Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 10, 2019 is:Parthian \PAR-thee-un\ adjective1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of ancient Parthia or its people2 : relating to, being, or having the effect of a shot fired while in real or feigned retreatExamples:After being fired, the coach gave a Parthian shot to the general manager informing him that he was a churlish miser."Although the exact origins of polo are unknown, it earned its reputation as 'the sport of kings' in the Parthian Empire in Persia and the Byzantine Empire…" — Town & Country, May 2018Did You Know?The adjective Parthian, which often shows up in the phrase "Parthian shot," has its roots in the military strategies of the ancient Parthians. One of the fighting maneuvers of Parthian horsemen was to discharge arrows while in real or feigned retreat. The maneuver must have been memorable because "Parthian shot" continues to be used for a "parting shot," or a cutting remark made by a person who is leaving, many centuries after the dissolution of the Parthian empire.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 April 9, 2019 is:opusculum \oh-PUSK-yuh-lum\ noun: a minor work (as of literature) — usually used in pluralExamples:The book is a collection of opuscula written by the author between her two major novels."[Maria] Artamonova offers short summaries of most of Tolkien's satellite opuscula in roughly their order of composition—The Father Christmas Letters, Roverandom, Mr. Bliss, Farmer Giles of Ham, "Leaf by Niggle," and Smith of Wootton Major." — Jason Fisher, Mythlore, 22 Sept. 2016Did you know?Opusculum—which is often used in its plural form opuscula—comes from Latin, where it serves as the diminutive form of the noun opus, meaning "work." In English, opus can refer to any literary or artistic work, though it often specifically refers to a musical piece. Being a diminutive of opus, opusculum logically refers to a short or minor work. Unlike its more famous relation, however, opusculum is most often used for literary works. The Latin plural of opus is opera, which gave us (via Italian) the word we know for a musical production consisting primarily of vocal pieces performed with orchestral accompaniment.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 April 8, 2019 is:cerebral \suh-REE-brul\ adjective1 a : of or relating to the brain or the intellectb : of, relating to, affecting, or being the cerebrum2 a : appealing to intellectual appreciationExamples:"All exercise is good for the brain. Physical activity increases cerebral blood flow, reduces brain-damaging plaques and works to promote brain health at a cellular level." — Marilynn Preston, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 29 Jan. 2019"[Sally] Rooney poses far more questions than answers in her tart, cerebral book about young anti-establishment poets and writers attempting to transcend their own glibness." — Katy Waldman, Slate, 12 Dec. 2017Did you know?English borrowed its word cerebrum directly from the Latin word for "brain," but the adjective cerebral, though from the same source, took a slightly more circuitous route, making its way into English by way of French. Cerebrum has been used in our language as a name for the upper part of the brain since at least the 1570s. Cerebral has been appearing in print in English since the beginning of the 19th century, when it initially described the brain generally or the intellect. Other brainy descendants of cerebrum in English include cerebellum (the part of the brain between the brain stem and the back of the cerebrum) and cerebrate, a verb meaning "to use the mind" or "to think."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 April 7, 2019 is:sashay \sa-SHAY\ verb1 : to make a chassé2 a : walk, glide, gob : to strut or move about in an ostentatious or conspicuous mannerc : to proceed or move in a diagonal or sideways mannerExamples:"… our springs often seem more like a magical mystery tour than just another day on the calendar; life exploding out of the ground, flowers everywhere … ; the smell of freshly cut grass; a lighter step in a young man's foot, young women smiling for no reason at all as they sashay along Queen Street." — J. D. Reid, The Niagara-on-the-Lake Advance, 26 Mar. 2018"Best known as the sparkly-suited man behind the world-touring, billion dollar-earning extravaganza that is Lord of the Dance, Michael Flatley—who hung up his dancing shoes in 2016 … —has spent the past couple of years quietly sashaying into the world of filmmaking." — Alex Ritman, Hollywoodreporter.com, 28 Sept. 2018Did you know?The French verb chassé ("to make a sliding dance step") danced into English unaltered in the beginning of the 19th century, but as the word gained popularity in America people often had difficulty pronouncing and transcribing its French rhythms. It wasn't long before sashay had begun to appear in print in American sources. Authors such as Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, and John Updike have all since put their names on the word's dance card and have enjoyed the liveliness and attitude sashay adds to descriptions of movement. They and many, many others have helped sashay slide away from its French dance origins to strut its stuff in descriptions of various walks and moves.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 April 6, 2019 is:moiety \MOY-uh-tee\ noun1 a : one of two equal parts : halfb : one of two approximately equal parts2 : one of the portions into which something is divided : component, part3 : one of two basic complementary tribal subdivisionsExamples:"They came from the sea—these members of the Eagle moiety—paddling their ceremonial canoes, singing traditional songs. Waiting on the shore were members of the Raven moiety, counterparts to the Eagles in the traditional world of the Haida Indians." — Doug O'Harra, The Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, 15 Sep. 1996"Most of the glucose in the body goes directly into cells where it's modified to produce the energy source ATP. However about 5 percent of all glucose is converted to another sugar moiety, O-GlcNAc, one of the sugar types that can modify proteins." — ScienceDaily.com, 12 May 2009Did you know?Moiety is one of thousands of words that English speakers borrowed from French. The Anglo-French moité (meaning "a half" or "part of something") comes from Late Latin medietat-, meaning "a half." Around the same time that moiety was borrowed from Anglo-French, medietat- was also borrowed directly from Latin as mediety, a word which can also mean "a half." Medietat- comes from Latin medius (meaning "middle"), which has contributed to such English words as medium, meridian, and milieu.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 April 5, 2019 is:brummagem \BRUM-ih-jum\ adjective: not genuine : spurious; also : cheaply showy : tawdryExamples:The members of the bachelorette party stumbled out of the limousine with the bride wearing a brummagem tiara and sash."Just as critics … conceived high culture in some antithetical relationship to 'middlebrow' or 'kitsch,' which imitated the intelligentsia's culture and blurred the distinction between commodity and art, so too, they warned, the spirit of Christianity now had to be preserved from its brummagem versions…." — Jason W. Stevens, God-Fearing and Free, 2010Did you know?Brummagem first appeared in the 17th century as an alteration of Birmingham, the name of a city in England. At that time Birmingham was notorious for the counterfeit coins made there, and the word brummagem quickly became associated with things forged or inauthentic. By the 19th century, Birmingham had become a chief manufacturer of cheap trinkets and gilt jewelry, and again the word brummagem followed suit—it came to describe that which is showy on the outside but essentially of low quality. Perhaps the term was something of an annoyance to the people of Birmingham way back when, but nowadays when brummagem is used (which isn't often) it's usually without any conscious reference to the British city.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 April 4, 2019 is:rowel \ROWL\ verb1 : to goad with or as if with a pointed disk at the end of a spur2 : vex, troubleExamples:"He folded the book shut, touched his hat, moved to the wagon, and roweled the horses around." — Colum McCann, TransAtlantic, 2013"Then suddenly he found himself at the end of his money.