivator of troops, he was reluctant to send his men into engagements where he could not be certain that the outcome would redound to the glory of their commander." — Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club, 2001Did you know?Although it looks and sounds like a number of similar words (including rebound, resound, abound, and redundant), redound is a distinct term. It developed from Middle French redunder, which in turn came from Latin redundare, meaning "to overflow." In its earliest known English uses in the late 1300s, redound meant "to overflow" or "to abound," but those senses are now considered archaic. In current use, redound is often followed by "to," and the effect can be positive or negative: "[It] probably would have redounded strongly to my disadvantage if I had pursued to completion my resolution…," writes Joseph Heller in his 1984 tragicomic novel God Knows.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 6, 2019 is:amaranthine \am-uh-RANTH-un\ adjective1 a : of or relating to an amaranthb : undying2 : of a pinkish or rosy red colorExamples:"At 37-years-old, most players accept they have reached their twilight years, yet goalkeepers can lead an almost amaranthine existence…." — Chris Tait, The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), 2 Apr. 2012"Locals call it the 'pink moment'—this phenomenon where the sky takes on a soft, amaranthine glow at dusk. Unlike most sunsets, this one comes from the east, where the Topatopa Mountains act like a mirror to reflect and diffuse the orb's light over Ojai Valley in Ventura County." — Ginny Prior, The Mercury News (California), 9 Oct. 2013Did You Know?Long ago poets conceived of a flower that did not fade and christened it amaranth. The appellation is rooted in the Greek word amarantos, meaning "immortal" or "unfading," and amarantus, the Latin name of a flower (probably Celosia cristata). The word amaranthine emerged as an adjective of the imaginary flower and subsequently of anything possessing its undying quality. Amaranth also names a real plant (genus Amaranthus), an herb that some consider a weed and others grow for its colorful leaves and spikes of flowers.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 5, 2019 is:divulge \dih-VULJ\ verb: to make known (something, such as a secret)Examples:"Mita Shah, a former marketing statistician, was once a devoted customer of this strip-mall parlor—so devoted that, one day in 2000, she divulged her much-finessed recipe for mango ice cream to the owner. It was such a hit, he offered her a job." — Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times, 2 July 2019"Danielle was already up and watching the Discovery Channel, pretending to know more about sharks than the voice-over was willing to divulge, improvising facts as she went along, to make the ocean more interesting." — Camille Bordas, The New Yorker, 20 May 2019Did You Know?It isn't vulgar to make known the roots of divulge. The preceding sentence contains two hints about the origins of the word. Divulge was borrowed into Middle English in the 15th century from Latin divulgare, a word that combines the prefix dis-, meaning "apart" or "in different directions," with vulgare, meaning "to make known." Vulgare, in turn, derives from the Latin noun vulgus, meaning "mob" or "common people." As you have no doubt guessed, English vulgar is another word that can be traced back to vulgus.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 4, 2019 is:futhark  \FOO-thahrk\  noun: the runic alphabet : any of several alphabets used by the Germanic peoples from about the 3rd to the 13th centuriesExamples:"The oldest inscriptions in the futhark were found in Denmark and northern Germany, dating from the first century AD; at that time the inventory consisted of twenty-four signs. Later, by the eighth century, the range used in Denmark was reduced to sixteen…." — George L. Campbell & Christopher Moseley, The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets, 2012"Conveniently, one of the Americans … is an anthropology student studying Scandinavian rituals. His in-depth questions provide context for viewers not steeped in Nordic lore, but it's still not always clear what he's talking about. For instance, looking over a rune carving …, he guesses 'Younger Futhark?' only to be told no, 'Elder.'" — Danielle Burgos, Bustle, 3 July 2019Did You Know?The word futhark refers to a writing system used by Germanic peoples, and especially by the Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons, from about the third to the 13th centuries. Its origin is unclear, but a likely theory is that it was developed by the Goths from the Etruscan alphabet of northern Italy, with perhaps some aspects being influenced by the Latin alphabet of the first and second centuries. The word futhark itself comes from the sounds of the first six letters used in the earliest of the main runic script varieties: f, u, th, a, r, k. While eventually fully displaced by the Latin alphabet, futhark was still used occasionally for charms and memorial inscriptions in Scandinavia into the 16th and 17th centuries.