Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 31, 2018 is:hark back \HAHRK-BAK\ verb1 : to turn back to an earlier topic or circumstance2 : to go back to something as an origin or sourceExamples:"In Tea With The Dames, [Maggie Smith is] joined by fellow dames Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins; the women hark back on their early roles on stage and screen, talk about their ex-husbands and marriages…." — Hunter Harris, The New York Magazine, 26 Sept. 2018"To stay connected with senior executives, she made heavy use of WhatsApp's group-chat function and called her group Table Talk, an effort to hark back to those early days at her kitchen table." — Sarah Ellison, Vanity Fair, March 2018Did you know?Hark, a very old word meaning "to listen," was used as a cry in hunting. The master of the hunt might cry "Hark! Forward!" or "Hark! Back!" The cries became set phrases, both as nouns and verbs. Thus, a "hark back" was a retracing of a route by dogs and hunters, and to "hark back" was to turn back along the path. From its use in hunting, the verb soon acquired its current figurative meanings. In time, the variants "hearken back" and "harken back" were called, and—like hark—hearken and harken can mean "to listen." Harken, itself, is now used alone to mean "hark back."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 30, 2018 is:obdurate \AHB-duh-rut\ adjective1 a : stubbornly persistent in wrongdoingb : hardened in feelings2 : resistant to persuasion or softening influencesExamples:Obdurate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have made it difficult for the state legislature to get anything done this term."The emigrants were strong-willed and obdurate. Their dreams were based as much on imagination as on the writings and maps of land speculators and entrepreneurs." — Edward Cuddihy, The Buffalo (New York) News, 1 Oct. 2017Did you know?When you are confronted with someone obdurate, you may end up feeling dour. During the encounter, you may find that you need to be durable to keep your sanity intact. Maybe you will find such situations less stressful in the future if you can face them knowing that the words obdurate, dour, and durable are etymological kissing cousins. All of those words trace back to the Latin adjective durus, which means "hard." This adjective can still be found in dura mater, the name for the tough fibrous material that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, which comes from a Medieval Latin phrase meaning, literally, "hard mother."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 29, 2018 is:fulcrum \FULL-krum\ noun1 a : prop; specifically : the support about which a lever turnsb : one that supplies capability for action2 : a part of an animal that serves as a hinge or supportExamples:"Normally, bending involves using the hip as a fulcrum, and erector spinae muscles to support our trunk. When Jackson leaned over, he transferred the fulcrum to the ankle, with the calf and Achilles tendon under strain." — Jake Rossen, Mental Floss, 22 May 2018"In 2014, then-Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a nonbinding opinion advising that bag bans are legal if they are not aimed at 'solid waste management.' That murky phrase, which appears in the Texas Health and Safety Code, has become the fulcrum for debate on the issue." — Emma Platoff, The Texas Tribune, 22 June 2018Did you know?Fulcrum, a word that means "bedpost" in Latin, derives from the verb fulcire, which means "to prop." When the word fulcrum was used in the 17th century, it referred to the point on which a lever or similar device (such as the oar of a boat) is supported. It did not take long for the word to develop a figurative sense referring to something used as a spur or justification to support a certain action. In zoology, fulcrum can also refer to a part of an animal that serves as a hinge or support, such as the joint supporting a bird's wing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 28, 2018 is:canorous \kuh-NOR-us\ adjective: pleasant sounding : melodiousExamples:"His artistry, technical proficiency, and canorous melodies have an introspective yet uplifting feeling by virtue of the beauty and honesty that so naturally accompany the acoustic guitar." — Kevin Gillies, Noozhawk (Santa Barbara, California), 26 Nov. 2018"There is an element of truth to that, but Zephyr—such a canorous hippie-child name—sang a populist tune not found in any Beltway progressive songbook." — Bill Kauffman, American Conservative, 1 Nov. 2014Did you know?In Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), the author Thomas de Quincey describes a manservant who, after accidentally letting a loaded trunk fall down a flight of stairs, "sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter." Canorous typically describes things, such as church choirs or birds in the spring, that are a pleasure to listen to. It derives from the Latin verb canere ("to sing"), a root it shares with a number of words that evoke what is sweet to the ear, such as chant, canticle ("a song"), cantor ("a leader of a choir"), carmen ("a song, poem, or incantation"), and even accent.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 27, 2018 is:enervate \EN-er-vayt\ verb1 : to reduce the mental or moral vigor of2 : to lessen the vitality or strength ofExamples:Dehydration and prolonged exposure to the sun had enervated the shipwrecked crew, leaving them almost too weak to hail the passing vessel."In contrast, there was dignity in the Joad family (of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath). When the Dust Bowl smothered Oklahoma, the Joads were not enervated, they moved west in search of work." — George Will, The Washington Post, 7 Dec. 2016Did you know?Enervate is a word that some people use without really knowing what it means. They seem to believe that because enervate looks a little bit like energize and invigorate it must share their meaning—but it is actually their antonym. Enervate comes from the Latin enervatus,the past participle of the verb enervare, which literally means "to remove the sinews of," but is also used figuratively in the sense of "to weaken." The Latin enervare was formed from the prefix e-, meaning "out of," and nervus, meaning "sinew or nerve." So etymologically, at least, someone who is enervated is "out of nerve."