… Hunger rode him and roweled him. He was no longer well fed, comfortable." — Frank Norris, McTeague, 1899Did you know?If you've seen Western movies, you've seen rowels. The noun rowel names the circular, point-covered disk on the end of a spur that is used to urge powerful steeds to maximum speeds. But cowboys didn't invent rowels; knights in shining armor were sporting them even before the 12th century. English speakers of yore picked up the noun rowel from the Anglo-French roele, meaning "small wheel." It wasn't until the 16th century that rowel began to be used as a verb for the act of spurring a horse with a rowel. By the 19th century, rowel was being used as a verb for any process of prodding or goading that was as irritating as being poked in the side with a rowel.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 April 3, 2019 is:arduous \AHR-juh-wus\ adjective1 a : hard to accomplish or achieve : difficultb : marked by great labor or effort : strenuous2 : hard to climb : steepExamples:Every summer, right before the beginning of the new school year, the football team begins its season with "Hell Week," an arduous six days of conditioning and training."The mission has been long and the road arduous for Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL, which has, in some iteration or another, been working on the concept of a lunar lander for nearly a decade." — Chabeli Herrera, The Orlando (Florida) Sentinel, 20 Feb. 2019Did you know?"To forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can arrive at." When Richard Steele published that line in The Guardian in 1713, he was using arduous in what was apparently a fairly new way for English writers in his day: to imply that something was steep or lofty as well as difficult or strenuous. Steele's use is one of the earliest documented in English for that meaning, but he didn't commit it to paper until almost 150 years after the first uses of the word in its "strenuous" sense. Although the "steep" sense is newer, it is still true to the word's origins; arduous derives from the Latin arduus, which means "high," "steep," or "difficult."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 April 2, 2019 is:fantod \FAN-tahd\ noun1 plural fantods a : a state of irritability and tensionb : fidgets2 : an emotional outburst : fitExamples:The movie's graphic imagery gave me the fantods—I had to turn it off."Orin's special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. There'd been parts of metro Boston near the Bay he'd refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods." — David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996Did you know?"You have got strong symptoms of the fantods; your skin is so tight you can't shut your eyes without opening your mouth." Thus, American author Charles Frederick Briggs provides us with an early recorded use of fantods in 1839. Mark Twain used the word to refer to uneasiness or restlessness as shown by nervous movements—also known as the fidgets—in Huckleberry Finn: "They was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because … they always give me the fantods." David Foster Wallace later used "the howling fantods," a favorite phrase of his mother, in Infinite Jest. The exact origin of fantod remains a mystery, but it may have arisen from English dialectal fantigue—a word (once used by Charles Dickens) that refers to a state of great tension or excitement and may be a blend of fantastic and fatigue.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 April 1, 2019 is:hoodwink \HOOD-wink\ verb: to deceive by false appearance : dupeExamples:All would be wise to remember that we're especially likely to be hoodwinked on April Fools' Day."Madsen's fascination with space and rockets and technology could hoodwink you into thinking he was a man of the future; you could miss the fact that his obsession was rooted in nostalgia." — Jeong May Sori, Wired, March 2018Did you know?A now-obsolete sense of the word wink is "to close one's eyes," and hoodwink once meant to cover the eyes of someone, such as a prisoner, with a hood or blindfold. (Hoodwink was also once a name for the game of blindman's buff.) This 16th-century term soon came to be used figuratively for veiling the truth. "The Public is easily hood-winked," wrote the Irish physician Charles Lucas in 1756, by which time the figurative use had been around for quite a while—and today, the meaning of the word hasn't changed a wink.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 March 31, 2019 is:etiquette \ET-ih-kut\ noun: the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official lifeExamples:"… the Victorians saw the role of etiquette as something closer to a behavioral amulet capable of protecting one from the polluting forces of vulgarity and vice." — Alice Gregory, The New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2018"As a matter of etiquette, contemporary bosses are expected to rein in their swagger and talk up their team. Some … even project vulnerability, not invincibility. — The Economist, 24 Nov. 2018Did you know?The French word étiquette means "ticket" or "label attached to something for identification." In 16th-century Spain, the French word was borrowed (and altered to etiqueta) to refer to the written protocols describing orders of precedence and behavior demanded of those who appeared in court. Eventually, etiqueta came to be applied to the court ceremonies themselves as well as the documents which outlined the requirements for them. Interestingly, this then led to French speakers of the time attributing the second sense of "proper behavior" to their étiquette, and in the middle of the 18th century English speakers finally adopted both the word and the second meaning from the 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 March 30, 2019 is:scrumptious \SKRUMP-shus\ adjective: delightful, excellent; especially : deliciousExamples:I prepared a scrumptious chocolate cake for our grandfather's 80th birthday."The main dish was a scrumptious serving of noodles, chicken pieces and shrimp in a peanut-flavored sauce and some scallions." — Maria Cortes Gonzalez, El Paso Times, 11 Feb. 2019Did you know?First appearing in English in the early 1800s, scrumptious is a mouth-watering word that is used to describe what is delightful and delectable. It probably originated as an alteration of sumptuous, and it carries the elegant and wonderful connotations of its parent. (Speakers of Middle English borrowed sumptuous from the Latin adjective sumptuousus,a derivation of the Latin noun sumptus,meaning "expense" or "cost"). British author Roald Dahl had some fun with scrumptious and created a delightful coinage, when he inserted the infix‑diddly- into the word to make scrumdiddlyumptious, the word that chocolate magnate Willy Wonka uses to name his best-selling treats in his novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964).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 March 29, 2019 is:comminute \KAH-muh-noot\ verb: to reduce to minute particles : pulverizeExamples:"Type III fractures are comminuted (involve multiple broken pieces of bone), which lead to mechanical blocks to motion and significant elbow joint and ligament damage. Surgery would be required to fix or remove the broken pieces of bone and repair the soft-tissue damage." — Joshua Dines, Forbes.com, 21 Oct. 2018"… the USDA says all cooked sausages (including bologna and hot dogs) must be comminuted, or 'reduced to minute particles.'" — Emily Petsko, Mental Floss, 24 Oct. 2018Did you know?What do comminute, pulverize, and triturate all have in common? All three words are derived from Latin and share the meaning "to reduce to small particles." Comminute can be traced back to the prefix com- and the verb minuere, meaning "to lessen." Pulverize descends from a combination of pulver-, meaning "dust" or "powder," with the suffix -izare, which—like the English -ize—can mean "to cause to be." Triturate is borrowed from the past participle of the Latin triturare, which means "to thresh." Triturate specifically refers to the use of rubbing or grinding to achieve pulverization, a process which could be said to resemble the use of rubbing to separate grains from harvested cereal plants.