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 3, 2019 is:pursy  \PER-see\  adjective1 : having a puckered appearance2 : proud because of one's wealth especially in the absence of other distinctions : purse-proudExamples:"There was a picture of a pale gent with a narrow face and a woman with dark eyes and a pursy mouth." — Stephen King, Misery, 1987"Some guys get all pursy around the mouth when you suggest this, but figure skating is infinitely harder than ice hockey. Every four years at the Winter Olympics, figure skating fans have to listen to a lot of nonsense about how their sport lacks legitimacy." — Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2014Did You Know?There are two adjectives spelled pursy, each with its own etymology. The one describing a puckered appearance goes back to the mid-16th century and has its source in the noun purse ("a receptacle for carrying money and other small objects"); a drawstring purse's puckered appearance is the inspiration. The other pursy (pronounced PUH-see or PER-see) dates from the 15th century and can mean "short-winded especially because of corpulence" or simply "fat." This pursy comes from the Old French word pousser, meaning "to exert pressure" or "to breathe heavily"—the same word, etymologists believe, behind the word push.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 2, 2019 is:sawbones  \SAW-bohnz\  nounslang : physician, surgeonExamples:"After abandoning his destitute family in 1913, Brinkley bought a medical degree from a 'diploma mill' in St. Louis. An itinerant preacher assured him that he did not have to be a bona fide sawbones to cure the ills of the world." — Bartee Haile, The Courier (Montgomery County, Texas), 19 Jan. 2018"Anyway, his relatives … reminded him that it's hard to shine shoes without a heartbeat. So he went back to his sawbones to talk about the pacemaker." — Phil Luciano, The Journal Star (Peoria, Illinois), 28 Oct. 2017Did You Know?Sawbones cut its first literary tooth in Charles Dickens's 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers, when Sam Weller says to Mr. Pickwick, "Don't you know what a sawbones is, sir? … I thought everybody know'd as a sawbones was a surgeon." An evocative term that calls to mind the saws that 19th-century surgeons used to perform amputations, sawbones quickly became an established member of the English language, employed by such authors as H. G. Wells, Mark Twain, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Mercifully, medical technology has improved dramatically since then (the surgical saws used in procedures today are a far cry from the primitive tools of yesteryear), but the word sawbones is still used, often in a humorous context.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 1, 2019 is:mitigate \MIT-uh-gayt\ verb1 : to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify2 a : to make less severe or painful : alleviateb : to lessen the seriousness of : extenuateExamples:"Although Apple Hill receives the bulk of their visitors in October, most of its ranches and wineries are open from mid-August through December.… Last year, October traffic was mitigated by a grant-funded pilot program that brought a shuttle to Apple Hill." — Dylan Svoboda, The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California), 14 Aug. 2019"More important than treating migraines once they come on is avoiding episodes to begin with, says Diamond. That means taking steps to adjust your work routine and office environment as much as possible in order to mitigate the specific factors that prompt episodes." — Alejandro de la Garza, Time, 27 June 2019Did you know?The meaning of mitigate is straightforward enough: it is most often used to talk about making something, such as a problem, symptom, or punishment, less harsh or severe. Sometimes, however, it appears where the similar-looking militate is expected. That word, which is often followed by against, means "to have weight or effect," as in "your unexcused absences might militate against your getting a promotion." The two words are not closely related etymologically (mitigate descends from the Latin verb mitigare, meaning "to soften," whereas militate traces to militare, another Latin verb that means "to engage in warfare"), but the confusion between the two has existed for long enough that some usage commentators have accepted "mitigate against" as an idiomatic alternative to militate. If you want to avoid criticism, you should keep mitigate and militate distinct.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 September 30, 2019 is:buttress \BUTT-russ\ noun1 architecture : a projecting structure of masonry or wood for supporting or giving stability to a wall or building2 : something that resembles a buttress: such asa : a projecting part of a mountain or hillb biology : a horny protuberance on a horse's hoof at the heelc botany : the broadened base of a tree trunk or a thickened vertical part of it3 : something that supports or strengthensExamples:"The root system of one of the cedars has been hollowed out into a den, in which Neasloss finds black bear hair. One of the tree's buttresses has been chopped long ago by what he recognizes was a nephrite ax, the green jade axes that the coastal people used until 1846, when they adopted steel axes." — Alex Shoumatoff, Smithsonian, September 2015"The modifications to Isabella [Dam] include raising the profile of the main and auxiliary dams 16 feet, adding buttresses and other safety features, and excavating 100 feet deep to build the huge spillway." — Steven Mayer, The Bakersfield Californian, 28 July 2019Did you know?In architecture, a buttress is an exterior support that projects from a wall to resist the sideways force, called thrust, created by the load on an arch or roof. The word buttress was first adopted into English as butres in the 14th century. It came to us from the Anglo-French (arche) boteraz, meaning "thrusting (arch)," and ultimately derives from the verb buter, "to thrust." Buter is also the source of our verb butt, meaning "to thrust, push, or strike with the head or horns." Buttress developed figurative use relatively soon after its adoption, being applied to anything that supports or strengthens something else.