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 26, 2018 is:utmost \UT-mohst\ adjective1 : situated at the farthest or most distant point : extreme2 : of the greatest or highest degree, quantity, number, or amountExamples:"The refuge, which is bordered by the Centennial Mountains and Continental Divide to the south and the Gravelly Mountains to the north, is also home to the utmost point of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers." — Kelley Christensen, The Montana Standard, 25 Nov. 2013"The Richmond football team is one of eight 4AA squads with a bye this week, but head coach Bryan Till is still preaching … that keeping a sense of urgency is of the utmost importance." — Leon Hargrove Jr., The Richmond County (North Carolina) Daily Journal, 15 Nov. 2018Did you know?Utmost traces back to the Old English ūtmest, a superlative adjective formed from the adverb ūt, meaning "out." Ūtmest eventually evolved into utmost, perhaps influenced by the spelling of the word most. Not surprisingly, the earlier sense of utmost carries the same meaning as outermost. The second sense of utmost, meaning "of the greatest or highest degree," first appeared in English in the 14th century. A related word is utter, meaning "absolute" or "total," as in the phrase "utter chaos"; it comes from Old English utera, meaning "outer," and ultimately from ūt.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 25, 2018 is:benison \BEN-uh-sun\ noun: blessing, benedictionExamples:"I offer thanks for the little things and the big things, everyday benisons and once-in-a-blue-moon moments of grace." — Kati Schardl, The Tallahassee (Florida) Democrat, 17 Nov. 2017"In the second half of the second act, the show shrinks and darkens as Hamilton's life does. The last song, describing the 50-year widowhood of Eliza, gives an unexpected benison." — Richard Brookhiser, The National Review, 6 Apr. 2015Did you know?Benison and its synonym benediction share more than a common meaning; the two words come from the same root, the Latin benedicere, meaning "to bless." (Benedicere comes from the Latin bene dicere—"to speak well of"—a combination of the Latin bene, meaning "well," and dicere, "to say.") Of the two words, benediction is more common today, but benison has a longer history in English. Records show that benison has been used in our language since the 13th century, whereas benediction didn't appear in print until the 15th century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 24, 2018 is:grinch \GRINCH\ noun: one who spoils the pleasure of others : killjoy, spoilsportExamples:"Chalk it up to a weary world eager for uplifting entertainment, the surprise of a diamond-in-the-rough performer or simply the sheer delight of watching Britain's Got Talent judge and notorious grinch Simon Cowell grow a heart right before the audience's eyes." — Michelle Tauber et al., People, 4 May 2009"Not content with banning Christmas in 2016, the country's supreme grinch, Kim Jong Un, went further by prohibiting gatherings that involve alcohol and singing, according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS)." — John Onyanga-Omara, The Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), 20 Dec. 2017Did you know?When Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, wrote the children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1957, he probably had no idea that grinch would soon enter the general lexicon of English. Like Charles Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge (whose name has become synonymous with miser), the Grinch changes his ways by the story's end, but it's the unreformed character who "hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!" who sticks in our minds. The ill-natured Grinch, with his heart "two sizes too small," provides us with a lively symbol of someone we love to hate, and his name has thus come to refer to any disgruntled grump who ruins the pleasure of others.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 23, 2018 is:assuage \uh-SWAYJ\ verb1 : to lessen the intensity of (something that pains or distresses) : ease2 : to make quiet : pacify3 : to put an end to by satisfying : appease, quenchExamples:"Prince wrote often and eagerly about the idea of sanctuary—places where his spiritual anxieties were assuaged." — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 25 June 2018"The interview offers a rare glimpse of what Charles might be like as king, and is perhaps an effort to assuage critics who have worried that he would diverge from British monarchs, who are bound by tradition to reign, not rule, over their subjects." — Palko Karasz, The New York Times, 8 Nov. 2018Did you know?Scholars assume that the word assuage derives from assuaviare, a Vulgar Latin term that combines the prefix ad- ("to" or "toward") and the Latin suavis, meaning "sweet," "pleasant," or "agreeable." (Suavis is also the source of the adjective suave.) To assuage is to sweeten or make agreeable or tolerable, and it is far from the only English word for relieving or softening something difficult. Others include allay, alleviate, and mitigate. Allay implies an effective calming or soothing of fears or alarms, while alleviate implies temporary or partial lessening of pain or distress. Mitigate suggests moderating or countering the force or intensity of something painful.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 22, 2018 is:compendious \kum-PEN-dee-us\ adjective: marked by brief expression of a comprehensive matter : concise and comprehensiveExamples:Noah Webster's style of defining for the first American dictionary was compendious."For the past few years his writing has been an elegant and compendious ongoing exploration of Britain's social history through its council estates." — Lynsey Hanley, The Guardian, 19 Apr. 2018Did you know?Compendious is applied to things that are brief in statement or expression, but oftentimes the brevity is chock-full of meaning. Its synonyms run the gamut, giving us concise, terse, succinct, pithy, laconic, and summary. Concise simply suggests the removal of all that is superfluous or elaborative ("a concise description"). Terse implies pointed conciseness ("a terse reply"). Succinct implies the greatest possible compression ("a succinct letter of resignation"). Pithy adds the implication of richness of meaning or substance ("pithy one-liners"). Laconic implies brevity to the point of seeming rude or indifferent ("a laconic stranger"). Summary suggests the stating of main points with no elaboration ("a summary listing of the year's main events").