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 March 28, 2019 is:polyglot \PAH-lee-glaht\ adjective1 a : speaking or writing several languages : multilingualb : composed of numerous linguistic groups 2 : containing matter in several languages 3 : composed of elements from different languages4 : widely diverse (as in ethnic or cultural origins)Examples:With vacationers arriving from all over Europe and other parts of the world, merchants in the resort city must adjust to serving a polyglot clientele."Learning the basics of any language is a quick task. Programmes like Duolingo or Rosetta Stone can guide you through a few greetings and simple phrases at lightning speed. For a more personal experience, polyglot Timothy Doner recommends reading and watching material that you already have an interest in. 'If you like cooking, buy a cookbook in a foreign language; if you like soccer, try watching a foreign game,' he says." — Peter Rubinstein and Bryan Lufkin, BBC.com, 19 Feb. 2019Did you know?You've probably run across the prefix poly- before—it comes from Greek and means "many" or "multi-." But what about -glot? That part of the word comes from the Greek term glōtta, meaning "language" or "tongue." (Glōtta is also the source of glottis, the word for the space between the vocal cords.) Polyglot itself entered English in the 17th century, both as an adjective and as a noun meaning "one who can write or speak several languages." You could call the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V a polyglot. He claimed that he addressed his horse only in German, he conversed with women in Italian and with men in French, but reserved Spanish for his talks with God.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 March 27, 2019 is:litmus test \LIT-mus-TEST\ noun: a test in which a single factor (such as an attitude, event, or fact) is decisiveExamples:For Curtis, the litmus test of good barbeque ribs is whether or not they have that moist fall-off-the-bone quality."But, then, this can of corn: How did it even get here? Nothing against canned corn, but it's not something we use. It definitely did not 'spark joy,' per [Marie] Kondo's keep-it-or-toss-it litmus test." — Bethany Jean Clement, The Providence Journal, 6 Feb. 2019Did you know?It was in the 14th century that scientists discovered that litmus, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator. Six centuries later, people began using litmus test figuratively. It can now refer to any single factor that establishes the true character of something or causes it to be assigned to one category or another. Often it refers to something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that can be used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable or not.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 March 26, 2019 is:decoct \dih-KAHKT\ verb1 : to extract the flavor of by boiling2 : boil down, concentrateExamples:"Though the taste is a bonus, the real draw in this caffeine-free latte is the CBD, or cannabidiol, oil. The CBD served in the lattes is derived from Kentucky-grown hemp, decocted from the flowers and leaves with hot dairy or coconut milk." — Mackensy Lunsford, The Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen-Times, 2 Mar. 2018"The cooking liquor he decocts from roasted red peppers … gives surprising oomph to roasted rice purée and royal red potato." — Lee Tran Lam, The Gourmet Traveller, 3 Jan. 2018Did You Know?Decoct boils down to a simple Latin origin: the word decoquere, from de-, meaning "down" or "away," and coquere, meaning "to cook" or "to ripen." Decoct itself is somewhat rare. Its related noun decoction, which refers to either an extract obtained by decocting or the act or process of decocting, is slightly more common but still much less recognizable than some other members of the coquere family, among gastronomical words like biscuit, biscotti, cook, and kitchen. Other coquere descendants include concoct ("to prepare by combining raw materials" or "to devise or fabricate"), concoction ("something concocted"), and precocious ("exceptionally early in development or occurrence" or "exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early 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 March 25, 2019 is:bower \BOW-er\ noun1 : an attractive dwelling or retreat2 : a lady's private apartment in a medieval hall or castle3 : a shelter (as in a garden) made with tree boughs or vines twined together : arborExamples:The couple's rendezvous was a secluded bower in the garden."In retelling Shakespeare's story of mortal and immortal lovers lost in a bewitched Athenian wood, Ms. Taymor has sought to conjure the sort of Jungian visions that are bred in the fertile fields of sleep. … [S]he transforms bed and bedding into a sylvan, starry wonderland. An immense sheet rises, falls and twists itself to become a confining roof, a vast sky, a writhing forest floor and an amorous bower fit for a queen of the fairies." — Ben Brantley, The New York Times, 4 Nov. 2013Did You Know?Bower derives from Old English būr, meaning "dwelling,"and was originally used of attractive homes or retreats, especially rustic cottages. In the Middle Ages, bower came to refer to a lady's personal hideaway within a medieval castle or hall—that is, her private apartment. The more familiar "arbor" sense combines the pastoral beauty of a rustic retreat with the privacy of a personal apartment. Although its tranquil modern meaning belies it, bower is distantly related to the far more roughshod bowery, which has historically been used as the name of a sleazy district in New York City. The Bowery got its name from a Dutch term for a dwelling or farm that shares a common ancestor with the terms that gave rise to "bower."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 March 24, 2019 is:magniloquent \mag-NIL-uh-kwunt\ adjective: speaking in or characterized by a high-flown often bombastic style or mannerExamples:The magniloquent sportscaster sometimes got so carried away with his monologues that he would forget to describe the action on the field."It [the television series Billions] features two outsize, magniloquent protagonists who are constant foils to one another: light and dark, good and evil, both cut from the same ambitious cloth and therefore destined to lock in an endless pas de deux of power." — Rachel Syme, The New Republic, 1 May 2018Did You Know?Magnus means "great" in Latin; loqui is a Latin verb meaning "to speak." Combine the two and you get magniloquus, the Latin predecessor of magniloquent. English-speakers started using magniloquent in the 1600s—even though we have had its synonym grandiloquent since the 1500s. (Grandiloquent comes from Latin grandiloquus, which combines loqui and grandis, another word for "great" in Latin.) Today, these synonyms continue to exist side by side and to be used interchangeably, though grandiloquent is the more common of the two.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 March 23, 2019 is:reverberate \rih-VER-buh-rayt\ verb1 : to reflect or become reflected2 : to repel or become driven back3 : to continue in or as if in a series of echoes : resoundExamples:"Inmates' relatives began protesting outside the jail. Inmates responded by banging on the inside of their windows, the clangs and thuds reverberating in the street below." — Jon Schuppe, NBCNews.com, 5 Feb. 2019"The hiring went off like a sonic boom in Hollywood, reverberating to the highest levels of rival studios." — Brooks Barnes, The New York Times, 17 Feb. 2019Did You Know?The letter sequence "v-e-r-b" in reverberate might make you think at first of such word-related brethren as proverb, verbal, and verbose, all of which derive from the Latin noun verbum, meaning "word." In fact, reverberate comes from a much different source: the Latin verb verberare, meaning "to whip, beat, or lash," which is related to the noun verber, meaning "rod." Reverberate entered the English language in the 15th century, and one of its early meanings was "to beat, drive, or cast back." By the early 1600s, it began to appear in contexts associated with sound that repeats or returns the way an echo does.