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 September 29, 2019 is:Elysian \ih-LIZH-un\ adjective1 : of or relating to Elysium2 : blissful, delightfulExamples:"On such a balmy summer day, on this Elysian isle, anything seemed possible." — Dorothy West, The Wedding, 1995"No matter what one's childhood is, a seeming Eylsian remembrance or a parental vendetta, the understanding of the afflatus of a poet lies elsewhere." — Edward Dahlberg, "Hart Crane" (1966), reprinted in The Company They Kept (2006)Did you know?In classical mythology, Elysium, also known as the Elysian Fields, was the paradise reserved for the heroes immortalized by the gods. Ancient Greek poets imagined it as the abode of the blessed after death, but in English the concept has more often been applied figuratively. In his history play Henry V, William Shakespeare used the place-name as a word for a peaceful state of sleep enjoyed by a mere mortal, and 18th-century English lexicographer and author Samuel Johnson wrote in The Rambler that in reading pastoral poetry we allow ourselves "to be transported to elysian regions, where we are met with nothing but joy, and plenty, and contentment…" In Walden a century later Henry David Thoreau wrote that "The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life."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 September 28, 2019 is:hegemony \hih-JEM-uh-nee\ noun1 : preponderant influence or authority over others : domination2 : the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant groupExamples:"According to Chinese analysts' telling of World War II, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the invasion of China proper in 1937 were part of the U.S. strategy to pit the two Asian nations against each other in an endless war that would prevent either from rising to threaten American hegemony in the western Pacific." — Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon, 2015"The sweeping restrictions come as New York and other cities fundamentally rethink the role of cars in the face of unrelenting traffic that is choking their streets, poisoning the environment and crippling public transit systems by trapping buses and light rail systems in gridlock. It is becoming a moment of reckoning—and, cars, which once had absolute hegemony over the streets, are losing." – Winnie Hu, The New York Times, 8 Aug. 2019Did you know?Hegemony comes to English from the Greek hēgemonia, a noun formed from the verb hēgeisthai ("to lead"), which also gave us the word exegesis (meaning "exposition" or "explanation"). Hegemony was first used in English in the mid-16th century in reference to the control once wielded by the ancient Greek states, and it was reapplied in later centuries as other nations subsequently rose to power. By the 19th century, it had acquired a second sense referring to the social or cultural influence wielded by a dominant member over others of its kind, such as the domination within an industry by a business conglomerate over smaller businesses.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 September 27, 2019 is:cleave \KLEEV\ verb1 : to divide (something) by or as if by a cutting blow : split2 : to separate (something) into distinct parts and especially into groups having divergent views3 : to subject to chemical cleavage4 : to split especially along the grain5 : to penetrate or pass through something by or as if by cuttingExamples:"The surface you're cutting against will have a greater impact on your knife's edge than the food you're chopping up, assuming you aren't regularly cleaving through massive bones." — Paul Stephen, The San Antonio Express News, 10 July 2019"Of course, single-item restaurants are nothing new.... But they don't usually serve something so divisive as polenta. You see, the slow-cooked dish of maize cleaves opinion like a Justin Bieber concert. You either love it or loathe it—and ever has it been so." — Samuel Muston, The Independent (London), 30 Jan. 2014Did you know?Cleave has two homographs, each with a distinct origin. There is cleave meaning "to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly," as in "a family that cleaves to tradition"; that one is from Old English clifian, meaning "to adhere." And there is the cleave with meanings relating to splitting and dividing, which derives from Old English clēofan, meaning "to split." The two have slightly different inflections. The "split" cleave usually has cleaved as its past tense form, but cleft and clove are both in use as well; as its past participle form (the form that often occurs with have), cleaved is most common, but cleft and cloven are also used. The "adhere" cleave commonly has cleaved or clove (and occasionally clave) as its past tense and cleaved as its past participle.