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 21, 2018 is:solstice \SAHL-stiss\ noun1 : either of the two points on the ecliptic at which its distance from the celestial equator is greatest2 : the time of the sun's passing one such point on the ecliptic which occurs about June 21 to begin summer in the northern hemisphere and about December 21 to begin winter in the northern hemisphereExamples:People all over the world have observed celebrations linked to the summer and winter solstices since ancient times."The Earth wobbles on its axis once every 27,000 years…. This alters the relationship between the solstices and the distance from the Earth to the Sun." — Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, The Chippewa Herald, 8 Oct. 2018Did you know?In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice usually occurs on June 20 or 21 and the winter solstice on December 21 or 22. In the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasons are reversed, the solstices are exactly the opposite. For several days around the time of the solstices, the sun's appearance on the horizon at sunrise and sunset seems to occur at the same spot, before it starts drifting to the north or south again. Solstice gets its shine from sol, the Latin word for "sun." The ancients added sol to -stit- (a participial stem of sistere, which means "to stand still") and came up with solstitium. Middle English speakers shortened solstitium to solstice in the 14th 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 December 20, 2018 is:frenetic \frih-NET-ik\ adjective: marked by excitement, disorder, or anxiety-driven activity : frenzied, franticExamples:"For Youse and the roughly 90 employees who work at the store, the 5-mile move capped more than a half-year of planning, followed by a frenetic two days in which everything from the one store was transferred to the other." — Chad Umble, LancasterOnline.com, 22 Oct. 2018"During his years as a sports broadcaster in Chicago, Adam Harris realized his volunteer work as a youth baseball coach often would provide a welcome break from the frenetic world of media." — Karen Ann Cullotta, The Chicago Tribune, 18 Oct. 2018Did you know?When life gets frenetic, things can seem absolutely insane—at least that seems to be what folks in the Middle Ages thought. Frenetik, in Middle English, meant "insane." When the word no longer denoted stark raving madness, it conjured up fanatical zealots. Today, its seriousness has been downgraded to something more akin to "hectic." But if you trace frenetic back through Anglo-French and Latin, you'll find that it comes from Greek phrenitis, a term describing an inflammation of the brain. Phren, the Greek word for "mind," is a root you will recognize in schizophrenic. As for frenzied and frantic, they're not only synonyms of frenetic but relatives as well. Frantic comes from frenetik, and frenzied traces back to phrenitis.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 19, 2018 is:tchotchke \CHAHCH-kuh\ noun: knickknack, trinketExamples:"How someone organizes their desk can tell you a lot about how they get work done. That's why we're stepping into the offices of enviably creative (and productive) people to look at what's on their desks—pens and notebooks and gadgets, but also décor and tchotchkes." — Deva Pardue and Maxine Builder, The New York Magazine, 10 Sept. 2018"… a review from WireCutter … called it the best 3D pen of the lot. While we're debating whether any home needs the flood of tchotchkes that will inevitably pour forth as a result of this gadget, the idea of drawing something into existence is pretty appealing." — Talia Milgrom-Elcott, Forbes, 1 Nov. 2018Did you know?Just as trinkets can dress up your shelves or coffee table, many words for "miscellaneous objects" or "nondescript junk" decorate our language. Knickknack, doodad, gewgaw, and whatnot are some of the more common ones. While many such words are of unknown origin, we know that tchotchke comes from the Yiddish tshatshke of the same meaning, and ultimately from a now-obsolete Polish word, czaczko. Tchotchke is a pretty popular word these days, but it wasn't commonly used in English until the 1970s.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 18, 2018 is:millefleur \adjective\ meel-FLER: having an allover pattern of small flowers and plantsExamples:The museum's collection includes several medieval tapestries with millefleur designs."An early 16th century millefleurs tapestry is a charmer, with children playing amidst the birds and animals and the thousand flowers of the style's name." — Sherry Lucas, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), 29 Sept. 2002Did you know?Millefleur (which can also be spelled millefleurs) came directly from French into English in the 17th century as a word for a perfume distilled from several different kinds of flowers. The literal meaning of mille fleurs in French is "a thousand flowers," so it is easy to see how millefleur came to be applied to patterns or backgrounds of many tiny flowers or plants. A similarly colorful extension of "a thousand flowers" can be seen in the word millefiori. That term, which refers to ornamental glass characterized by multicolored flower-like designs, comes from mille fiori, the Italian phrase meaning "a thousand flowers."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join us for a special edition of the Word of the Day Podcast. Host Peter Sokolowski is joined by Associate Editor and Lexicographer Emily Brewster.Leading the conversation about the Word of the Year is Ilan Stavans host of the In Contrast podcast from New England Public Radio. He is also the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 17, 2018 is:epitome \ih-PIT-uh-mee\ noun1 : a typical or ideal example : embodiment2 a : a summary of a written workb : a brief presentation or statement of something3 : brief or miniature form — usually used with inExamples:The cabin we rented was the epitome of country charm: wide pine floors, simple sturdy furniture, and clean linen curtains billowing in the breeze of the open windows."I really want to make movies about tangible, complicated love, and I think the epitome of love is family love." — Jeremiah Zagar, quoted in The New York Magazine, 23 Aug. 2018Did you know?Epitome first appeared in print in 1520, when it was used to mean "summary." If someone asks you to summarize a long paper, you effectively cut it up, mentioning only the most important ideas in your synopsis, and the etymology of epitome reflects this process. The word descends from Greek epitemnein, meaning "to cut short," which in turn was formed from the prefix epi- and the verb temnein, which means "to cut." Your summary probably also presents all the key points of the original work, which may explain why epitome eventually came to be used for any person or object that is a clear or good example of an abstraction.