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 March 22, 2019 is:purview \PER-vyoo\ noun1 a : the body or enacting part of a statuteb : the limit, purpose, or scope of a statute2 : the range or limit of authority, competence, responsibility, concern, or intention3 : range of vision, understanding, or cognizanceExamples:"The Supreme Court had ruled that the House has purview over ordering a new election…." — Dan Haar, The New Haven (Connecticut) Register, 13 Feb. 2019"In getting the role of president of NBC Entertainment's Alternative and Reality Group, Meredith Ahr now commands one of the biggest unscripted portfolios in television. Adding the network to her purview means that she also will be the executive overseeing TV's two biggest reality properties, America's Got Talent and The Voice." — Michael O'Connell, Hollywoodreporter.com, 19 Nov. 2018Did You Know?You might guess that there is a connection between purview and view. Purview comes from purveu, a word often found in the legal statutes of 13th- and 14th-century England. These statutes, written in Anglo-French, opened with the phrases purveu est and purveu que, which translate literally to "it is provided" and "provided that." Purveu derives from porveu, the past participle of the Old French verb porveeir, meaning "to provide." View derives (via Middle English) from the past participle of another Anglo-French word, veer, meaning "to see," and ultimately from Latin vidēre, of the same meaning.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 March 21, 2019 is:hamartia \hah-mahr-TEE-uh\ noun: a flaw in character that brings about the downfall of the hero of a tragedy : tragic flawExamples:Greed was the hamartia that ultimately brought down the protagonist."Characters in Greek tragedies usually had a hamartia, or fatal flaw. Hubris, pride, presumption and arrogance were some of the chief character traits that brought down peasants and emperors alike." — Christine Barnes, The Tallahassee (Florida) Democrat, 6 May 2010Did You Know?Hamartia arose from the Greek verb hamartanein, meaning "to miss the mark" or "to err." Aristotle introduced the term in the Poetics to describe the error of judgment which ultimately brings about the tragic hero's downfall. As you can imagine, the word is most often found in literary criticism. However, media writers occasionally employ the word when discussing the unexplainable misfortune or missteps of celebrities regarded as immortal gods and goddesses before being felled by their own shortcomings. For example, a writer for The New Republic in an April 2018 review of Chappaquiddick (a movie about U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy) comments that "Kennedy's ruthlessness and ambition, which are treated as the family's hamartia in Chappaquiddick, are swept under the rug of his compassion."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 March 20, 2019 is:canker \KANG-ker\ verb1 : to become infested with erosive or spreading sores  2 : to corrupt the spirit of  3 : to become corruptedExamples:"Nevertheless, the self-absorption into which the lovers fall and the death and transfiguration with which the action ends have often been thought of as symptoms of a disease that cankers the human condition." — Simon Williams, Wagner and the Romantic Hero, 2004"They want to talk. They want to get it off their chest. Some people have been holding onto these things for years, just cankering their soul, but they don't know where to say it." — Shannon Hale, quoted in The Deseret News, 12 Mar. 2018Did You Know?Canker is commonly known as the name for a type of spreading sore that eats into the tissue—a use that obviously furnished the verb with both its medical and figurative senses. The word ultimately traces back to Latin cancer, which can refer to a crab or a malignant tumor. The Greeks have a similar word, karkinos, and according to the ancient Greek physician Galen, the tumor got its name from the way the swollen veins surrounding the affected part resembled a crab's limbs. Cancer was adopted into Old English, becoming canker in Middle English and eventually shifting in meaning to become a general term for ulcerations. Cancer itself was reintroduced to English later, first as a zodiacal word and then as a medical term.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 March 19, 2019 is:orthography \or-THAH-gruh-fee\ noun1 a : the art of writing words with the proper letters according to standard usageb : the representation of the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols2 : a part of language study that deals with letters and spellingExamples:English orthography was not yet regularized in William Shakespeare's time, so words often had many different spellings."He had to finish his thesis … before leaving for a research job in Australia, where he planned to study aboriginal languages. I asked him to assess our little experiment. 'The grammar was easy,' he said. 'The orthography is a little difficult, and the verbs seemed chaotic.'" — Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, 3 Sept. 2018Did You Know?"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word!" That quote, ascribed to Andrew Jackson, might have been the motto of early English spelling. The concept of orthography (a term that derives from the Greek words orthos, meaning "right or true," and graphein, meaning "to write") was not something that really concerned people until the introduction of the printing press in England in the second half of the 15th century. From then on, English spelling became progressively more uniform and has remained fairly stable since the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (with the notable exception of certain spelling reforms, such as changing musick to music, that were championed by Noah Webster).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 March 18, 2019 is:parabolic \pair-uh-BAH-lik\ adjective1 : expressed by or being a parable: allegorical2 : of, having the form of, or relating to a curve formed by the intersection of a cone and a plane parallel to an element of the coneExamples:The batter launched the ball into a towering parabolic arc that carried it well over the center field fence."In 1937, [radio astronomer Grote] Reber built the world's first parabolic radio telescope in his backyard. The Reber Telescope was moved to the National Radio Observatory at Green Bank in the 1960s and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989." — Princeton Times (West Virginia), 21 Dec. 2018Did You Know?The two distinct meanings of parabolic trace back to the development of Late Latin and New Latin. Late Latin is the Latin language used by writers in the third to sixth centuries. In that language, the word for "parable" was parabola—hence, the "parable" sense of parabolic. New Latin refers to the Latin used since the end of the medieval period, especially in regard to scientific description and classification. In New Latin, parabola names the same geometrical curve as it does in English. Both meanings of parabola were drawn from the Greek word for "comparison": parabolē.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 March 17, 2019 is:smithereens \smih-thuh-REENZ\ plural noun:fragments, bitsExamples:"For the Soviet Union, it didn't matter that Luna 2, which became the first spacecraft to reach the moon, had been smashed into smithereens. The point was to get there first—to mark territory." — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 3 Jan. 2019"Diagnosed at around age 5 with optic nerve atrophy, an incurable and often progressive disease that damages the nerve connecting the eyes to the brain, Terri doesn't just defy conventional images of blindness. She smashes them to smithereens. She's the married mom of two grade-schoolers, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Nevada and a dedicated camper who navigates the woods with a long white cane. "I can do just about anything except drive," she says. — Peg Rosen, Good Housekeeping, October 2018Did You Know?Despite its American sound and its common use by the fiery animated cartoon character Yosemite Sam, smithereens did not originate in American slang. Although no one is entirely positive about its precise origins, scholars think that smithereens likely developed from the Irish word smidiríní, which means "little bits." That Irish word is the diminutive of smiodar, meaning "fragment." According to print evidence, the plural form smithereens first appears in English in the late 18th century; use of singular smithereen then follows.