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 September 26, 2019 is:frowsy \FROW-zee\ adjective1 : musty, stale2 : having a slovenly or uncared-for appearanceExamples:The lamp, discovered in a frowsy Midwestern antique store, turned out to be quite valuable."On good days, I could also manage super boring reality TV shows, like 'Escape to the Country,' in which retired British couples go on slow searches for frowsy new homes in sleepy towns, and nobody gets excited about anything." — Yvonne Abraham, The Boston Globe, 24 Nov. 2018Did you know?The exact origins of frowsy are perhaps lost in an old, frowsy book somewhere, but some etymologists have speculated that frowsy (also spelled frowzy) shares a common ancestor with the younger, chiefly British, word frowsty, a synonym of frowsy in both its senses. That ancestor could be the Old French word frouste, meaning "ruinous" or "decayed," or the now-obsolete English word frough or frow, meaning "brittle" or "fragile." An early print example of frowsy can be found in Thomas Otway's 1681 comedy The Souldier's Fortune, wherein the character Beau refers to another character as "a frouzy Fellmonger."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 September 25, 2019 is:lèse-majesté \layz-MAJ-uh-stee\ noun1 a : a crime (such as treason) committed against a sovereign powerb : an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power2 : a detraction from or affront to dignity or importanceExamples:"David's grandfather, President Eisenhower, had left David all his clothes in his will, and David felt obliged to wear them…. Naturally, it would be something along the lines of lèse-majesté for him to remove the presidential jacket and vest and sit in his shirtsleeves, so he gamely continued to sweat in the sweltering heat, out of respect for Ike." — Michael Korda, Another Life, 2000"Thai law makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten 'the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent.' … Though other countries still have similar laws—both Spain and the Netherlands have lèse-majesté laws on the books—Thailand's enforcement of its laws may make them the strictest in the world." — Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2019Did you know?Lèse-majesté (or lese majesty, as it is also styled in English publications) comes into English by way of Middle French, from the Latin lesa majestas, which literally means "injured majesty." The English term can conceivably cover any offense against a sovereign power or its ruler, from treason to a simple breach of etiquette. Lèse-majesté has also acquired a more lighthearted or ironic meaning, referring to an insult or impudence to a particularly pompous or self-important person or organization. As such, it may be applied to a relatively inoffensive act that has been exaggeratedly treated as if it were a great affront.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 September 24, 2019 is:axiomatic \ak-see-uh-MAT-ik\ adjective1 : taken for granted : self-evident2 : based on or involving an axiom or system of axiomsExamples:"It's axiomatic that intellectuals like to deal with ideas. Ideas are to the intellectual what paint is to the painter and stone is to the mason." — Jonah Goldberg, The Baltimore Sun, 10 June 2019"Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned." — Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, 1904Did you know?An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit, or one regarded as self-evidently true. A statement that is axiomatic, therefore, is one against which few people would argue. Axiomatic entered English from Middle Greek axiōmatikos, and axiom derived, via Latin, from Greek axiōma ("something worthy") and axios ("worthy"). The word axiom can also refer to a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference. Such axioms are often employed in discussions of philosophy, as well as in mathematics and geometry, where they are sometimes called postulates.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 September 23, 2019 is:suffuse \suh-FYOOZ\ verb: to spread over or through in the manner of fluid or light : flush, fillExamples:"Also beguiling … are such installation works as 'Spatial Environment in Red Light'…. It's a walk-through enclosure containing six parallel corridors and suffused with a neon redness that, having saturated your optic nerves, turns the world green when you exit." — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 4 Feb. 2019"The dessert I still dream about from the summer of 2018 is … a creamy, multi-textured bonbon suffused … with the flavor of black licorice from Denmark. — Jeff Gordinier, Esquire, 28 Nov. 2018Did you know?The Latin word suffendere, ancestor to suffuse by way of Latin suffūsus, has various meanings that shed light on our modern word, among them "to pour on or in (as an addition)" and "to fill with a liquid, color, or light that wells up from below." Suffundere is a blend of the prefix sub- ("under" or "beneath") and the verb fundere ("to pour" or "to send forth"). Other English verbs related to fundere continue the theme of pouring or spreading: diffuse ("to pour out and spread freely"), effuse ("to pour or flow out"), transfuse ("to cause to pass from one to another"), and the verb fuse itself when it's used to mean "to meld or join."