Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 7, 2019 is:germane \jer-MAYN\ adjective: being at once relevant and appropriate : fittingExamples:The message board moderator politely reminded new members to keep their posts germane to the topic being discussed."'Most places we used to play have been demolished, and this one hasn't,' [Mick Jagger] said, and while he was mixing up his venues, his point was germane. Buildings, eras, styles of music, and the people that play them come and go. But the [Rolling] Stones carry on, seemingly immortal." — Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 July 2019Did you know?"Wert thou a Leopard, thou wert Germane to the Lion." So wrote William Shakespeare in his tragic play Timon of Athens, using an old (and now-obsolete) sense of germane meaning "closely akin." Germane derives from the Latin word germen, meaning "bud" or "sprout," which is also at the root of our verb germinate, meaning "to sprout" or "to begin to develop." An early sense of germane referred specifically to children of the same parents, who were perhaps seen as being like buds on a single tree. Again, we turn to Shakespeare, who composed this dark line in The Winter's Tale: "Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him … shall all come under the hangman…."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 6, 2019 is:skulk \SKULK\ verb1 : to move in a stealthy or furtive manner2 : to hide or conceal something (such as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intentExamples:The cat often skulks around the foyer, waiting for someone to open the front door."Engineers did not, for instance, want the robot to silently skulk up and scare anyone—but how exactly should it announce itself? They tested a wide range of noises, from Road Runner-style 'beep-beeps' to the honks of reversing forklifts before settling on a pleasant yet insistent chirp they mixed from a clip of birdsong." — Drew Harwell, The Washington Post, 6 June 2019Did you know?Here's one for the word-puzzle lovers. Can you name three things that the word skulk has in common with all of these other words: booth, brink, cog, flit, kid, meek, scab, seem, and skull? If you noticed that all of the terms on that list have just one syllable, then you've got the first, and easiest, similarity, but the next two are likely to prove a little harder to guess. Do you give up? All of the words listed above are of Scandinavian origin and all were first recorded in English in the 13th century. As for skulk specifically, its closest known Scandinavian relative is the Norwegian dialect word skulka, which means "to lie in wait" or "to lurk."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 5, 2019 is:adscititious \ad-suh-TISH-us\ adjective: derived or acquired from something extrinsicExamples:"I left the warm embrace of government work for adscititious reasons, driven not by boredom or indignation, but mainly by itchy feet." — John Derbyshire, The National Review, 17 July 2002"We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititious or accidental advantages." — Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1832Did you know?Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve." The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious. Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt." This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.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 4, 2019 is:minim \MIN-im\ noun1 : a musical half note2 : something very minute3 : a unit of capacity equal to 1/60 fluid dramExamples:"And yet there are transcendent sparks in [writer Raymond Carver's work that] I keep going back to, moments of human communion that raise his people briefly above the wreckage of their worlds.… What's notable here is the clause he felt able to let her go, and also what he does immediately after these lines: 'He brought his arm down and turned to his children.' … There's a minim of grace in that gesture, of self-forgiveness and, yes, of hope, however fugitive." — William Giraldi, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2019"He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders." — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886Did you know?Like the more common minimum, minim derives from the Latin word minimus, meaning "least" or "smallest." Musicians were the first to note its significance in the 15th century as a word for the half note. Chirographers soon adopted it as a word for a single downstroke in penmanship (such as any of the three in the letter m), and after careful analysis, apothecaries prescribed minim as a word for their smallest unit of liquid capacity. English speakers have also embraced minim as a general noun referring to things that are very small and as an adjective meaning "of the smallest size," as in "a minim amount."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 3, 2019 is:fecund \FEK-und\ adjective1 : fruitful in offspring or vegetation : prolific2 : intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degreeExamples:As an artist, she gets most of her inspiration from nature; her daily walks in the woods are a fecund source of ideas."As if there aren't enough bugs around, get this: insects are amazingly fecund and can reproduce quickly, laying thousands of eggs in a short time." — Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Montgomery Herald (Oak Hill, West Virginia), 23 July 2019Did you know?Fecund and its synonyms fruitful and fertile all mean producing or capable of producing offspring or fruit, literally or figuratively. Fecund applies to things that yield offspring, fruit, or results in abundance or with rapidity ("a fecund herd," "a fecund imagination"). Fruitful emphasizes abundance, too, and often adds the implication that the results attained are desirable or useful ("fruitful plains," "a fruitful discussion"). Fertile implies the power to reproduce ("a fertile egg") or the power to assist in reproduction, growth, or development ("fertile soil," "a fertile climate for artists").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 2, 2019 is:extemporize \ik-STEMP-puh-ryze\ verb1 : to do something extemporaneously : improvise; especially : to compose, perform, or speak extemporaneously2 : to get along in a makeshift mannerExamples:"Donald's own trio consisted of piano, bass and cello. Each player's part was written, not extemporized." — Anthony Weller, The Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2019 "The name Cher Horowitz was extemporized by Wallace Shawn, who plays a teacher in 'Clueless.' Wallace Shawn is also Jewish, and he came up with the catchy Jewish-sounding designation for the film's star during a scene where he was taking attendance in the classroom." — Tamar Skydell, The Forward, 31 Dec. 2018Did you know?Extemporize means to say or do something on the spur of the moment, an appropriate meaning given the word's history. Extemporize was coined by adding the suffix -ize to Latin ex tempore, meaning "instantaneously" or "on the spur of the moment." Ex tempore, in turn, was formed by combining ex and the noun tempus, meaning "time." Incidentally, ex tempore was also borrowed wholesale into English (where it means "extemporaneously"). Other descendants of Latin ex tempore include the now rare extemporal and extemporary (both synonyms of extemporaneous), and as you have no doubt guessed by now, extemporaneous 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 1, 2019 is:calliope \kuh-LYE-uh-pee\ noun1 capitalized Calliope : the Greek Muse of heroic poetry2 : a keyboard musical instrument resembling an organ and consisting of a series of whistles sounded by steam or compressed airExamples:The distant song of a calliope let everyone know the carnival was back in town."And on Saturday, Minns, now 22, once again took his place behind the keyboard on the nearly 100-year-old calliope blasting out jovial circus tunes to the crowds that lined the streets during the longest running and only circus parade left in the country." — Carson Gerber, The Rushville (Indiana) Republican, 21 July 2019Did you know?With a name literally meaning "beautiful-voiced" (from kallos, meaning "beauty," and ops, meaning "voice"), Calliope was the most prominent of the Muses—the nine sister goddesses who in Greek mythology presided over poetry, song, and the arts and sciences. She is represented in art as holding an epic poem in one hand and a trumpet in the other. The musical instrument invented and patented in the 1850s, played by forcing steam or compressed air through a series of whistles, was named after the goddess. Because its sound could be heard for miles around, the calliope was effective in luring patrons to river showboats, circuses, and carnivals, which is why the instrument continues its association with such attractions today.