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 16, 2018 is:vitiate \VISH-ee-ayt\ verb1 : to make faulty or defective : impair2 : to debase in moral or aesthetic status3 : to make ineffectiveExamples:Some feared that the superintendent's decision to reinstate the students would vitiate the authority of the principal who suspended them in the first place."Convected heating essentially is the heating of the air itself and it warms the walls and furnishings only slightly, as turning on and off a convector heater will show. However it may also be argued that this essentially vitiates the recycled air, causes dryness and often physical discomfort." — James Le Fanu, The Telegraph (UK), 18 Mar. 2016Did you know?Here's one for word puzzle lovers—and anyone allured by alliteration. The sentence "Vivian vituperated the vicious villain for valuing vice over virtue" contains three words that derive from the same Latin source as vitiate. Can you identify all three? If you picked vituperate (a verb meaning "to scold"), vicious, and vice, your puzzle prowess is beyond reproach. Like vitiate, all three descend from the Latin noun vitium, meaning "fault" or "vice."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 15, 2018 is:nidus \NYE-dus\ noun1 : a nest or breeding place; especially : a place or substance in an animal or plant where bacteria or other organisms lodge and multiply2 : a place where something originates, develops, or is locatedExamples:The neighborhood had long been a nidus of crime and vice, but community policing and other interventions have done much to reduce the crime rate in recent years."Ancient cities grew up along navigable rivers—think Cairo, Rome, Paris and London. In the 19th century, railroad stations were the nidus for Chicago, Denver, and Sacramento." — Alison Stuebe, The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 20 Mar. 2017Did you know?Nidus literally means "nest" in Latin, and some of its relatives in English suggest this connection in a straightforward way. For example, we have nidification for the process of building a nest, and nidicolous, meaning "reared in a nest." But nidus itself, when used as an English word, is apt to refer to a place where bacteria lodge and multiply. Consequently, the extended use of nidus in English often has a negative connotation referring to a source of undesirable opinions or behaviors.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 14, 2018 is:zibeline \ZIB-uh-leen\ noun: a soft lustrous wool fabric with mohair, alpaca, or camel's hairExamples:"It's a simple, elegant design: high-collar, buttons, long sleeves, with lace and a sheer bodice. Its fabric catches the light very delicately—Bridges found the thick zibeline in London." — Hunter Harris, Vulture, 5 Jan. 2018"The second gown is a more structured design of either silk zibeline or silk taffeta, with hand-embroidered silk thread and Swarovski crystals in three different sizes." — Joyce Chen, The Knot, 7 May 2018Did you know?Though zibeline is woven from the hair of alpacas, camels, or Angora goats, its name actually traces back to a Slavic word for the sable, a small mammal related to the weasel. The Slavic term was adopted into Old Italian, and from there it passed to Middle French, then on to English in the late 1500s. English zibeline originally referred to the sable or its fur, but in the 19th century it developed a second sense, applying to a soft, smooth, slightly furry material woven from a mixture of animal hairs. It's especially suited to women's suits and coats, or, as a fashion columnist in the December 6, 1894 issue of Vogue observed, "Zibeline ... makes an exceedingly pretty, warm theatre cloak, not too fine to be crushed into the small one-chair space."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 13, 2018 is:perennial \puh-REN-ee-ul\ adjective1 : present at all seasons of the year2 : persisting for several years usually with new herbaceous growth from a perennating part3 a : persistent, enduringb : continuing without interruption : constant, perpetualc : regularly repeated or renewed : recurrentExamples:"Kieran [Culkin] called Saines in 2016 after a two-year hiatus to say, 'You know, I think I want to act again. I want to do This Is Our Youth.' Written by Kenneth Lonergan, … the play has become a perennial showcase for young actors." — Sam Kashner, Vanity Fair, December 2018"Making the kids think of school as important to their complicated, often tragic lives—while meeting the demands of the curriculum—was a perennial struggle." — Sarah Stodder, The Washingtonian, November 2018Did you know?Nowadays when we talk about "perennial plants," or simply "perennials" (perennial can be a noun, too), we mean plants that die back seasonally but produce new growth in the spring. But originally perennial was equivalent to evergreen, used for plants that remain with us all year. We took this "throughout the year" sense straight from the Romans, whose Latin perennis combined per- ("throughout") with a form of annus ("year"). The poet Ovid, writing around the beginning of the first millennium, used the Latin word to refer to a "perennial spring" (a water source), and the scholar Pliny used it of birds that don't migrate. Our perennial retains these same uses, for streams and occasionally for birds, but it has long had extended meanings, too.