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 September 22, 2019 is:detritus \dih-TRYE-tus\ noun1 geology : loose material (such as rock fragments or organic particles) that results directly from disintegration2 a : a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away : debrisb : miscellaneous remnants : odds and endsExamples:"Much to our shock, when my roommates and I opened the cabinets above and underneath our sink, we stood witness to an unbelievable mess. All of the detritus left as a result of the incomplete, shoddy work of 'renovating' the apartment appeared to have just been shoved behind the doors. Bags of random trash, dust bunnies, and paper towels filled the space." — Daniel Varghese, GQ.com, 6 Aug. 2019"As telescopes grow more advanced, astronomers have become more adept at finding not just white dwarf systems, but also the detritus that sometimes surrounds them. Often these objects–which might be planets, asteroids, comets, or other space junk—are noticed only after they fall into the white dwarf, contaminating the star's otherwise pure outer layers." — Korey Haynes, Discover Magazine, 7 Aug. 2019Did you know?If you use detritus in speech, remember to stress the second syllable, as you do in the words arthritis and bronchitis. Once you've mastered its meaning and pronunciation, you'll find that detritus is a term—originally a geology term—that can be applied in many situations. After the first hard freeze of fall, gardens are littered with the detritus of the summer's plants and produce: stalks, leaves, vines, and maybe even an abandoned hand trowel. As a flood-swollen river retreats to its banks, it leaves detritus—debris gathered by the raging waters—in its wake. The detritus of civilization may include junkyards and abandoned buildings; mental detritus may include all kinds of useless trivia.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 September 21, 2019 is:redoubtable \rih-DOUT-uh-bul\ adjective1 : causing fear or alarm : formidable2 : illustrious, eminent; broadly : worthy of respectExamples:The theater has hired a redoubtable director to direct its upcoming production."There, amid the planers and sawdust, 46 craftsmen create custom-built pieces for private clients and for such redoubtable institutions as 10 Downing Street, Westminster Abbey, and even Hogwarts." — Mark Rozzo, Vanity Fair, May 2019Did you know?The word redoubtable is worthy of respect itself, if only for its longevity. It has been used in English for things that cause fear, dread, and apprehension since at least the 15th century and comes to us through Middle English from the Anglo-French verb reduter, meaning "to dread." That word comes ultimately from Latin dubitare, "to be in doubt" (by way of Anglo-French duter, douter, meaning "to doubt," also the source of English doubt). Things or people that are formidable and alarming can also inspire awe and even admiration, and it wasn't long before the meaning of redoubtable was extended from "formidable" to "illustrious" and "worthy of respect."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 September 20, 2019 is:misprision \mis-PRIZH-un\ noun1 a : neglect or wrong performance of official dutyb : concealment of treason or felony by one who is not a participant in the treason or felonyc : seditious conduct against the government or the courts2 : misunderstanding, misinterpretationExamples:The article asserts that the health guru's recommendations are based on a misprision of what it means to be healthy."The charge, misprision of a felony, is one prosecutors often deploy against defendants who have agreed to help the government make its case." — Grace Toohey, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 8 Mar. 2019Did you know?All but one of the following words traces back to Latin prehendere, meaning "to seize." Which word doesn't belong?apprehend - comprehend - misprision - misprize - prison - surpriseIt's easy to see the prehendere connection in apprehend and comprehend, whereas you may be surprised that surprise is from prehendere (via Anglo-French susprendre, meaning "to capture" or "to take by surprise"). Prison, too, is from prehendere by way of Anglo-French. And misprision comes to us by way of Anglo-French mesprisun ("error, wrongdoing"), from mesprendre ("to take by mistake"), itself from prehendere. The only word that's out of place is misprize, meaning "to despise" or "to undervalue." It's ultimately from Latin pretium, meaning "value," but—in a trick move that perhaps only English could pull off—misprize has also given us a related noun meaning "contempt, scorn," in the form of an etymologically distinct misprision.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 September 19, 2019 is:issuable \ISH-oo-uh-bul\ adjective1 : open to contest, debate, or litigation2 : authorized for issue3 : possible as a result or consequenceExamples:"The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four-month hold period from the original date of grant." — Yahoo! Finance, 25 July 2019"Questions calling for inadmissible proof which is damaging and prejudicial should be objected to on any and every possible ground. Even if an attorney appears to be making an excessive number of objections, this is preferable to admitting without contest issuable evidence devastating in its effect." — Mason Ladd, Case and Comment, Vol. 44, No. 6, 1922Did you know?Although issuable now tends to appear in financial contexts (such as in reference to shares that are eligible to be issued, or made available, according to a company's articles of incorporation), it was originally used in the late 16th century as a legal term: an issuable matter was one that was open to contest, debate, or litigation. Within a century, though, the word had taken on the "authorized for issue" meaning that it most commonly has today. In making its home in the world of finance, issuable is carrying on a family tradition. In the early 14th century, its predecessor issue began being used in plural to refer to proceeds from a source of revenue, such as an estate. Issue itself traces back to Latin exire, meaning "to go out."