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 August 31, 2019 is:brackish \BRACK-ish\ adjective1 : somewhat salty2 a : not appealing to the tasteb : repulsiveExamples:The mangrove swamp is home to many species of plants and animals that thrive in brackish water."For decades, the Battleship Texas has rested in the shallow, brackish waters of the Houston Ship Channel, slowly decaying. While tourists marvel at the last surviving dreadnought that fought in two world wars, beneath the surface a system of pumps pushes out water seeping through the ship's corroded hull." — Nick Powell, The Houston Chronicle, 26 June 2019Did you know?When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant "salty," as did its Dutch parent brac. Then, as now, brackish water could simply be a mixture of saltwater and freshwater. Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of "unpalatable" or "distasteful"—presumably because of the undrinkable quality of saltwater. "The brackish water that we drink / Creeps with a loathsome slime, / And the bitter bread they weigh in scales / Is full of chalk and lime." As this use from Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol" illustrates, brackish water can also include things other than salt that make it unpleasant to drink.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 August 30, 2019 is:martinet \mar-tuh-NET\ noun1 : a strict disciplinarian2 : a person who stresses a rigid adherence to the details of forms and methodsExamples:"Her father was a diet-and-exercise martinet, imposing a strict regimen on her as a condition for receiving an allowance." — Michael Upchurch, The Boston Globe, 20 Aug. 2017"Topping them all, though, has to be Gen. William Westmoreland. Tall. Ramrod straight. Grim visage. He just had that look, and he … is the subject of endless debate. Was he a martinet who never really understood his war and cost America a chance at victory, or was he perhaps something more complex?" — Andrew Wiest and Susannah Ural, The New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017Did you know?When France's King Louis XIV appointed Lieutenant Colonel Jean Martinet to be inspector general of the infantry in the late 17th century, he made a wise choice. As a drillmaster, Martinet trained his troops to advance into battle in precise linear formations and to fire in volleys only upon command, thus making the most effective use of inaccurate muskets—and making the French army one of the best on the continent. He also gave English a new word. _Martinet_ has been used synonymously with "strict disciplinarian" since the early 18th 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 August 29, 2019 is:augur \AW-gur\ verb1 : to foretell especially from omens2 : to give promise of : presageExamples:"The new discovery should provide insight into the elusive origins of the strange bright signals, and augurs a dawning era in which they will be found and studied by the thousands." — Nola Taylor Redd, Scientific American, 13 Aug. 2018"Still, combined with Denver's lack of postseason experience, its recent struggles against top competition doesn't augur well for a deep playoff run." — Grant Hughes, Bleacher Report, 5 Apr. 2019Did you know?Auguring is what augurs did in ancient Rome. Augurs were official diviners whose function it was not to foretell the future, but to divine whether the gods approved of a proposed undertaking, such as a military move. They did so by various means, among them observing the behavior of birds and examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. Nowadays, the foretell sense of the verb is often used with an adverb, such as well. Augur comes from Latin and is related to the Latin verb augēre, meaning "to increase."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 August 28, 2019 is:irascible \ir-RASS-uh-bul\ adjective: marked by hot temper and easily provoked angerExamples:That tidy little house belongs to an irascible crank who never has a kind word for any of his neighbors."Working with Adam Baldwin, best known as the irascible mercenary Jayne in Firefly and Serenity and the gruff but lovable John Casey on Chuck, was another bonus." — Tim Clodfelter, The News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina), 9 June 2019Did you know?If you try to take apart irascible in the same manner as irrational, irresistible, or irresponsible, you might find yourself wondering what ascible means—but that's not how irascible came to be. The key to the meaning of irascible isn't the negative prefix ir- (which is a variant of the prefix in- that is used before words beginning with "r"), but the Latin noun ira, meaning "anger." From ira, which is also the root of irate and ire, came the Latin verb irasci ("to become angry") and the related adjective irascibilis, the latter of which led to the French irascible. English speakers borrowed the word from French in the 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 August 27, 2019 is:desuetude \DESS-wih-tood\ noun: discontinuance from use or exercise : disuseExamples:The old bridge, which fell into desuetude after the railroad was shut down, has recently been opened as a pedestrian walkway."It has been 15 years since Mr. Klein and his partners paid $18 million for the Sunset Tower, a faded Art Deco relic on a stretch of Sunset Strip that, although now booming, had fallen into funky desuetude. Against most odds and all prevailing wisdom, he soon established it and its Tower Bar restaurant as essential landmarks of the new Hollywood." — Guy Trebay, The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2019Did you know?Desuetude must be closely related to disuse, right? Wrong. Despite the similarities between them, desuetude and disuse derive from two different Latin verbs. Desuetude comes from suescere, a word that means "to become accustomed" (suescere also gave us the word custom). Disuse descends from uti, which means "to use." (That Latin word also gave us use and utility.) Although less common, desuetude hasn't fallen into desuetude yet, and it was put to good use in the past, as in the 17th-century writings of Scottish Quaker Robert Barclay, who wrote, "The weighty Truths of God were neglected, and, as it were, went into Desuetude."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 August 26, 2019 is:wangle \WANG-gul\ verb1 : to resort to trickery2 : to adjust or manipulate for personal or fraudulent ends3 : to make or get by devious means : finagleExamples:"He wangled an invitation to a White House Christmas party, where he and his wife posed for a photo with then-President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama." — Barbara Demick and Victoria Kim, The Los Angeles Times, 16 May 2019"'Our Mayor is the most appealing man I know,' Franklin D. Roosevelt said on one occasion. 'He comes to Washington and tells me a sad story. The tears run down my cheeks and the tears run down his cheeks and the next thing I know, he has wangled another $50 million out of me.'" — Mason B. Williams, City of Ambition, 2013See 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 August 25, 2019 is:kludge \KLOOJ\ noun: a haphazard or makeshift solution to a problem and especially to a computer or programming problemExamples:Andy knocked out a hasty kludge to circumvent the buggy code until a more robust solution could be developed."When the theatre was built in and opened in 1920, there were no concessions of any kind. Everything that we've done to accommodate modern audiences was a kludge in various ways." — Curtis McCrary, quoted in The Tucson (Arizona) Weekly, 25 Oct. 2018Did you know?The first recorded use of the word kludge is attributed to Jackson W. Granholm, who defined the word in a 1962 issue of the magazine Datamation as "an ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole." He further explained that it was derived from the German word klug, meaning "smart" or "witty." Why Granholm included a d in his spelling is not known. What we do know is that speakers of American English have agreed to disregard it in pronunciation, making the vowel pronunciation of kludge reflective of the pronunciation of German klug (\KLOOK\ ). We can also tell you that not everyone agrees with Granholm on the "d" matter: the spelling kluge is also popularly used.