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 March 16, 2019 is:encroach \in-KROHCH\ verb1 : to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another2 : to advance beyond the usual or proper limitsExamples:"The house had been abandoned for years, with peeling stucco, a half-buried swimming pool, the jungle encroaching on every side." — Paula McLain, Town & Country, August 2018"As algorithms are viewed as encroaching more and more on our everyday lives, and, importantly, the privacy of those lives, there is an increased clamour to make them available and accessible for scrutiny." — James Kitching, Computing, 2 Jan. 2019Did You Know?The history behind encroach is likely to hook you in. The word derives from the Middle English encrochen, which means "to get or seize." The Anglo-French predecessor of encrochen is encrocher, which was formed by combining the prefix en- ("in") with the noun croche ("hook"). Croche also gave us our word crochet, in reference to the hooked needle used in that craft. Encroach carries the meaning of "intrude," both in terms of privilege or property. The word can also hop over legal barriers to describe a general advancement beyond desirable or normal limits (such as a hurricane that encroaches on the mainland).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 March 15, 2019 is:two-bit \TOO-BIT\ adjective1 : cheap or trivial of its kind : petty, small-time2 : of the value of two bitsExamples:"In 1956, he published Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems at City Lights Books, which was then, [Lawrence] Ferlinghetti says, both a one-room bookshop and a 'two-bit poetry press' in San Francisco." — Ira Silverberg, The Document Journal, December 10, 2018"Bright lights shining through the foggy 1950s London air is the memorable backdrop of Jules Dassin's story of a two-bit American hustler, Harry Fabian, doing everything he can to stay ahead of his arrears and the doomed end pursuing him." — Kevin P. Sullivan, Vulture, 22 Jan. 2019Did You Know?The money-related definition of two-bit makes its etymology obvious: it is derived from the noun phrase two bits. However, two bits is an interesting phrase because it actually means "the value of a quarter of a dollar." There is no such thing as a single bit, at least not anymore. The now-obsolete Spanish dollar (also known as a peso or piece of eight was composed of eight reales, or eight bits, so a quarter of the dollar equaled two bits. The phrase two bits carried over into U.S. usage. It first appeared in print in English in the early 1700s (and later developed the figurative sense of "something of small worth or importance"), and was followed by its adjectival relative sometime around the beginning of the 19th century. These days, the adjective has far surpassed the noun in popularity.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 March 14, 2019 is:animadversion \an-uh-mad-VER-zhun\ noun1 : a critical and usually censorious remark — often used with on2 : adverse criticismExamples:"Some of his contemporaries and erstwhile friends, meanwhile, displayed considerable frankness in what they wrote. They did not count on Hemingway reading their animadversions on his character and talents while sitting in a café in Venice." — Norman Birnbaum, The Nation, 19 Dec. 2011"If any grudge-bearing customer is equipped to voice his uncalled-for animadversions, why should restaurants not seize the opportunity to speak for themselves—to articulate the counterpoint or impress upon would-be diners a voice of their own? Instagram has emerged as the go-to platform for restauranteurs, unsurprisingly: there's no better way to sell food than with alluring photographs of the dishes you're selling." — Calum Marsh, The National Post, 4 Aug. 2016Did You Know?Animadversion comes ultimately from the Latin phrase animum advertere, meaning "to turn the mind to." The first part, anima, comes from the Latin word for "mind" or "soul" and gives us animal and animate. It is easy to see how we also get adverse and adversary from advertere, especially when we remember that "to turn to" easily becomes "to turn against." Other English words descended from advertere include advert, meaning "to turn the attention (to)" or "to make reference (to)," and advertise.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 March 13, 2019 is:zero-sum \ZEER-oh-SUM\ adjective: of, relating to, or being a situation (such as a game or relationship) in which a gain for one side entails a corresponding loss for the other sideExamples:"Among the greatest risks posed by a new recession is that governments may engage in a zero-sum war for spending. Unable to overcome the technical and political hurdles to creating more money at home, they might opt to suck in money from abroad." — The Economist, 13 Oct. 2018"The industry conflict is too often framed as physical retail versus online retail. Statistical analyses of the growth of e-commerce almost always get coupled with a story surrounding the decline of physical retail, with a heavy focus on the closure of malls. These two things are undoubtedly linked, but experts often communicate this as a zero-sum game. This ignores a fundamental human truth: People now and into the future will continue to leave the house and shop in physical retail." — Warwick Heathwood, Adweek, 18 Apr. 2018Did you know?Does game theory sound like fun? It can be—if you are a mathematician or economist who needs to analyze a competitive situation in which the outcome is determined by the choices of the players and chance. Game theory was introduced by mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern in their 1944 book The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In game theory, a zero-sum game is one, such as chess or checkers, where each player has a clear purpose that is completely opposed to that of the opponent. In economics, a situation is zero-sum if the gains of one party are exactly balanced by the losses of another and no net gain or loss is created. (Such situations are rare.)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 March 12, 2019 is:delate \dih-LAYT\ verb1 : accuse, denounce2 : report, relateExamples:Hepzibah was brought to trial after being delated for the practice of witchcraft."Persons who are delated must first swear to tell the truth concerning themselves and others; if they confess, the judge proceeds accordingly." — H. Ansgar Kelly, Speculum, October 2018Did You Know?To delate someone is to "hand down" that person to a court of law. In Latin, delatus is the unlikely-looking past participle of deferre, meaning "to bring down, report, or accuse," which in turn comes from ferre, meaning "to carry." Not surprisingly, our word defer, meaning "to yield to the opinion or wishes of another," can also be traced back to deferre. At one time, in fact, defer and delate had parallel meanings (both could mean "to carry down or away" or "to offer for acceptance"), but those senses are now obsolete. Today, you are most likely to encounter delate or its relatives delation and delator in the context of medieval tribunals, although the words can also relate to modern ecclesiastical tribunals.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 March 11, 2019 is:bathetic \buh-THET-ik\ adjective: characterized by triteness or sentimentalismExamples:"The TV people inevitably reduce history to a series of bathetic tropes: the flag waving in slow motion, the rescued puppy, the evacuee given the star treatment of American Idol." — Matthew Power, Harper's, December 2005"A vein of knowingness runs through it, a gently comic self-portrait of a lost soul out of time, as when Pierce casts himself in the bathetic role of a 'lonely rock and roller' hankering to hear Big Star on the radio." — Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, The Financial Times, 7 Sept. 2018Did You Know?When English speakers turned apathy into apathetic in the late 17th century, using the suffix -etic to turn the noun into the adjective, they were inspired by pathetic, the adjectival form of pathos, from Greek pathētikos. People also applied that bit of linguistic transformation to coin bathetic. English speakers added the suffix -etic to bathos, the Greek word for "depth," which in English has come to mean "triteness" or "excessive sentimentalism." The result: the ideal adjective for the incredibly commonplace or the overly sentimental.