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 September 18, 2019 is:bivouac \BIV-uh-wak\ verb1 : to make a usually temporary encampment under little or no shelter : camp2 : to take shelter often temporarily3 : to provide temporary quarters forExamples:The search party bivouacked under a nearby ledge until the storm passed."Isakson said Native American artifacts were found on the site, along with plenty of evidence to suggest Union soldiers had bivouacked there after the Civil War." — Lawrence Specker, The Huntsville (Alabama) Times, 17 Mar. 2019Did you know?In the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster observed bivouac to be a French borrowing having military origins. He defined the noun bivouac as "the guard or watch of a whole army, as in cases of great danger of surprise or attack" and the verb as "to watch or be on guard, as a whole army." The French word is derived from the Low German word biwacht, a combination of bi ("by") and wacht ("guard"). In some German dialects, the word was used specifically for a patrol of citizens who assisted the town watch at night. Today, bivouac has less to do with guarding and patrolling and more about having shelter.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 September 17, 2019 is:labile \LAY-byle\ adjective1 : readily or continually undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown : unstable2 : readily open to changeExamples:"From the outset, we see Queen Anne—portrayed brilliantly by Olivia Colman—as frail, obese and emotionally-labile. One minute, she's calmly speaking to her confidante…. The next, she's accosting a boy servant in a hysterically bizarre scene…. — Lipi Roy, Forbes.com, 24 Feb. 2019"'A desirable long-term outcome would be to create [contact] lenses from polymers that are fine-tuned to be inert during use but labile and degradable when escaping into the environment.' As for members of the public concerned they are polluting the environment, [Dr. Rolf] Halden said: 'Used plastic lenses ideally should be returned to the manufacturer for recycling….'" — Kashmira Gander, Newsweek, 20 Aug. 2018Did you know? We are confident that you won't slip up or err in learning today's word, despite its etymology. Labile was borrowed into English from French and can be traced back (by way of Middle French labile, meaning "prone to err") to the Latin verb labi, meaning "to slip or fall." Indeed, the first sense of labile in English was "prone to slip, err, or lapse," but that usage is now obsolete. Other labi descendants in English include collapse, elapse, and prolapse, as well as lapse itself.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 September 16, 2019 is:Yooper \YOO-per\ noun: a native or resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — used as a nicknameExamples:"The district has always elected Yoopers to represent them in Congress, rather than someone from the lower peninsula like Morgan." — Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News, 6 Nov. 2018"Mezydlo and Turnquist live in the Upper Peninsula community of Mohawk, which is about 25 miles south of Copper Harbor, the northernmost tip of the U.P.'s remote Keweenaw Peninsula. The region is known for having notoriously long, snowy winters—but snow lingering through July? Shocking, even for a lifelong Yooper like Turnquist." — Emily Bingham, MLive.com, 26 July 2019Did you know?The word Yooper comes from the common nickname of Michigan's Upper Peninsula—the "U.P."—and the etymology requires the same follow-up question that a challenging joke does: "Get it?" If you're not there yet, try saying them both out loud: Yooper, U.P. Yoopers have been saying both out loud now for about 40 years, but it's only in recent years that those beyond the U.P. and its geographical neighbors have begun to encounter Yooper in use. Yoopers refer to people who live in the Lower Peninsula as trolls (they live "under" the Mackinac Bridge, after all), but that nickname is still at this point too much of a regionalism to qualify for entry in our dictionaries.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 September 15, 2019 is:continual \kun-TIN-yoo-ul\ adjective1 : continuing indefinitely in time without interruption2 : recurring in steady usually rapid successionExamples:The continual blaring of the car's alarm outside made it very difficult for Jane to focus on her work that morning."Cows can drink upwards of 50 gallons of water a day, so making sure the animals have continual access to clean water is a must." — Stephanie Blaszczyk, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 19 July 2019Did you know? Since the mid-19th century, many grammarians have drawn a distinction between continual and continuous. Continual should only mean "occurring at regular intervals," they insist, whereas continuous should be used to mean "continuing without interruption." This distinction overlooks the fact that continual is the older word and was used with both meanings for centuries before continuous appeared on the scene. Today, continual is the more likely of the two to mean "recurring," but it also continues to be used, as it has been since the 14th century, with the meaning "continuing without interruption."