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 August 24, 2019 is:sporadic \spuh-RAD-ik\ adjective: occurring occasionally, singly, or in irregular or random instancesExamples:The team's regular meetings became sporadic over the summer months, when at some points up to half of its members were on vacation."Continuous permafrost hugs the Hudson Bay coast and spreads inland about 75 kilometres before becoming discontinuous and sporadic. Like peat, permafrost is an effective storehouse of greenhouse gases." — Kenyon Wallace, The Toronto Star, 27 May 2019Did you know?Sporadic describes the distribution of something across space or time that is not frequent enough to fill an area or period, often in scattered instances or isolated outbursts (as in "sporadic applause"). The word comes from Medieval Latin sporadicus, which is itself derived from Greek sporadēn, meaning "here and there." It is also related to the Greek verb speirein ("to sow"), the ancestor from which we get our word spore (the reproductive cell of a fungus, microorganism, or some plants), hinting at the seeming scattered nature by which such cells distribute and germinate.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 August 23, 2019 is:excursion \ik-SKER-zhun\ noun1 a : a going out or forth : expeditionb (1) : a usually brief pleasure trip(2) : a trip at special reduced rates2 : deviation from a direct, definite, or proper course; especially : digression3 : a movement outward and back or from a mean position or axis; also : the distance traversed : amplitudeExamples:Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass is an excursion into a fantastical world where nothing is what it seems to be, and everything appears to be what it is not."Every morning for 10 years, Joey Gamez has hopped on a boat to take customers of his Golden State Sportfishing business on a San Francisco Bay excursion, a hobby-turned-business for the 42-year-old." — Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, The Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2019Did you know?In Latin, the prefix ex- means "out of" and the verb currere means "to run." When the two are put together, they form the verb excurrere, literally "to run out" or "to extend." Excurrere gave rise not only to excursion but also to excurrent (an adjective for things having channels or currents that run outward) and excursus (meaning "an appendix or digression that contains further exposition of some point or topic"). Other words deriving from currere include corridor, curriculum, and among newer words, parkour.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 August 22, 2019 is:chivy \CHIV-ee\ verb1 : to tease or annoy with persistent petty attacks2 : to move or obtain by small maneuversExamples:Marielle watched her little brother as he chivied an olive from the jar with his fingers."To encounter Hemingway as an adult was to be faced with a man whose appetite for supposedly masculine pursuits was so assiduously cultivated as to border on parody…. He would routinely chivy his friends into the ring in order to engage in tests of strength." — Matthew Adams, The Washington Post, 17 May 2017Did you know?Chivy, which is also spelled chivvy, became established in our language in the 19th century and, at first, meant "to harass or chase." Early usage examples are of people chivying a chicken around to catch it and of a person chivying around food that is frying. The verb comes from a British noun chivy meaning "chase" or "hunt." That chivy is believed to be derived from Chevy Chase—a term for "chase" or "confusion" that is taken from the name of a ballad describing the 1388 battle of Otterburn between the Scottish and English. (A chase in this context is an unenclosed tract of land that is used as a game preserve.)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 August 21, 2019 is:misnomer \miss-NOH-mer\ noun1 : the misnaming of a person in a legal instrument2 a : a use of a wrong or inappropriate nameb : a wrong name or inappropriate designationExamples:"When you see flashes along the horizon on a summer night, it could be lightning within a storm that's more than 100 miles away. 'Heat lightning' is a misnomer—they're just ordinary strikes that lack thunder and appear diffuse when witnessed from a long distance." — John Boyer, The Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, 27 June 2019"Ten candidates will debate for two hours each night Wednesday and Thursday—although 'debate' is something of a misnomer, in the Lincoln-Douglas sense of the word, given the time constraints and limited ability for great depth or lengthy engagement." — Mark Z. Barabak and Michael Finnegan, The Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2019Did you know?What's in a name? Well, in some cases, a name will contain an error, a misunderstanding, or a mislabeling. Historians have long noted that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. The Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed's Hill. And the Pennsylvania Dutch are in fact of German ancestry. For such cases, we have the term misnomer, which comes from the Anglo-French verb mesnomer ("to misname") and ultimately has its roots in nomen, the Latin word for "name."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 August 20, 2019 is:ethereal \ih-THEER-ee-ul\ adjective1 a : of or relating to the regions beyond the earthb : celestialc : unworldly, spiritual2 a : lacking material substance : immaterial, intangibleb : marked by unusual delicacy or refinementc : suggesting the heavens or heaven3 : relating to, containing, or resembling a chemical etherExamples:"Like Howe's Omniverse, van Herpen's finale piece used aluminum and stainless steel on the skeleton, covering it with a thin layer of feathers that ruffled, turning as if graced with gust of wind. The penultimate look channeled the same ethereal vibe, featuring laser-cut strips of fabric that give the appearance of pulsating angel wings." — Barry Samaha, Surface, 2 July 2019"Colored Everything has an air of maturity about it. … What you'll hear is seemingly endless layers of airy, ethereal sound that makes you wonder what kinds of instruments are being used to create such sounds." — Jon Bodell, The Concord (New Hampshire) Insider, 18 June 2019Did you know?If you're burning to know the history of ethereal, you're in the right spirit to fully understand that word's etymology. The ancient Greeks believed that the Earth was composed of earth, air, fire, and water, but that the heavens and its denizens were made of a purer, less tangible substance known as either ether or quintessence. Ether was often described as an invisible light or fire, and its name derives from the Greek aithein, a verb meaning "to ignite" or "to blaze." When ethereal, the adjectival kin of ether, debuted in English in the 1500s, it referred to regions beyond the Earth or anything that seemed to originate from there.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 August 19, 2019 is:brandish \BRAN-dish\ verb1 : to shake or wave (something, such as a weapon) menacingly2 : to exhibit in an ostentatious or aggressive mannerExamples:Michael appeared before the town council brandishing a petition signed by 500 people asking the town to increase funding for the public skate park."Our plates of crisply battered cod, chips and mushy peas and our drinks arrived and we set to. Atticus ate with his fingers…. 'Do you know how to use a knife and fork?' I said to him, purely out of interest. He said he did know and he picked them up and brandished them at me to prove it. The fork was in his right hand, the knife in his left. 'Bravo,' I said." — Jeremy Clarke, The Spectator, 21 July 2018Did you know?Often when we encounter the word brandish in print, it is soon followed by a word for a weapon, such as knife or handgun. That's appropriate given the word's etymology: it is a descendant of the Middle English braundisshen, which derives, via brandiss- (a stem of the Anglo-French brandir), from brant, braund, meaning "sword." Nowadays you can brandish things other than weapons, however. The figurative usage of brandish rose alongside its earliest literal usage in the 14th century. When you brandish something that isn't a weapon (such as a sign), you are in effect waving it in someone's face so that it cannot be overlooked.