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 12, 2018 is:lunette \loo-NET\ noun1 a : something that has the shape of a crescent or half-moonb : an opening in a vault especially for a windowc : the surface at the upper part of a wall that is partly surrounded by a vault which the wall intersects and that is often filled by windows or by mural paintingd : a low crescentic mound (as of sand) formed by the wind2 : the figure or shape of a crescent moonExamples:"All the windows and doors were topped with lunettes of small-paned glass." — Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, 1912"But what people found most striking about the school was the elaborate lunette built on the exterior of the building over the front entrance. With the lunette's intricate sunburst design, Iddles School caught the attention of many passersby." — Becky Kark, The Herald-Palladium (St. Joseph, Michigan), 15 July 2018Did you know?Lunette, a word borrowed from French, looks like it should mean "little moon"—luna being Latin for "moon" and -ette being a diminutive suffix. There is indeed some 17th-century evidence of the word being used for a small celestial moon, but that meaning is now obsolete. Earlier, in the 16th century, lunette referred to a horseshoe having only the front semicircular part—a meaning that still exists but is quite rare. Other senses of lunette that are infrequently used nowadays include "a blinder especially for a vicious horse" and, in the plural form, "spectacles." (Lunettes is the usual term for eyeglasses in modern French.) The oldest meaning of lunette still in common use is "something shaped like a crescent or half-moon," which our evidence dates to the early 1600s.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 11, 2018 is:immure \ih-MYOOR\ verb1 a : to enclose within or as if within wallsb : imprison2 : to build into a wall; especially : to entomb in a wallExamples:"Agnes … is a suburban lifer, a mousy, resigned little woman whose life is immured by her home, her family, and her church." — Jonathan Richards, The Santa Fe New Mexican, 7 Sept. 2018"In the croissants and their variations, the layers are as distinct as ribs, from slabs of cold butter immured in fold after fold of dough; the interior resembles a honeycomb of air, due to steam released during baking as the butter slowly melts." — Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times, 13 Mar. 2018Did you know?Like mural, immure comes from murus, a Latin noun that means "wall." Immurare, a Medieval Latin verb, was formed from murus and the prefix in- (meaning "in" or "within"). Immure, which first appeared in English in the late 16th century, literally means "to wall in" or "to enclose with a wall," but it has extended meanings as well. In addition to senses meaning "to imprison" and "to entomb," the word sometimes has broader applications, essentially meaning "to shut in" or "to confine." One might remark, for example, that a very studious acquaintance spends most of her time "immured in the library" or that a withdrawn teenager "immures himself in his bedroom every night."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 10, 2018 is:repartee \rep-er-TEE\ noun1 a : a quick and witty reply b : a succession or interchange of clever retorts : amusing and usually light sparring with words2 : adroitness and cleverness in reply : skill in reparteeExamples:"One of my favorite parts of that scene was Kim's repartee with him, trying to show how smart she is, him pretending to forget the case and her knowing it—all just so he could test her." — Patrick Fabian, quoted in Variety, 11 Sept. 2018"The joy of the romantic comedy lies less in its mise en scène, and more in its witty repartee and character chemistry…. The will-they-won't-they tension is enough for the movie to power through the silliest moments. — David Sims, The Atlantic, 21 June 2018Did you know?One person often noted for her repartee was Dorothy Parker, writer and legendary member of the Algonquin Round Table. Upon hearing that Calvin Coolidge had died, she replied, "How can they tell?" The taciturn Coolidge obviously didn't have a reputation for being the life of the party, but he himself came out with a particularly famous repartee on one occasion. When a dinner guest approached him and told him she had bet someone she could get him to say more than two words, he replied, "You lose." Repartee, our word for such a quick, sharp reply (and for skill with such replies) comes from the French repartie, of the same meaning. Repartie itself is formed from the French verb repartir, meaning "to retort."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 9, 2018 is:galumph \guh-LUMF\ verb: to move with a clumsy heavy treadExamples:Mary's teenage son galumphed into the house and flung himself onto the couch, sighing heavily."Incredibly, a massive rhinoceros comes galumphing toward us as rapidly as something that weighs more than two tons and resembles a tank on four legs can move." — Barbara Marshall, The Palm Beach (Florida) Post, 27 Aug. 2017Did you know?Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: "He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." Etymologists suspect Carroll created galumph by altering the word gallop, perhaps throwing in a pinch of triumphant for good measure (in its earliest uses, galumph did convey a sense of exultant bounding). Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 8, 2018 is:approbation \ap-ruh-BAY-shun\ noun1 : commendation, praise2 : an act of approving formally or officiallyExamples:"In 2001, I moved to Lima to study literature at a local university. I fell in with a group of art students—painters, illustrators, sculptors—and even after I'd quit attending classes I'd still visit them, spending long afternoons on the cement floor of a cramped studio that two of them shared. This group became my first real friends in Peru who were not family, and their approbation meant a lot to me." — Daniel Alarcón, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2017"The role of a theater, she argued, was not to adjudicate political issues or get the approbation of minority groups, but, rather, to create a space between art and the public." — Dan Bilefsky, The New York Times, 12 July 2018Did you know?Approbation is similar in meaning to approval, and it is also very close to approval etymologically. Both words trace back to the Latin verb approbare, which means "to prove" or "to approve." Approbation meant "proof" when it first appeared in English in the 14th century, and by the early 1500s it had come to mean "formal or official approval," a sense it still retains in certain ecclesiastical contexts. Today, however, we mostly use approbation in the looser sense of "approval, admiration, or praise." The related verb approbate means "to approve or sanction," and the adjective approbatory means "expressing approval or commendation."