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 September 14, 2019 is:travail \truh-VAIL\ noun1 a : work especially of a painful or laborious nature : toilb : a physical or mental exertion or piece of work : task, effortc : agony, torment2 : labor, childbirthExamples:"Time and again, the company made shrewd business decisions that, through the many travails of two centuries, has left it standing." — Robert Klara, Adweek.com, 20 May 2019"The [Rolling] Stones have survived it all by this point: near-breakups, the death of one member, the voluntary departure of a few others, medical maladies, as well as all the typical travails that have doomed countless other bands coming up in their wake." — Corbin Reiff, Billboard.com, 22 June 2019Did you know?Etymologists are pretty certain that travail comes from trepalium, the Late Latin name of an instrument of torture. We don't know exactly what a trepalium looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea. Trepalium is derived from the Latin tripalis, which means "having three stakes" (from tri-, meaning "three," and palus, meaning "stake"). From trepalium sprang the Anglo-French verb travailler, which originally meant "to torment" but eventually acquired the milder senses "to trouble" and "to journey." The Anglo-French noun travail was borrowed into English in the 13th century, along with another descendant of travailler, travel.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 September 13, 2019 is:abscond \ab-SKAHND\ verb: to depart secretly and hide oneselfExamples:"The camera tracked [the black bear] as he moved in a sturdy lurch, … holding his dangling, unnecessary arms close to his chest like a mime absconding with a snatched purse." — Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine, 21 Dec. 2016"The historian Plutarch wrote that about a million Gauls were killed in the campaign and another million enslaved. Some Gallic fighters may have absconded to Britannia—not yet governed by the Roman Empire—rather than face the legions." — Isaac Schultz, Atlas Obscura, 30 July 2019Did you know?Abscond derives from Latin abscondere, meaning "to hide away," a product of the prefix ab- and condere, a verb meaning "to conceal." (Condere is also the root for recondite, a word meaning "concealed" as well as "hard to understand" or "obscure.") Abscond retained the meaning of its Latin parent when it was first used in English in the 17th century. In general usage, abscond refers to any act of running away and hiding (usually from the law and often with funds), but in legal circles, the word is used specifically when someone who has already become the focus of a legal proceeding hides or takes off in order to evade the legal process, as in "absconded from parole."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 September 12, 2019 is:deleterious \del-uh-TEER-ee-us\ adjective: harmful often in a subtle or unexpected wayExamples:"With an injury, the body automatically responds with an inflammatory process to neutralize the toxic microorganisms, repair the affected tissues and eliminate debris from the wound. That is beneficial, but chronic inflammation is deleterious, causing a continuous supply of free-radicals, overwhelming our antioxidant immunities." — Phyllis Van Buren, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, 24 Apr. 2019"But Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso ruled in 2016 that the landfill could stay open because its closure 'would have drastic and deleterious effects on the surrounding communities and their taxpayers.'" — Scott Fallon, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), 24 May 2019Did you know?Pernicious, baneful, noxious, and detrimental are the wicked synonyms of deleterious. All five words refer to something exceedingly harmful. Of the group, deleterious is most often used for something that is unexpectedly harmful. Pernicious implies irreparable harm done by something that degrades or undermines in an evil or insidious way ("the pernicious effects of corruption"), while baneful suggests injury through poisoning or destruction ("the baneful consequences of war"). Noxious can apply to anything that is both offensive and injurious to the health of body or mind ("noxious chemical fumes"), and detrimental implies an obvious harmfulness to something specified ("the detrimental effects of excessive drinking").