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 August 18, 2019 is:hiatus \hye-AY-tus\ noun1 a : a break in or as if in a material object : gapb biology : a gap or passage in an anatomical part or organ2 a : an interruption in time or continuity : break; especially : a period when something (as a program or activity) is suspended or interruptedb : the occurrence of two vowel sounds without pause or intervening consonantal soundExamples:"The bus service will run from Dec. 3 to Dec. 21 before going on hiatus for the holidays. Regular service will resume on Jan. 7." — Alison Brownlee, The Huntsville Forester, November 27, 2012"It's a new era for pop/rockstar Adam Lambert. After a four-year hiatus from his solo career, during which he became the new frontman for Queen, the singer returned earlier this year with two new singles and the announcement of his upcoming fourth studio album Velvet." — Stephen Daw, Billboard.com, 19 June 2019Did you know?Hiatus comes from hiare, a Latin verb meaning "to gape" or "to yawn," and first appeared in English in the middle of the 16th century. Originally, the word referred to a gap or opening in something, such as a cave opening in a cliff. In the 18th century, British novelist Laurence Sterne used the word humorously in his novel Tristram Shandy, writing of "the hiatus in Phutatorius's breeches." These days, hiatus is usually used in a temporal sense to refer to a pause or interruption (as in a song), or a period during which an activity is temporarily suspended (such as a hiatus from teaching).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 August 17, 2019 is:tortuous \adjective\ TOR-chuh-wus1 : marked by repeated twists, bends, or turns : winding2 a : marked by devious or indirect tactics : crooked, trickyb : circuitous, involvedExamples:"What a cast! A tsunami of lawyers, such as William Evarts, Benjamin Butler and others swept over Washington with a vengeance, launching long-winded speeches—one lasted 14 hours—and tortuous explanations of policies." — Sam Coale, The Providence Journal, 23 May 2019"Introduced to the Tour in 2012, the Planche des Belles Filles ascent immediately became a classic. Set up in the Vosges mountains, it is steep, tortuous and brutal, featuring a 20 percent gradient at the top." — Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press, 1 July 2019Did you know?Be careful not to confuse tortuous with torturous. These two words are relatives—both ultimately come from the Latin verb torquere, which means "to twist," "to wind," or "to wrench"—but tortuous means "winding" or "crooked," whereas torturous means "painfully unpleasant." Something tortuous (such as a twisting mountain road) might also be torturous (if, for example, you have to ride up that road on a bicycle), but that doesn't make these words synonyms. The twists and turns that mark a tortuous thing can be literal ("a tortuous path" or "a tortuous river") or figurative ("a tortuous argument" or "a tortuous explanation"), but you should consider choosing a different descriptive term if no implication of winding or crookedness is present.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 August 16, 2019 is:satiate \SAY-shee-ayt\ verb: to satisfy (a need, a desire, etc.) fully or to excessExamples:After eating three pieces of pie and one of cake at the potluck, Jamie's sweet tooth was finally satiated."While the battles between Shazam and his arch enemy Thaddeus Sivana … will satiate superhero fans, the emotional center of the movie is the Philadelphia foster family that embraces Billy." — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 3 Apr. 2019Did you know?Satiate, sate, surfeit, cloy, pall, glut, and gorge all mean to fill to repletion. Satiate and sate sometimes imply only complete satisfaction but more often suggest repletion that has destroyed interest or desire, as in "Years of globe-trotting had satiated their interest in travel" and "Readers were sated with sensationalistic stories." Surfeit implies a nauseating repletion, as in "They surfeited themselves with junk food," while cloy stresses the disgust or boredom resulting from such surfeiting, "The strong scent of the flowers cloyed her." Pall emphasizes the loss of ability to stimulate interest or appetite—for example, "A life of leisure eventually began to pall." Glut implies excess in feeding or supplying, as in "a market glutted with diet books," and gorge suggests glutting to the point of bursting or choking, "They gorged themselves with chocolate."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 August 15, 2019 is:miscible \MISS-uh-bul\ adjective: capable of being mixed; specifically : capable of mixing in any ratio without separation of two phasesExamples:Oil and water are not miscible—if you pour oil in a glass of water, it will float to the top. "Although the alkalized cocoa was not completely soluble in milk or water, it was more miscible than any other cocoa product, blending more evenly in solution…." — Deborah Cadbury, Chocolate Wars, 2010Did you know?Miscible isn't simply a lesser-known synonym of mixable—it's also a cousin. It comes to us from the Medieval Latin adjective miscibilis, which has the same meaning as miscible and which derives, in turn, from Latin miscēre, meaning "to mix." Miscēre is also the ultimate source of our mix; its past participle mixtus (meaning "mixed") spawned mixte in Anglo-French and Middle English, and mix came about as a back-formation of mixte. The suffix -able gives us mixable, thereby completing its link to miscible. Miscible turns up most frequently in scientific discussions where it is used especially to describe fluids that don't separate when they are combined.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 August 14, 2019 is:garniture \GAHR-nih-cher\ noun1 : embellishment, trimming2 : a set of decorative objects (such as vases, urns, or clocks)Examples:"Above the fireplace: a scene of a cow jumping over the moon, in an elaborate gilt frame. On the mantle below, we see a clock…, flanked by garniture sturdy enough to be a murder weapon out of Agatha Christie." — Rumaan Alam, Slate, 23 Aug. 2016)"Once upon a time, this was probably one of a pair of vases that comprised a garniture set used to decorate a Victorian mantel. Its mate has vanished into the lost and found of history, but this one with its superb craftsmanship remains a thing of beauty." — Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson, The New Hampshire Union Leader, 29 June 2019Did you know?In Middle French, garniture meant "accessory." It is an alteration of the Old French noun garneture, which is derived from the verb garnir, which meant "to equip, trim, or decorate." In fact, an Anglo-French stem of garnir, garniss-, is the source of the English verb garnish, which in its senses of "to decorate" and "to embellish" shares a similar relationship to garniture that the verb furnish shares with furniture. Furnish comes from the Anglo-French furniss-, a stem of the verb furnir or fournir, which also gave rise to the Middle French fourniture, the source of the English furniture.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 August 13, 2019 is:smite \SMYTE\ verb1 : to strike sharply or heavily especially with the hand or an implement held in the hand2 a : to kill or severely injure by so strikingb : to attack or afflict suddenly and injuriously3 : to cause to strike4 : to affect as if by striking5 : captivate, takeExamples:The cartoon's villain was, as tradition would have it, smote by an anvil dropping mysteriously from the sky."Down the street, Teresa Benner's 1963, 23-window Volkswagen van was also turning heads. She bought it recently when it came up at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Arizona. She was smitten at first sight." — Joel Mills, The Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune, 23 June 2019Did you know?Today's word has been part of the English language for a very long time; the earliest documented use in print dates to the 12th century. Smite can be traced back to the Old English smītan, meaning "to smear or defile." Smītan is akin to the Scottish word smit, meaning "to stain, contaminate, or infect," as well as to the Old High German bismīzan, "to defile." In addition to its "strike" and "attack" senses, smite has a softer side. As of the mid-17th century, it can mean "to captivate or take"—a sense that is frequently used in the past participle in such contexts as "smitten by her beauty" or "smitten with him" (meaning "in love with him"). Its past tense is smote.