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 7, 2018 is:sandbag \SAND-bag\ verb1 : to bank, stop up, or weight with sandbags2 a : to hit or stun with or as if with a sandbagb : to treat unfairly or harshlyc : to coerce by crude meansd : to conceal or misrepresent one's true position, potential, or intent especially in order to take advantage over : to hide the truth about oneself so as to gain an advantage over anotherExamples:Management must have realized that reading employee survey responses aloud at the company-wide meeting would make employees feel sandbagged, but they chose to do it anyway."Lock's season began with Heisman Trophy dreams. It has detoured toward a familiar and unfortunate destination, the place where the quarterback's career numbers are sandbagged by his struggles when the spotlight shines." — Ben Frederickson, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3 Nov. 2018Did you know?In the 19th century, the verb sandbag began to be used to describe the act of bludgeoning someone with a small, sand-filled bag—a tactic employed by ruffians, usually as a prelude to robbing their victims. The verb went on to develop metaphorical extensions, such as "to coerce by crude means." By the 1940s, it was being used of a strategy in which a poker player with a good hand bets weakly, in order to draw other players into holding on to their hands and raising the bet. The use of sandbag has since evolved to refer to a general strategy of playing down one's position in order to gain some sort of advantage.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 6, 2018 is:dossier \DOSS-yay\ noun: a file containing detailed records on a particular person or subjectExamples:The agency maintains extensive dossiers on all of its employees and contractors."The council overwhelmingly supported a resolution to set up an 'independent mechanism' that will collect and analyze evidence of the 'most serious international crimes' and prepare dossiers that will make it easier for prosecutors to bring cases to trial in national, regional or international courts." — Nick Cumming-Bruce, The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2018Did you know?Gather together various documents relating to the affairs of a certain individual, sort them into separate folders, label the spine of each folder, and arrange the folders in a box. Dossier, the French word for such a compendium of spine-labeled folders, was picked up by English speakers in the 19th century. It comes from dos, the French word for "back." The verb endorse (which originally meant "to write on the back of") and the rare adjective addorsed ("set or turned back to back," a term primarily used in heraldry) are also derived, via the Anglo-French endosser and French adosser respectively, from dos. The French dos has its origins in the Latin dorsum, a word which also gave English the adjective dorsal ("situated on the back"), as in "the dorsal fin of a whale."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 5, 2018 is:abandon \uh-BAN-dun\ noun: a thorough yielding to natural impulses; especially : enthusiasm, exuberanceExamples:The winning photograph was of a dog bounding with abandon through a field of snow."The drum solo has long been a concert punchline. Foo Fighters, in recognition of that, made Hawkins' solo as ridiculous and over the top as possible. His drum kit, perched upon a hydraulic lift, soared twenty feet in the air as he pounded the skins with reckless abandon." — Jim Ryan, Forbes, 19 Oct. 2018Did you know?The sense of abandon defined above is a relative newcomer to the English language, dating from the early 1800s, but an earlier noun sense, defined as "the act of abandoning," was in use in the 1600s. The earlier sense was influenced by the verb abandon, which was borrowed by Middle English in the 1300s from Anglo-French abanduner. The Anglo-French term in turn came from the phrase (mettre) a bandun, meaning "to hand over" or "to put in someone's control." The newer sense has been more directly influenced by French abandon, which means not only "abandonment or surrender" but also "freedom from constraint."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 4, 2018 is:perspicacious \per-spuh-KAY-shus\ adjective: of acute mental vision or discernment : keenExamples:"Captivated by the breadth of its elegant façade—echoed in the grandeur of the interior spaces—the perspicacious owners enlisted their trusted decorator Jacques Grange … to collaborate on a sensitive renovation. — Angus Wilkie, Architectural Digest, December 2017"Elsewhere in his speech, Daniels was perspicacious about the challenges that Purdue graduates are likely to face during the course of their careers and civic lives." — Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 6 June 2018Did you know?Perspicacious is similar in meaning to shrewd and astute, but a sharp mind will also discern subtle differences among them. All three denote being acute in perception and sound in judgment, but shrewd stresses practical, hardheaded cleverness, whereas perspicacious implies unusual power to see through and comprehend what is puzzling or hidden. Astute suggests both shrewdness and perspicacity, as well as diplomatic skill.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 3, 2018 is:circumvent \ser-kum-VENT\ verb1 : to manage to get around especially by ingenuity or stratagem2 a : to hem inb : to make a circuit aroundExamples:A couple of clever students were able to circumvent the security protocols on the school's network and gain access to the database storing their grades."… [P]artygoers stood patiently on another queue for the elevator. Jim Belushi—one of the 29 actors featured in W's 'Best Performances' issue—circumvented the elevator line and went for the steps." — Jasmin Rosemberg, Variety, 5 Jan. 2018Did you know?If you've ever felt as if someone was circling around the rules, you have an idea of the origins of circumvent—it derives from the Latin circum, meaning "circle," and ventus, the past participle of the Latin verb venire, meaning "to come." The earliest uses of circumvent referred to a tactic of hunting or warfare in which the quarry or enemy was encircled and captured. Today, however, circumvent more often suggests avoidance than entrapment; it typically means to "get around" someone or something, as in our example sentences.