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 September 11, 2019 is:repertoire \REP-er-twahr\ noun1 a : a list or supply of dramas, operas, pieces, or parts that a company or person is prepared to performb : a supply of skills, devices, or expedients; broadly : amount, supplyc : a list or supply of capabilities2 a : the complete list or supply of dramas, operas, or musical works available for performanceb : the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practiceExamples:"But the make-or-break element of any interior Mexican restaurant is its mole repertoire, and I was curious to see how these sauces would turn out. My favorite was a light, sweet, chile-based mole served with chunky butternut squash topped with sweet-potato crisps." — Patricia Sharpe, The Texas Monthly, June 2019"For decades, immunologists had reasoned that the T-cell surveillance system might be able to detect and kill cancer cells. But, unlike infected cells, cancerous ones tend to be so genetically similar to normal cells, with such a similar repertoire of proteins, that they're hard for even T cells to pick out of a crowd." — Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 22 July 2019Did you know?The Late Latin noun repertorium, meaning "list," has given us two words that can be used to speak of the broad range of things that someone or something can do. One is repertory, perhaps most commonly known as a word for a company that presents several different plays, operas, or other works at one theater, or the theater where such works are performed. Repertoire, which comes from repertorium via French, once meant the same thing as repertory but later came to refer to the range of skills that a person has, such as the different pitches a baseball pitcher can throw or the particular dishes that are a chef's specialty.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 September 10, 2019 is:pell-mell \pel-MEL\ adverb1 : in mingled confusion or disorder2 : in confused hasteExamples:When the final bell of the day rang, the children bolted from their desks and streamed pell-mell out the door into the schoolyard."The grammar school dropout was forever on the move. There were times he bolted into the darkroom of his employer's photographic studio to hide from an approaching truant officer. More often, the errand boy ran pell-mell to the offices of New York City newspapers and magazines, lugging a pouch stuffed with the newsy photographs of the day…." — Bill Case, The Pilot (Southern Pines, North Carolina), 14 July 2019Did you know?The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication. The process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, often including a slight change in its pronunciation—also generated such terms as bowwow, helter-skelter, flip-flop]()_, and chitchat. Yet another product of reduplication is shilly-shally, which started out as a single-word compression of the question "Shall I?" For pell-mell, the process is believed to have occurred long ago: our word traces to a Middle French word of the same meaning, pelemele, which was likely a product of reduplication from Old French mesle, a form of mesler, meaning "to mix."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 September 9, 2019 is:olfactory \ahl-FAK-tuh-ree\ adjective: of or relating to the sense of smellExamples:"The glands located between the cat's toes secrete a scent whenever he scratches on objects such as a tree or a scratching post. This activity provides an olfactory territory mark in addition to the visual." — Pam Johnson-Bennett, Think Like a Cat, 2011"Young male anglerfish face the challenge of finding a mate in the ocean's vastness. They have large olfactory organs, which suggests that suitors follow a trail of pheromones." — William J. Broad, The New York Times, 29 July 2019Did you know?Olfactory derives from the past participle of the Latin olfacere ("to smell"), which was formed from the verb olēre ("to give off a smell") and facere ("to do"). Olfactory is a word that often appears in scientific contexts (as in "olfactory nerves," the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain the receptors that make smelling possible), but it has occasionally branched out into less specialized contexts. The pleasant smell of spring flowers, for example, might be considered an "olfactory delight." A related word, olfaction, is a noun referring to the sense of smell or the act or process of smelling.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 September 8, 2019 is:bas-relief \bah-rih-LEEF\ nounart : sculptural relief in which the projection from the surrounding surface is slight and no part of the modeled form is undercut; also : sculpture executed in bas-reliefExamples:"Three [works] that caught my eye were Maksymowicz's solemn plaster bas-relief of bones and tools, Gina Michaels' bronze sculpture of a prickly pear cactus with pads in the shapes of human feet, and Burnell Yow's totemic found-object sculpture topped with an animal skull." — Edith Newhall, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 July 2019"Lorraine Hansberry's 60-year-old American classic about a black family in Chicago's South Side in the 1950s that has a shot at the American dream is given a volatile production that, like a bas-relief, brings out details and layers that have not been so clearly defined in more traditional approaches." — The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), 5 July 2019Did you know?The best way to understand the meaning of bas-relief is to see one—and the easiest way to do that is to look at a penny, nickel, or other coin and examine the raised images on it; they're all bas-reliefs. English speakers adopted bas-relief from French (where bas means "low" and relief means "raised work") during the mid-1600s; earlier, we borrowed the synonymous basso-relievo from Italian. The French and Italian terms have common ancestors (and, in fact, the French word is likely a translation of the Italian), but English speakers apparently borrowed the two independently. Bas-relief is more prevalent in English today, although the Italian-derived term has not disappeared completely from the language.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.