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 August 12, 2019 is:plaintive \PLAYN-tiv\ adjective: expressive of suffering or woe : melancholyExamples:"Dean Nicholson was pedaling up a hill in Bosnia … when he heard a plaintive meow. He looked over his shoulder. In the lambent December light, he saw a gray-and-white kitten chasing him up the incline." — Isaac Stanley-Becker, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 4 Apr. 2019"[Stevie] Wonder did perform a plaintive cover of the John Lennon classic 'Imagine' for his penultimate number—a statement piece that he's incorporated on his tours since the 1990s, and which he noted as being 'still relevant,' despite originally coming out in 1971." — Mara Reinstein, Billboard.com, 25 June 2019Did you know?Like its relative plangent, plaintive_ is often used to describe sad sounds. "A plaintive wail," for example, is a common use. Plaintive and plangent (along with relatives plaintiff and complain) ultimately derive from the Latin verb plangere, meaning "to strike," "to beat one's breast," or "to lament." This Latin verb led to plaint, an Anglo-French word (and now also an English word) meaning "lamentation." Plaint is the root of Middle English plaintif (meaning "lamenting" or "complaining"), which gave rise to plaintive as well as the noun plaintiff.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 August 11, 2019 is:démarche \day-MARSH\ noun1 a : a course of action : maneuverb : a diplomatic or political initiative or maneuver2 : a petition or protest presented through diplomatic channelsExamples:"On Feb. 23, less than a week after the U.S. démarche to the Cuban government, DeLaurentis accompanied two visiting U.S. senators … to see President Raúl Castro at the Palace of the Revolution." — Tim Golden and Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica, 14 Feb. 2018"European Union foreign ministers … will also issue a demarche—a formal diplomatic protest note—to Moscow as early as next week over Russia's continued detention of 24 Ukrainian sailors captured in the November incident, they added." — The Washington Post, 25 Jan. 2019Did you know?When it comes to international diplomacy, the French may not always have the last word—but they have quite a few, many of which they've shared with English. We began using démarche—which in French can mean "gait," "walk," or "action," among other things—in the 17th century. It was first used generally in the sense of "a maneuver," and before long it developed a specific use in the world of diplomacy. Some of the other diplomacy-related words we use that come from French include attaché, chargé d'affaires, communiqué, détente, and agrément—not to mention the words diplomacy and diplomat themselves.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 August 10, 2019 is:balkanize \BAWL-kuh-nyze\ verb1 : to break up (a region, a group, etc.) into smaller and often hostile units2 : divide, compartmentalizeExamples:"Tech companies and civil rights advocates warn that the increasing push by nations to create their own internet rules will Balkanize the internet and potentially lead to privacy violations and the stifling of political dissent." — Cecilia Kang and Katie Benner, The New York Times, 7 Jan. 2017"Historical scholarship had become Balkanized into dozens of subfields and specialized methodologies, many of them virtually inaccessible to lay readers or even to specialists in other subfields." — James M. McPherson, The New York Times Book Review, 19 Sept. 1999Did you know?The Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe is lapped by the Adriatic Sea in the west and the Black Sea in the east. It is named for the Balkan Mountains, a mountain range which extends from its border with Serbia to the Black Sea. (Balkan derives from the Ottoman Turkish balḳān, meaning "wooded mountain or mountain range.") The Balkan States are commonly characterized as comprising Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia, with mainland portions of Greece and the European portion of Turkey often being included as well. The English word balkanize (often written with a capital B) is the lexical offspring of geography and history: the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century led to a series of revolts that accelerated the fracturing of the region into a number of smaller states whose unstable coexistence led to violence that came to a head in World War I. Since the early 20th century, balkanize and its related noun, balkanization, have come to refer to the kind of divisive action that can weaken countries or groups, as well as other things.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 August 9, 2019 is:omnium-gatherum \ahm-nee-um-GA-thuh-rum\ noun: a miscellaneous collection (as of things or persons)Examples:"Muldoon's Picnic—the critically acclaimed omnium-gatherum of music, storytelling, poetry, and more—has become a staple of New York's cultural diet." — BroadwayWorld.com, 4 Sept. 2018"In his diary, a small, haphazardly kept omnium-gatherum, Arlen set down axioms, vocabulary words, and quotes from a wide-ranging reading list—Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, Santayana, Nietzsche." — John Lahr, The New Yorker, 19 Sept. 2005Did you know?English abounds in Latin phrases. They roll off the learned tongue like peas off a fork: tabula rasa, ab ovo, a posteriori, deus ex machina, ex cathedra, mea culpa, terra firma, vox populi, ad hominem, sub rosa. Omnium-gatherum belongs on that list too, right? Not exactly. Omnium-gatherum sounds like Latin, and indeed omnium (the genitive plural of Latin omnis, meaning "all") is the real thing. But gatherum is simply English gather with -um tacked on to give it a classical ring. We're not suggesting, however, that the phrase is anything less than literate. After all, the first person known to have used it was John Croke, a lawyer who was educated at Eton and Cambridge in the 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 August 8, 2019 is:aggregate \AG-rih-gut\ noun1 : a mass or body of units or parts somewhat loosely associated with one another2 : the whole sum or amount : sum totalExamples:The university's various departments spent an aggregate of 1.2 million dollars in advertising last year."Their bill would require companies that collect user data to tell consumers and regulators what they collect, how they make money off it and how much it's worth—in aggregate and broken down by users." — James Condliffe, The New York Times, 1 July 2019Did you know?We added aggregate to our flock of Latin borrowings in the 15th century. It descends from aggregāre ("to cause to flock together" or "to join together"), a Latin verb made up of the prefix ad- (which means "to," and which usually changes to ag- before a g) and greg- or grex (meaning "flock, herd, or group"). Greg- also gave us congregate, gregarious, and segregate. Aggregate is commonly employed in the phrase "in the aggregate," which means "considered as a whole." Aggregate also has some specialized senses. For example, it is used to describe a mass of minerals formed into a rock, and materials like sand or gravel that are used to form concrete, mortar, or plaster.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 August 7, 2019 is:ransack \RAN-sak\ verb1 : to look through thoroughly in often a rough way2 : to search through and steal from in a forceful and damaging way : plunderExamples:The kids had ransacked the cabinets looking for snacks, leaving not a chip or cracker uneaten."Also in the spring, I bring the bird feeders inside the house to avoid tempting bears into our yard…. A resident bear only had to ransack my feeders once for me to learn my lesson." — Aislinn Sarnacki, The Bangor (Maine) Daily News, 6 June 2019Did you know?Ransack carries the image of a house being roughly disarranged, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something. This is appropriate given the word's origin. Ransack derives, via Middle English ransaken, from Old Norse rannsaka; the rann in rannsaka means "house." The second half of rannsaka is related to an Old English word, sēcan, meaning "to seek." But our modern use of the word isn't restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even the contents of a book (for information). A now-obsolete frequentative form of ransack, ransackle, gave us our adjective ramshackle.