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 2, 2018 is:sciential \sye-EN-shul\ adjective1 : relating to or producing knowledge or science2 : having efficient knowledge : capableExamples:There was no apparent sciential reason for the birds to have migrated this far south."The hidden treasures of science, St. Bonaventure tells us, can be discovered … in a knowledge of either the principles or the conclusions of sciential demonstrations." — John Francis Quinn, The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure's Philosophy, 1973Did you know?You might expect sciential, which derives from Latin scientia (meaning "knowledge"), to be used mostly in technical papers and descriptions of scientific experiments. In truth, however, sciential has long been a favorite of playwrights and poets. It appears in the works of Ben Jonson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats, among others. Keats made particularly lyrical use of it in his narrative poem "Lamia," which depicts a doomed love affair between the Greek sorceress Lamia and a human named Lycius. In the poem, Hermes transforms Lamia from a serpent into a beautiful woman, "Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 1, 2018 is:mayhem \MAY-hem\ noun1 a : willful and permanent deprivation of a bodily member resulting in the impairment of a person's fighting abilityb : willful and permanent crippling, mutilation, or disfigurement of any part of the body2 : needless or willful damage or violenceExamples:"Joe is not your average Joe. He is a contract killer…. The business is low-grade; payments are made with an envelope of cash stuffed above a ceiling tile, and, at the end of a hard night's mayhem, Joe returns to the small house that he shares with his elderly mother." — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 16 Apr. 2018"We are very fortunate to live in a society with 911 responders, but they may not be able to get to victims in a crowded arena, or the police may have to block their entry because of ongoing mayhem." — USA Today, 1 Mar. 2018Did you know?Legally speaking, mayhem refers to the gruesome crime of deliberately causing an injury that permanently disfigures another. The name derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French verb maheimer ("to maim") and is probably of Germanic origin; the English verb maim comes from the same ancestor. The disfigurement sense of mayhem first appeared in English in the 15th century. By the 19th century the word had come to mean any kind of violent behavior; nowadays, mayhem can be used to suggest any kind of chaos or disorder, as in "there was mayhem in the streets during the citywide blackout."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 30, 2018 is:dram \DRAM\ noun1 a : a unit of avoirdupois weight equal to 1/16 ounceb : a unit of apothecaries' weight equal to 1/8 ouncec : a unit of liquid capacity equal to 1/8 fluid ounce2 a : a small portion of something to drinkb : a small amountExamples:The two of them don't have a dram of sense between them, so I'm not surprised that they got into so much trouble."Do you know what I just found out? Monkey Shoulder blended Scotch? Totally not made from monkey shoulders. As far as I'm informed, there are no monkey parts whatsoever in this delicious dram." — Mat Dinsmore, The Coloradoan, 22 Jan. 2014Did you know?In avoirdupois weight—that is, the system of weights commonly used in North America and the United Kingdom—a dram is equal to 1/16 ounce (1.772 grams). The word dram was borrowed from the Anglo-French and Late Latin word dragme, which was originally used for a silver coin used by the ancient Greeks (now known in English as the drachma) as well as for the coin's approximate weight. In the 16th century, English speakers began also using dram for a weight of fluid measure (also called a fluid dram) equal to 1/8 fluid ounce, and more loosely for any small portion of something to drink. Dram is also used figuratively for any small amount, in much the same way as grain and ounce.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 29, 2018 is:ritzy \RIT-see\ adjective1 : being, characteristic of, or befitting a snob : snobbish2 : impressively or ostentatiously fancy or stylish : fashionable, poshExamples:"Pop star Justin Timberlake … hosted a listening party for his new album at a ritzy Manhattan loft where catering was provided by René Redzepi's impossible-to-get-into Copenhagen restaurant…." — Greg Morabito, Eater.com, 17 Jan. 2018"Allen owned one of the most desirable properties in California, a 120-acre parcel on a hilltop in ritzy Beverly Crest that is on the market for $150 million." — Scott Kraft, The Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2018Did you know?César Ritz (1850-1918) earned worldwide renown for the luxurious hotels bearing his name in London and Paris. (The Ritz-Carlton hotel company is a contemporary descendant of these enterprises.) Although they were by no means the first to cater to high-end clients, Ritz's hotels quickly earned reputations as symbols of opulence. F. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer who often focused on the fashionably wealthy, titled one of his short stories "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," and the phrase "to put on the ritz" means "to indulge in ostentatious display." The adjective ritzy, describing either something fancy or stylish, or the haughty attitudes of the wealthy elite, first checked into the English language in 1920.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 28, 2018 is:betwixt \bih-TWIKST\ adverb or preposition: betweenExamples:"O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times / seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and / an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself." — William Shakespeare, Othello, 1622"Barry is a bit betwixt and between as a viewing experience: too violent for people who don't like violence, not energetic or dramatic enough for people who do." — Willa Paskin, Slate Magazine, 23 Mar. 2018Did you know?"Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean; and so betwixt the two of them, they licked the platter clean." Perhaps you've always said "and so between the two of them" when reciting the tale of Jack Sprat and his wife. That's fine. Betwixt and between have similar origins: they both come from a combination of be- and related Old English roots. Both words appeared before the 12th century, but use of betwixt dropped off considerably toward the end of the 1600s. It survived in the phrase "betwixt and between" ("neither one thing nor the other"), which took on a life of its own in the 18th century. Nowadays, betwixt is uncommon, but it isn't archaic; it's simply used more consciously than between.