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 March 10, 2019 is:newspeak \NOO-speek\ noun, often capitalized: propagandistic language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meaningsExamples:"Remember that in 1984, totalitarian newspeak is created not through elaborate sentences and jargon, but through cutting words out of the dictionary and simplifying grammar. Clear, transparent writing can be used for propaganda purposes as easily as can convoluted prose—and maybe even more easily." — Noah Berlatsky, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 July 2011"He'd lost his birthplace after the Yalta agreement, when his native region was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Since his family was Polish, they decided to join thousands of other 'repatriates' and re-settle in the area in Poland that the communists' newspeak labeled 'the Recovered Territories.'" — Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, American Scholar, Summer 2010Did You Know?The term newspeak was coined by George Orwell in his 1949 anti-utopian novel 1984. In Orwell's fictional totalitarian state, Newspeak was a language favored by the minions of Big Brother and, in Orwell's words, "designed to diminish the range of thought." Newspeak was characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another, the interchangeability of parts of speech, and the creation of words for political purposes. The word has caught on in general use to refer to confusing or deceptive bureaucratic jargon.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 March 9, 2019 is:cap-a-pie \kap-uh-PEE\ adverb: from head to footExamples:The birthday girl—dressed cap-a-pie as a princess, from tiara to sequined slippers—waited excitedly for her guests to arrive."When they all appear at the elegant ball for the Prince of Wales, the men's outfits outshine the women's and the villain of the story, the French fanatic Chauvelin, cap-a-pie in ominous black, makes a striking contrast." — Marie D. Galyean, The Boise (Idaho) Weekly, 9 Aug. 2006Did You Know?Think of a medieval knight riding off to battle completely encased (from head to foot, as it were) in armor. Knights thus outfitted were said to be "armed cap-a-pie." The term cap-a-pie (or cap-à-pie), which has been used in English since at least the 16th century, descends from the Middle French phrase de cap a pé, meaning "from head to foot." Nowadays, it is generally extended to more figurative armor, as in "armed cap-a-pie against criticism." Cap-a-pie has also been credited with parenting another English phrase. Some people think the expression "apple-pie order," meaning "perfect order," may have originated as a corruption of "cap-a-pie order." The evidence for that theory is far from orderly, however, and it must be regarded as speculative.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 March 8, 2019 is:shard \SHAHRD\ noun1 a : a piece or fragment of a brittle substance; broadly : a small piece or part : scrapb : shell, scale; especially : elytron2 : a fragment of a pottery vessel found on sites and in refuse deposits where pottery-making peoples have lived3 : highly angular curved glass fragments of tuffaceous sedimentExamples:There were shards of glass on the floor where the burglars had broken into the building the night before."Some 2,600 years ago, in the land of ancient Israel, a military official inked a request onto the reverse side of a pottery shard: 'If there is any wine, send [quantity].' Archaeologists found the shard in the 1960s, but the boozy inscription, which had faded to near invisibility, went unnoticed for decades." — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 22 June 2017Did You Know?Shard dates back to Old English (where it was spelled sceard), and it is related to the Old English word scieran, meaning "to cut." English speakers have adopted the modernized shard spelling for most uses, but archeologists prefer to spell the word sherd when referring to the ancient fragments of pottery they unearth. Other specialized uses of the word shard include a sense referring to the thick front wings in beetles that protect a hind pair of wings and another sense used for the highly angular curved glass fragments of a type of volcanic rock formation.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 March 7, 2019 is:Mirandize \muh-RAN-dyze\ verb: to recite the Miranda warnings to (a person under arrest)Examples:"Miranda warnings only kick in if you're going to interrogate a suspect. And so if they didn't Mirandize him, and they didn't ask him any questions, that wouldn't be a problem at all. The remedy for failing to Mirandize someone is that their statements to the officers then become inadmissible at trial. — Barbara McQuade, quoted on MSNBC, 1 Feb. 2019"According to the website, Heller's motion is baseless as there was no need for police to Mirandize the actress since she wasn't in their custody, and it's 'perfectly legal to question people involved in a car accident without reading them their rights.'" — The Huffington Post, 26 Feb. 2013Did You Know?"You have the right to remain silent...." These seven words typically begin the notification that police recite to inform a suspect of his or her rights while in custody. The law requiring this recitation stemmed from a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Miranda v. Arizona) in which the court overturned the conviction of Ernesto A. Miranda on charges of rape and kidnapping. The court had determined that Miranda confessed to the crime without being informed that he could remain silent during questioning. The list of rights that must be recited to a suspect in custody subsequently became known as "the Miranda warnings." And by the 1970s, people began using the verb Mirandize in reference to such a recitation.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 March 6, 2019 is:abecedarian \ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-un\ adjective1 a : of or relating to the alphabetb : alphabetically arranged2 : rudimentaryExamples:The children recited an abecedarian chant, beginning with "A is for apple" and ending with "Z is for zebra.""Aficionados of Sue Grafton's popular detective novels starring Kinsey Millhone will not be disappointed by S is for Silence, Grafton's 19th book in her abecedarian series launched in 1982 with A is for Alibi." — Jan Collins, The State_(Columbia, South Carolina), 11 Dec. 2005Did You Know?The history of abecedarian is as simple as ABC—literally. The term's Late Latin ancestor, abecedārius (which meant "alphabetical"), was created as a combination of the letters A, B, C, and D, plus the adjective suffix -arius; you can hear the echo of that origin in the pronunciation of the English term (think "ABC-darian"). In its oldest documented English uses in the early 1600s, abecedarian was a noun meaning "one learning the rudiments of something"; it specifically referred to someone who was learning the alphabet. The adjective began appearing in English texts a few decades after the noun.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 March 5, 2019 is:leviathan \luh-VYE-uh-thun\ noun1 a often capitalized Leviathan : a sea monster defeated by Yahweh in various scriptural accountsb : a large sea animal2 capitalized Leviathan : the political state; especially : a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy3 : something large or formidableExamples:"Fossils of the ancient leviathan were unearthed from 480-million-year-old rocks exposed on a hillside in southeastern Morocco." — Sid Perkins, Science, 11 Mar. 2015"… [T]he extension of the Star Wars story has been the biggest global movie phenomenon since Avatar…. It is a leviathan, totaling nearly $4.5 billion in global ticket sales and an entire subcultural media industry." — Sean Fennessey, The Ringer, 25 May 2018Did You Know?Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, Leviathan (in Hebrew, Liwyāthān), are thought to spring from an ancient myth in which the god Baal slays a multiheaded sea monster. Leviathan appears in the book of Psalms as a sea serpent that is killed by God and then given as food to creatures in the wilderness, and it is referred to in the book of Job as well. We began equating Leviathan with the political state after the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the word in (and as the title of) his 1651 political treatise on government. Today, Leviathan often suggests a crushing political bureaucracy. Leviathan can also be immensely useful as a general term meaning "something monstrous or of enormous size."