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 August 6, 2019 is:totem \TOH-tum\ noun1 a : an object (such as an animal or plant) serving as the emblem of a family or clan and often as a reminder of its ancestry; also : a usually carved or painted representation of such an objectb : a family or clan identified by a common totemic object2 : one that serves as an emblem or revered symbolExamples:The Delaware Indians of eastern North America belonged to one of three groups whose totems were the turkey, the turtle, and the wolf."A totem reached the end of its life with a unifying ceremony after 65 years standing the grounds of Thunderbird Park. Members of First Nations … spoke to the significance of the Kwakwaka'wakw house post replica, which was built in 1954…. — Nicole Crescenzi, The Victoria (British Columbia) News, 31 May 2019Did you know?Totem comes to us from Ojibwa, an Algonquian language spoken by an American Indian people from the regions around Lake Superior. The most basic form of the word in Ojibwa is believed to be ote, but 18th-century English speakers encountered it as ototeman (meaning "his totem"), which became our word totem. In its most specific sense, totem refers to an emblematic depiction of an animal or plant that gives a family or clan its name and that often serves as a reminder of its ancestry. The term is also used broadly for any person or thing having particular emblematic or symbolic importance. The related adjective totemic describes something that serves as a totem, that depicts totems ("totemic basketry," for example), or that has the nature of a totem.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 August 5, 2019 is:passim \PASS-im\ adverb: in one place and another : here and thereExamples:The old cookbooks that once belonged to Michael's grandmother had some of her own recipes and other annotations penciled on the pages passim."Finally, may I say that I respect the views of those who have read and researched the same information as I, but reached the opposing conclusion, as displayed in your letter pages passim." — Stephen Brown, The North Devon Journal, 12 Dec. 2013Did you know?Passim is from the Latin word passus ("scattered"), itself from pandere, meaning "to spread." Pandere is the root of the common word expand and the not-so-common word repand, meaning "having a slightly undulating margin" (as in "a repand leaf" or "a repand colony of bacteria"). It is also the progenitor of pace, as in "keep up a steady pace." Passim itself appears in English both on its own and as part of the adverb sic passim, which means "so throughout." Sic passim is typically used to indicate that a word or idea is to be found at various places throughout a book or a writer's work.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 August 4, 2019 is:faze \FAYZ\ verb: to disturb the composure of : disconcert, dauntExamples:My grandfather was a stolid individual who was not easily fazed by life's troubles."The heat didn't faze the crowd, though, as families swarmed up to Kirkbride Park to browse vendors and watch performances." — Johanna Armstrong, The Fergus Falls (Minnesota) Daily Journal, 8 June 2019Did you know?Faze (not to be confused with phase) first appeared in English in the early 1800s—centuries after the works of Shakespeare and Chaucer were penned. But both of those authors were familiar with the word's ancient parent: faze is an alteration of the now-rare verb feeze, which has been in use since the days of Old English (in the form fēsian), when it meant "to drive away" or "to put to flight." By the 1400s, it was also being used with the meaning "to frighten or put into a state of alarm." The word is still used in some English dialects as a noun meaning "rush" or "a state of alarm or excitement."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 August 3, 2019 is:silly season \SIL-ee-SEE-zun\ noun1 : a period (such as late summer) when the mass media often focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories2 : a period marked by frivolous, outlandish, or illogical activity or behaviorExamples:"The St. Louis Blues have claimed their first Stanley Cup, officially ending the 2018-19 season and unofficially kicking off the silly season of trade speculation, draft gossip and free agent scuttlebutt." — Chip Alexander, The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 18 June 2019"I'm talking about the silly season. Remember the silly season? Every August, politicians would leave us all in peace and we'd have a blissful month of light-hearted, meaningless non-news." — Michael Deacon, The Daily Telegraph (London), 11 Aug. 2018Did you know?Silly season was coined in the 19th century to describe the time when journalists face a bit of a conundrum: Washington is on summer break and European governments are on vacation, but the columns of space newspapers typically devote to politics must still be filled—hence, stories about beating the heat and how celebrities are also managing to do so. The idea is comical, really, since there's always something going on somewhere. P.G. Wodehouse understood the absurdity inherent in the term when he wrote in his 1909 comic novel, The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved English, "It was inevitable, in the height of the Silly Season, that such a topic as the simultaneous invasion of Great Britain by nine foreign powers should be seized upon by the press." Inevitable indeed.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 August 2, 2019 is:clarion \KLAIR-ee-un\ adjective: brilliantly clear; also : loud and clearExamples:"The guitars take off like fighter planes and [Stef Chura] delivers a clarion, country-steeped vocal, somewhere between Kitty Wells and Kurt Cobain." — Megan Reynolds, Jezebel, 3 June 2019"The commonest winter birds cheered me on: the chickadees and titmice, woodpeckers and jays, crows, cardinals, and sparrows. And of course my clarion wrens." — Jack Wennerstrom, The Bird Watcher's Digest, September/October 1992Did you know?In the Middle Ages, clarion was a noun, the name for a trumpet that could play a melody in clear, shrill tones. The noun has since been used for the sound of a trumpet or a similar sound. By the early 1800s, English speakers also started using the word as an adjective for things that ring as clear as the call of a well-played trumpet. Not surprisingly, clarion ultimately derives (via the Medieval Latin clario-) from clarus, which is the Latin word for "clear." In addition, clarus gave English speakers clarify, clarity, declare ("to make clearly known"), and clear 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 August 1, 2019 is:luftmensch \LOOFT-mensh (the "OO" is as in "foot")\ noun: an impractical contemplative person having no definite business or incomeExamples:"People like Luftmenschen, and they've liked them for a long time. The image of Thales, called the world's first philosopher, cannot be proven, but it's comforting to think that intellectuals have their heads in the clouds and stumble into the well before their feet." — Susan Neiman, Einstein for the 21st Century, 2008"Initially, antihero Shmuel Ash seems to be one of [Israeli writer, Amos] Oz's more familiar types, a luftmensch, concerned with intellectual pursuits, sharing many of the dysfunctional and antiheroic qualities of his predecessors…." — Ranen Omer-Sherman, The Forward, 7 Nov. 2016Did you know?Are you one of those people who always seem to have their head in the clouds? Do you have trouble getting down to the lowly business of earning a living? If so, you may deserve to be labeled a luftmensch. That airy appellation is an adaptation of the Yiddish luftmentsh, which breaks down into luft (a Germanic root meaning "air" that is also related to the English words loft and lofty) plus mentsh, meaning "human being." One of the earliest known uses of luftmensch in English prose is found in Israel Zangwill's 1907 story collection Ghetto Comedies, in which he writes, "The word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man…. He was an air-man, floating on facile wings." The plural form of the noun is luftmenschen.