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 March 4, 2019 is:feisty \FYE-stee\ adjective1 chiefly Southern US and Midland USa : full of nervous energy : fidgetyb : touchy, quarrelsome  c : exuberantly frisky2 : having or showing a lively aggressiveness : spunkyExamples:"She's feisty. She's bawdy. She's bodacious.... She's a bit of a wild child." — Vicki Lawrence, quoted in The New York Magazine, 5 Oct. 2018"The rise of satellite and cable technology in the nineties created new possibilities for nationally syndicated programs built around feisty, voice-driven pundits." — Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, 24 Sept. 2018Did You Know?In certain parts of the United States, most notably the South, the noun feist (pronounced to rhyme with heist) refers to a small dog used in hunting small game animals (such as squirrels). Also spelled fice or fyce, it comes from an obsolete term, "fisting hound," that derived from another obsolete term, fist, a verb that once meant "to break wind." The term feisty has come a long way from its flatulent origin, but its small-dog association still seems relevant: the term conveys the spunk and determination that one may associate with a dog that manages to make its presence known (either through its bark or its bite) despite its small size.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 March 3, 2019 is:sentient \SEN-shee-unt\ adjective1 : responsive to or conscious of sense impressions2 : having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge : aware3 : finely sensitive in perception or feelingExamples:"Frightened of the potential that a vast automated intelligence represents, we often portray sentient intelligences as the equivalent of machine gods—ones that, in many cases, find us wanting." — Mark Hachman, PC Magazine, 15 Apr. 2013"Diana's hippie-Wiccan aunts … live in one of the tale's more charming inventions: a funky, sentient house that rattles the crockery when it's irritated and supplies flashbacks by conjuring up life-size holographic scenes in situ." — Mike Hale, The New York Times, 18 Jan. 2019Did You Know?You may have guessed that sentient has something to do with the senses. The initial spelling sent- or sens- is often a giveaway for such a meaning. A sentient being is one who perceives and responds to sensations of whatever kind—sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. Sentient ultimately comes from the Latin verb sentire, which means "to feel" or "to perceive," and is related to the noun sensus, meaning "sense." A few related English words are sentiment and sentimental, which have to do with emotions, sensual, which relates to more physical sensations, and the trio of assent, consent, and dissent, which involve one's expressions of agreement (or disagreement in the case of dissent) in thought and feeling with another.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 March 2, 2019 is:vox populi \VOKS-POP-yoo-lye\ noun: popular sentimentExamples:"As has increasingly been the case in the six years since officials instituted a fan-voting component in 2012, acts ultimately chosen for induction also strongly reflect the vox populi: Def Leppard won that balloting this year, collecting more than 500,000 votes among the total of 3.3 million entered in the fan competition." — Randy Lewis, The Los Angeles Times, 13 Dec. 2018"While the Academy is certainly no stranger to controversy, they surely don't want to court it openly with hires that turn out to be less than ideal. Not to mention, the Academy Awards on the whole have become subject to somewhat of a critical reevaluation by the vox populi." — Mike Reyes, Cinema Blend, 11 Jan. 2019Did You Know?Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally translates as "the voice of the people." It can be found in the longer maxim, Vox populi, vox Dei, which means "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Many people think that expression means that the people are always right, but it really implies that the will of the masses—right or wrong—is often irresistible. Since the mid-20th century, English speakers, especially British ones, have trimmed vox populi down to the abbreviated form vox pop, an expression used particularly for popular opinion as it is used and expressed by the media.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 March 1, 2019 is:gormless \GORM-lus\ adjectivechiefly British : lacking intelligence : stupidExamples:"It would be difficult to think of many things more gormless than driving a car while blindfolded…." — Fergus Kelly, The Express, 16 Jan. 2019"On screen, Laurel played gormless underling to Hardy's finicky little king. Off screen, though, the roles were reversed. Laurel co-directed the pictures and devised the bulk of the gags." — Xan Brooks, The Guardian, 4 Jan. 2019Did You Know?Gormless began life as the English dialect word gaumless, which was altered to the modern spelling when it expanded into wider use in the late 19th century. The origins of gaumless are easy to understand; the word derives from a combination of the dialect noun gaum, meaning "attention" or "understanding," and the suffix -less. This gaum has a related verb, also limited to dialect use, meaning "to pay attention to" and "to understand." Perhaps surprisingly, the four-letter gaum has multiple additional dialectal uses that are etymologically unrelated to these. Also noun-and-verb pairs, gaum means "a sticky or greasy mess" and "to smudge or smear especially with something sticky or greasy," as well as "a stupid doltish person" and "to behave in a stupid or awkward manner." Use of all of these pales in comparison to that of gormless, however, which is most frequently seen in British English.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 February 28, 2019 is:billion \BILL-yun\ noun1 US : a number equal to 1,000 million; also, British : a number equal to 1,000 milliard2 : a very large numberExamples:If you were to count to a billion at the rate of one number per second, it would take you over 31 and a half years to finish."White dwarf stars start off extremely hot, but they no longer generate their own energy. And while they initially radiate enough heat that we can see them in our telescopes, they slowly lose their energy over billions of years." — Deborah Netburn, The Bismark (North Dakota) Tribune, 15 Jan. 2019Did You Know?How much is a billion? It might depend on whom you ask. Billion was borrowed from French in the late 1600s to indicate the number one million raised to the power of two, or a million million—a number represented by a 1 followed by 12 zeros. However, the French later changed their naming conventions so that a billion became a thousand million (a 1 followed by 9 zeros) and a trillion became a thousand thousand million (or a million million, the old billion). The French have since returned to the older system, but it was this new system that was adopted by American English speakers in the 1800s. In Britain, the newer system has seen increasing use since the 1950s, but the older sense is still sometimes used there as well.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 27, 2019 is:grift \GRIFT\ verb1 : to obtain (money) illicitly (as in a confidence game)2 : to acquire money or property illicitlyExamples:The guidebook warns that the city's con artists grift millions of dollars from unwary tourists annually."He's somebody that lived and grifted, lived for the day. As soon as he got any money from some shady deal or whatever he was involved in, he just spent it." — Richard E. Grant, quoted on Vox.com, 18 Oct. 2018Did You Know?Grift was born in the argot of the underworld, a realm in which a "grifter" might be a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, or a confidence man—any criminal who relied on skill and wits rather than physical violence—and to be "on the grift" was to make a living by stings and clever thefts. Grift may have evolved from graft, a slightly older word meaning "to acquire dishonestly," but its exact origins are uncertain. We do know that the verb grift first finagled its way into print in the early 20th century, as demonstrated in George Bronson-Howard's 1915 novel God's Man, where it appears in gerund form: "Grifting ain't what it used to be. Fourteenth Street's got protection down to a system—a regular underworld tariff on larceny."