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 July 31, 2019 is:importune \im-per-TOON\ verb1 a : to press or urge with troublesome persistenceb archaic : to request or beg for urgently2 : annoy, troubleExamples:"[Sarah] Polk feigned neutrality or loyalty, depending on what suited her, and she successfully importuned Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee and then American president, to pardon ex-rebels or to grant such favors as being able to sell her cotton untaxed." — Megan Reynolds, Jezebel, 3 June 2019"For nearly 40 years, Houstonian Jimmy Dunne has importuned Texas lawmakers to ban corporal punishment in Texas public schools, to no avail." — The Houston Chronicle, 18 Mar. 2019Did you know?Importune has many synonyms—including beg, entreat, beseech, and implore. Beg suggests earnestness or insistence especially in asking for a favor ("the children begged to stay up late"). Entreat implies an effort to persuade or to overcome resistance ("she entreated him to change his mind"). Beseech implies great eagerness or anxiety ("I beseech you to have mercy"), and implore adds to beseech a suggestion of greater urgency or anguished appeal ("he implored her not to leave him"). But it is importune that best conveys irritating doggedness in trying to break down resistance to a request and the accompanying annoyance ("the filmmakers were importuning viewers for contributions"), as it has since Middle English speakers adopted it from Anglo-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 July 30, 2019 is:phalanx \FAY-lanks\ noun1 : a body of heavily armed infantry in ancient Greece formed in close deep ranks and files; broadly : a body of troops in close array2 : one of the digital bones of the hand or foot of a vertebrate3 a : a massed arrangement of persons, animals, or thingsb : an organized body of personsExamples:"Despite Beyoncé missing in action, Skylar Grey filled her shoes admirably, as she sang the hook and played the piano. In addition to Grey, a phalanx of violinists helped anchor the heartfelt performance." — Carl Lamarre, Billboard.com, 12 Nov. 2017"This specimen … is the middle phalanx of a human middle finger. It was collected from the Nefud desert of Saudi Arabia by Huw Groucutt of Oxford University and his colleagues. In a paper just published in Nature Ecology & Evolution they report that uranium-thorium isotopic dating suggests it is 88,000 years old…." — The Economist, 14 Apr. 2018Did you know?The original sense of phalanx refers to a military formation that was used in ancient warfare and consisted of a tight block of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, several rows deep, often with shields joined. The word phalanx comes from the Greeks, though they were not the only ones who used this formation. The Greek term literally means "log" and was used for both this line of battle and for a bone in a finger or toe. The word and its senses passed into Latin and then were adopted into English in the 16th century. These days, a phalanx can be any arranged mass, whether of persons, animals, or things, or a body of people organized in a particular effort.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 July 29, 2019 is:addlepated \AD-ul-pay-tud\ adjective1 : being mixed up : confused2 : eccentricExamples:"Her addlepated mind flitted butterflylike from one often unrelated subject to another." — Tessa Harris, The Anatomist's Apprentice, 2011"[Nick Park's] best-known creations are the addlepated, cheese-loving inventor Wallace, and Gromit, his patient, intelligent dog. Park's work helped to spark a new blossoming of stop-motion animation…." — Charles Solomon, The Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 2018Did you know?In Middle English an adel eye was a putrid egg. The stench of such an egg apparently affected the minds of some witty thinkers, who hatched a comparison between the diminished, unsound quality of an adel eye (or addle egg as it came to be called in modern English) and an empty, confused head—or pate. "Your owne imagination, which was no lesse Idle, then your head was addle all that day," wrote one 17th-century wit at play with the words idle and addle. Today, addle is often found in combination with words referring to one's noggin, as in addlepated, addlebrained, and addle-headed.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 July 28, 2019 is:evince \ih-VINSS\ verb1 : to constitute outward evidence of2 : to display clearly : revealExamples:"Randall Park is solid, handsome, capable, and utterly charming—a leading man whose talents as sly foil to a larger, more outsized personality evinced by his performance in Fresh Off the Boat are given their full due here." — Megan Reynolds, Jezebel, 3 June 2019"Famous for getting the first humans to the moon, the Apollo 11 command module is astoundingly small and unrefined yet evinces our innate desire to reach uninhabitable territories." — Lydia Kallipoliti, quoted in The Atlantic, 18 Sept. 2018Did you know?Let us conquer any uncertainty you may have about the history of evince. It derives from Latin evincere, meaning "to vanquish" or "to win a point," and can be further traced to vincere, Latin for "to conquer." In the early 1600s, evince was sometimes used in the senses "to subdue" or "to convict of error," meanings evincing the influence of its Latin ancestors. It was also sometimes used as a synonym of its cousin convince, but that sense is now obsolete. One early meaning, "to constitute evidence of," has hung on, however, and in the 1800s it was joined by another sense, "to reveal."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 July 27, 2019 is:bildungsroman \BIL-doonks-roh-mahn\ noun: a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main characterExamples:"It's a thoroughly contemporary bildungsroman in which the protagonist is the Vietnamese-born son of an illiterate and violence-prone single mother. He's living in the United States with her and his schizophrenic grandmother when he comes to terms with the alternating harshness and warmth of his family…." — Leigh Haber, Oprah Magazine, 3 June 2019"In its way, this is a very novelistic film, with the accretion of detail you might expect from a Bildungsroman.… We see what Cleo sees, we wonder what and how she feels, we build up our investment of sympathy with her, and it all leads to a heartrending payoff." — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (London), 13 Feb. 2019Did you know?Bildungsroman is the combination of two German words: Bildung, meaning "education," and Roman, meaning "novel." Fittingly, a bildungsroman is a novel that deals with the formative years of the main character, and in particular, with the character's psychological development and moral education. The bildungsroman usually ends on a positive note, with the hero's foolish mistakes and painful disappointments over, and a life of usefulness ahead. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's late 18th-century work Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship) is often cited as the classic example of a bildungsroman. Though the term is primarily applied to novels, in recent years some English speakers have begun to apply it to films that deal with a youthful character's coming-of-age.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 July 26, 2019 is:motley \MAHT-lee\ adjective1 : variegated in color2 : made up of many different people or thingsExamples:Many of the jesters at the medieval festival were dressed in a bright motley garb."Geena Davis will guest star in the third season of 'GLOW,' the Netflix comedy series about a motley crew of female wrestlers." — Lillian Brown, The Boston Globe, 11 June 2019Did you know?Motley made its debut as an English adjective and noun in the 14th century, but etymologists aren't completely sure where it came from. Many think it probably derived from the Middle English mot, meaning "mote" or "speck." The word is also used as a noun identifying a multicolored fabric, a garment made from such a fabric, or—perhaps the best known sense of all—the fool who often wore such outfits in the European courts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.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 July 25, 2019 is:undergird \un-der-GERD\ verb1 archaic : to make secure underneath2 : to form the basis or foundation of : strengthen, supportExamples:"The organ tones that undergirded much of her recent work suggested a secular version of the church nave. Here, the walls close in and we're transported somewhere deceptively plain, to what might be an afternoon recital in someone's home." — Thea Ballard, Pitchfork, 8 June 2019"We were taught that the right to vote undergirds all other rights, that free and fair elections are necessary for social progress." — Stacey Abrams, The New York Times, 15 May 2019Did you know?The English verb gird means, among other things, "to encircle or bind with a flexible band." When undergird first entered English in the 16th century, it meant "to make secure underneath," as by passing a rope or chain underneath something (such as a ship). That literal sense has long since fallen out of use, but in the 19th century undergird picked up the figurative "strengthen" or "support" sense that we still use. Gird and consequently undergird both derive from the Old English geard, meaning "enclosure" or "yard." Gird also gives us girder, a noun referring to a horizontal piece supporting a structure.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 July 24, 2019 is:hapless \HAP-lus\ adjective: having no luck : unfortunateExamples:"Whatever your view of Team USA's rout over Thailand or the way they celebrated every goal over that hapless opponent, the 13-0 opening victory fueled conversation and interest for Sunday's United States-Chile match." — Phil Rosenthal, The Chicago Tribune, 18 June 2019"David Bareford got into violence design when he was living in Chicago and struggling along as 'an OK actor in a town where there were a million OK actors….' He decided not to fight those odds; instead he embraced the stage-combat skills that came from acting in Shakespeare tragedies, which usually involve kings, soldiers and other hapless figures eagerly running one another through." — Scott Hewitt, The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), 13 June 2019Did you know?Hapless literally means what you'd expect it to mean: "without hap"—hap being another word for fortune or luck. Hap derives from the Old Norse word for "good luck," a word that is also the source of our happen and happy. English has several words to describe those lacking good fortune, including ill-starred, ill-fated, unlucky, and luckless, a word formed in parallel to hapless by adding the suffix -less. Ill-starred suggests bringing calamity or the threat of a terrible fate ("the ill-starred year the Great Depression began"). Ill-fated refers only to being doomed ("the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic"). Unlucky and luckless usually apply to a person or thing notably or chronically unfortunate ("an unlucky slots player," "some luckless investors swindled in the deal").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 July 23, 2019 is:desideratum \dih-sid-uh-RAH-tum\ noun: something desired as essentialExamples:"The strength of his class depended to some extent on sound money management—but depended to a much larger extent on marriages based cynically on the sorts of children likely to be produced. Healthy, charming, wise children were the desiderata." — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan, 1959"The year was 1953, and most American children were secretly wishing, praying and writing letters to Santa Claus promising to be nice rather than naughty in return for that ultimate desideratum of gifts: the 'real, live pony.'" — Ken Jennings, The Petoskey (Michigan) News-Review, 24 Dec. 2014Did you know?We'd like to introduce you to some close cousins of the common word desire. All trace their roots to the Latin sīder-, or sīdus, which has historically been understood to mean "heavenly body," but which may also have an older, non-celestial meaning of "mark, target, goal." Whether etymologically starry or grounded, dēsīderāre, meaning "to long for," was born when Latin de- was prefixed to sīder-. Dēsīderāre begat Anglo-French desirer, which in turn brought forth English desire, desirous, and desirable in the 13th and 14th centuries, with desideration following in the 15th. Then, in the 17th century, English acquired desiderate ("to wish for") and desideratum (desiderata in the plural), all of which can lay claim to direct ancestry from desiderare.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 July 22, 2019 is:whinge \WINJ\ verbBritish : to complain fretfully : whineExamples:"I was angry, I went home to my wife and I complained. I was whinging an Olympic level of whinging to Deb, my wife, and moaning about this person and that person." — Hugh Jackman, quoted in MailOnline, 4 June 2019"For those who whinged that the Freddie Mercury biopic 'Bohemian Rhapsody' played fast and loose with the facts and the timeline—and I was one—it must be said that director Dexter Fletcher's Elton John movie 'Rocketman' takes even more liberties with truth." — Jim Sullivan, WBUR.org, 31 May 2019Did you know?Whinge isn't a simple spelling variant of whine. Whinge and whine are actually entirely different words with separate histories. Whine traces to an Old English verb, hwinan, which means "to make a humming or whirring sound." When hwinan became whinen in Middle English, it meant "to wail distressfully"; whine didn't acquire its "complain" sense until the 16th century. Whinge, on the other hand, comes from a different Old English verb, hwinsian, which means "to wail or moan discontentedly." Whinge retains that original sense today, though nowadays it puts less emphasis on the sound of the complaining and more on the discontentment behind the complaint.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 July 21, 2019 is:redaction \rih-DAK-shun\ noun1 a : an act or instance of preparing something for publication b : an act or instance of obscuring or removing something from a document prior to publication or release2 : a work that has been redacted : edition, versionExamples:"The city released Craddock's emailed resignation, but redacted the send and receive times as well as the recipients. A city attorney said the entire document is considered a personnel record and is subject to redaction under the state's Freedom of Information Act." — Alissa Skelton, The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), 14 June 2019"The black redaction box is meant to protect sensitive information from public view. It's supposed to be an impenetrable curtain. But sometimes that curtain is surprisingly easy to raise." — Phillip Bantz, Law.com, 19 Dec. 2018Did you know?Here's a quiz for all you etymology buffs. Can you pick the words from the following list that come from the same Latin root?A. redaction B. prodigal C. agent D. essay  E. navigate F. ambiguousIf you guessed all of them, you are right. Now, for bonus points, name the Latin root that they all have in common. If you knew that it is the verb agere, meaning to "to drive, lead, act, or do," you get an A+. Redaction is from the Latin verb redigere ("to bring back" or "to reduce"), which was formed by adding the prefix red- (meaning "back") to agere. Some other agere offspring include act, agenda, cogent, litigate, chasten, agile, and transact.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 July 20, 2019 is:cogent \KOH-junt\ adjective1 a : appealing forcibly to the mind or reason : convincingb : pertinent, relevant2 : having power to compel or constrainExamples:At the town meeting, citizens presented many cogent arguments in support of building a new senior center."The council made the difficult decision to raise property taxes by a total of 6 cents…. [The] decision to earmark the full 4 cents for educational capital expenditures was a difficult one, and there were cogent, logical arguments to be made in favor of keeping the city's options open regarding the use of funds." — Kate McConnell and Anthony Smith, The Roanoke (Virginia) Times, 21 Apr. 2019Did you know?"Trained, knowledgeable agents make cogent suggestions ... that make sense to customers." It makes sense for us to include that comment from the president of a direct marketing consulting company because it provides such a nice opportunity to point out the etymological relationship between the words cogent and agent. Agent derives from the Latin verb agere, which means "to drive," "to lead," or "to act." Adding the prefix co- to agere gave Latin cogere, a word that literally means "to drive together"; that ancient term ultimately gave English cogent. Something that is cogent figuratively pulls together thoughts and ideas, and the cogency of an argument depends on the driving intellectual force behind it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.