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 February 26, 2019 is:avuncular \uh-VUNK-yuh-ler\ adjective1 : suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality2 : of or relating to an uncleExamples:At 18 years her senior, May's brother was a steadying force in her life, supportive and avuncular."Today's generation of fans knew [Stan] Lee as the avuncular elder statesman who regaled packed halls at comic conventions with stories of his years in the medium, and for his cameos in every Marvel movie, which he continued well into his 90s." — Rob Salkowitz, Forbes, 12 Nov. 2018Did You Know?Not all uncles are likeable fellows (Hamlet's murderous Uncle Claudius, for example, isn't exactly Mr. Nice Guy in William Shakespeare's tragedy), but avuncular reveals that, as a group, uncles are generally seen as affable and benevolent, if at times a bit patronizing. Avuncular derives from the Latin noun avunculus, which translates as "maternal uncle," but since at least the 19th century English speakers have used avuncular to refer to uncles from either side of the family or even to individuals who are simply uncle-like in character or behavior. And in case you were wondering, avunculus is also an ancestor of the word uncle 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 February 25, 2019 is:impetus \IM-puh-tus\ noun1 a : a driving force : impulseb : incentive, stimulusc : stimulation or encouragement resulting in increased activity2 : the property possessed by a moving body in virtue of its mass and its motion — used of bodies moving suddenly or violently to indicate the origin and intensity of the motionExamples:The high salary and generous benefits package were impetus enough to apply for the job."Several legislators who spoke at last week's workshop cited a recent series by the Post & Courier of Charleston as the impetus for this year's focus on education." — Kirk Brown, The Greenville (South Carolina) News, 9 Jan. 2019Did You Know?You already have plenty of incentive to learn the origin of impetus, so we won't force the point. Impetus comes from Latin, where it means "attack or assault"; the verb impetere was formed by combining the prefix in- with petere, meaning "to go to or seek." Petere also gives us other words suggesting a forceful urging or momentum, such as appetite, perpetual, and centripetal. Impetus describes the kind of force that encourages an action ("the impetus behind the project") or the momentum of an action already begun ("the meetings only gave impetus to the rumors of a merger").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 February 24, 2019 is:sequester \sih-KWESS-ter\ verb1 : to set apart : segregate2 : to seize by authority of a writExamples:The reality series will feature ten celebrity contestants who will be sequestered in a haunted mansion for twelve weeks."Typically, a judge makes the decision to sequester a jury, often when there is risk that outside interference could affect a juror's ability to be fair and impartial or when there are heightened security concerns." — Lydia Wheeler and Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, 20 Aug. 2018Did You Know?Sequester first appeared in English in the 14th century. The word derives from Latin sequestrare ("to hand over to a trustee") and ultimately from secus ("beside," "otherwise"), which is akin to Latin sequi ("to follow"). In this relationship, we can trace links to words such as sequel, sequence, consequence, and subsequent, all of which convey a meaning of one thing following another. These days, we most frequently hear sequester used in legal contexts, as juries are sometimes sequestered for the safety of their members or to prevent the influence of outside sources on a verdict. In a different sense, it is possible to sequester property in certain legal situations.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 February 23, 2019 is:chockablock \CHAH-kuh-blahk\ adjective1 : brought close together2 : very full Examples:"The one-square-mile borough is chockablock with shops, restaurants, small businesses, and a bustling downtown." — Katie Park, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 Jan. 2019"The release schedule for the next few months of music is chockablock with new voices, classic names, and bands in the process of transitioning from the first category to the second." — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 5 Sept. 2017Did You Know?Chockablock started out as a nautical term. A block is a metal or wooden case with one or more pulleys inside. Sometimes, two or more blocks are used as part of a rope and pulley system called a "block and tackle" to provide a mechanical advantage—as, for example, when hoisting a sail on a traditional sailing ship. When the rope is pulled as far as it will go, the blocks are tight together and are said to be chockablock. Non-nautical types associated the chock in chockablock with chock-full, which goes back to Middle English chokkefull, meaning "full to the limit" (a figurative use of "full to choking"). We thus gave chockablock the additional meaning "filled up." Chockablock can also be an adverb meaning "as close or as completely as possible," as in "families living chockablock" or the seemingly redundant "chockablock full."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 February 22, 2019 is:minion \MIN-yun\ noun1 : a servile dependent, follower, or underling2 : one highly favored : idol3 : a subordinate or petty officialExamples:The senior executive has a small platoon of minions to run both personal and business errands for him."Smartphones make it easier for managers to change their minds at the last moment: for example, to e-mail a minion at 11pm to tell him he must fly to Pittsburgh tomorrow." — The Economist, 10 Mar. 2012Did You Know?Minion comes to us from Middle French and has a somewhat surprising cousin in English: filet mignon. The two words are connected by way of Middle French mignon, meaning "darling." Minion entered English around 1500 directly from Middle French, whereas filet mignon arrived significantly later by way of a modern French phrase meaning "dainty fillet." The earliest uses of minion referred to someone who was a particular favorite, or darling, of a sovereign or other important personage. Over time, however, the word developed a more derogatory sense referring to a person who is servile and unimportant.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 February 21, 2019 is:hoopla \HOO-plah\ noun1 : excited commotion : to-do2 : exaggerated or sensational promotion or publicity : ballyhooExamples:"Ideas change as data accumulate. If future evidence causes me to change my mind again, that's okay. That's how the scientific method works, always revising what we thought we knew, eventually casting aside the emotional hoopla, and ultimately granting us not a measure of truth so much as a better approximation of reality." — Eric J. Chaisson, The Atlantic, 16 Oct. 2018"My wife and I were watching all this [government] shutdown hoopla on television. My wife then said, 'Why don't you serve them meals?' So we decided to extend it out to all of the Coast Guard members stationed here…." — James Gubata, quoted in The Providence Journal, 15 Jan. 2019Did You Know?In French, the interjection houp-là is used roughly the same way as English's upsy-daisy or whoops-a-daisy, as one might say when picking up a child. (This usage can be found in English, too, in such works as Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons and James Joyce's Ulysses.) When the word was borrowed into American English, however, it was to refer to a kind of bustling commotion, and later, as a term for sensationalist hype. In the early 20th century, another hoopla was in use as well. Playing on the syllable hoop, that word gave its name to a ring-toss game played at carnivals.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 February 20, 2019 is:obsequious \ub-SEE-kwee-us\ adjective: marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentivenessExamples:"Not pleasing others enough amounts to surliness, pleasing too much makes one obsequious—you have to be friendly, but not too friendly. The sweet spot in the middle is where you want to be." — Carlin Flora, Psychology Today, 1 July 2017"She read up on professors beforehand and, if their written work was accessible, familiarized herself with it, so she could make mention of it. That flattered them and pegged her as a serious, considerate person. Taking that too far, of course, could be repulsively obsequious." — Frank Bruni, The New York Times, 19 Aug. 2018Did You Know?An obsequious person is more likely to be a follower than a leader. Use that fact to help you remember the meaning of obsequious. All you need to do is bear in mind that the word comes from the Latin root sequi, meaning "to follow." (The other contributor is the prefix ob-, meaning "toward.") Sequi is the source of a number of other English words, too, including consequence (a result that follows from an action), sequel (a novel, film, or TV show that follows and continues a story begun in another), and non sequitur (a conclusion that doesn't follow from what was said before).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.