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 27, 2018 is:yahoo \YAH-hoo\ noun1 capitalized Yahoo : a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans2 : a boorish, crass, or stupid personExamples:The reputation the teenagers had for being a bunch of self-involved yahoos was belied by their courteous treatment of the stranded motorists."In a place like America, we seem to revel in these geographic judgments. And so Northerners stereotype Southerners as Confederate flag-waving, pickup driving, moonshine-drinking yahoos and Southerners depict Northerners as snooty, elitist, big city, latte-drinking, Volvo-driving liberals." — John F. Hudson, The Cambridge (Massachusetts) Chronicle, 31 May 2018Did you know?We know exactly how old yahoo is because its debut in print also marked its entrance into the English language as a whole. Yahoo began life as a made-up word invented by Jonathan Swift in his book Gulliver's Travels, which was published in 1726. On his fourth and final voyage of the book, Lemuel Gulliver is marooned on an island that is the home of the Houyhnhnms, a species of intelligent, civilized horses who share their land with and rule over the Yahoos, a species of brutes with the form and vices of humans. These Yahoos represented Swift's view of humankind at its lowest. It is not surprising, then, that yahoo came to be applied to any actual human who was particularly unpleasant or unintelligent.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 26, 2018 is:quirk \KWERK\ verb: curve, twistExamples:"If you quirked your eyebrow at The Shape of Water's merman, your jaw probably dropped clean off when you realized that some viewers were, well, thirsty for the marine man." — Melissa Broder and Samantha Hunt, Elle, 14 Sept. 2018"The video was of a laughing baby, and I felt the corners of my mouth quirking up. After, the computer asked me how I'd felt while watching. 'Happy,' I clicked." — Elizabeth Svoboda, MIT Technology Review, 16 Aug. 2018Did you know?Did you expect quirk to be a noun meaning "a peculiarity of action or behavior"? If so, you're probably not alone; the "peculiarity" sense of the noun quirk is commonly known and has been a part of our language since the 17th century. But quirk has long worn other hats in English, too. The sense meaning "a curve, turn, or twist" has named everything from curving pen marks on paper (i.e., flourishes) to witty turns of phrase to the vagaries or twists of fate. In contemporary English, the verb quirk can be used in referring to facial expressions, especially those that involve crooked smiles or furrowed eyebrows.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 25, 2018 is:occlusion \uh-KLOO-zhun\ noun1 : the act of occluding : the state of being occluded: such asa : the complete obstruction of the breath passage in the articulation of a speech soundb : the bringing of the opposing surfaces of the teeth of the two jaws into contact; also : the relation between the surfaces when in contactc : the inclusion or sorption of gas trapped during solidification of a material2 : the front formed by a cold front overtaking a warm front and lifting the warm air above the earth's surfaceExamples:The meteorologist said that the weakening occlusion heading up the coast would lead to off-and-on rain showers throughout the night."The company's facial recognition technology can identify a particular person even in complex situations and accounts for variables like facial changes, age-gender handling, as well as facial occlusion." — Abhishek Baxi, Forbes, 28 Sept. 2018Did you know?Occlusion is a descendant of the Latin verb occludere, meaning "to close up." Occludere in turn comes from the prefix ob-, here meaning "in the way," and the verb claudere, meaning "to close or shut." Occlusion is one of many English terms derived from claudere. Some others are recluse, seclusion, and exclude. An occlusion occurs when something has been closed up or blocked off. Almost all heart attacks are the result of the occlusion of a coronary (heart) artery by a blood clot. When a person's upper and lower teeth form a malocclusion, they close incorrectly or badly. An occlusion, or occluded front, happens when a fast-moving cold front overtakes a slow-moving warm front and slides underneath it, lifting the warm air and blocking its movement.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 24, 2018 is:audacious \aw-DAY-shus\ adjective1 a : intrepidly daring : adventurousb : recklessly bold : rash2 : contemptuous of law, religion, or decorum : insolent3 : marked by originality and verveExamples:The band has been making original and creative music for well over ten years, but their latest album is by far their most audacious to date."[Patrick Mahomes] has already thrown 14 touchdown passes without an interception, and his ability to make plays when everything breaks down—like that audacious left-handed pass against the Broncos—has turned him into an early MVP front-runner." — Dave Skretta, The Cincinnati (Ohio) Enquirer, 7 Oct. 2018Did you know?Audacious first appeared in English in the mid-1500s. It was borrowed from the Middle French adjective audacieux, which was derived from the noun audace ("boldness, audacity"). Audace came from the Latin audacia, a derivative of the Latin root audac- ("bold"). Audac- is also the source of audacity, which appeared in Middle English (as audacite) in the 1400s. Audac- can be traced, by way of the Latin verb audēre ("to dare"), to the Latin adjective avidus ("eager" or "greedy"), which was also borrowed by English, either directly from Latin or via the French avide, to give us our adjective avid. Among the early adopters of audacious was William Shakespeare, who used the word seven times in his plays, as in Henry VI, Part 2, where Somerset addresses York with the lines, "I arrest thee, York, / Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown. / Obey, audacious traitor, kneel for grace."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 23, 2018 is:impromptu \im-PROMP-too\ adjective1 : made, done, or formed on or as if on the spur of the moment : improvised2 : composed or uttered without previous preparation : extemporaneousExamples:When we got word of Caitlin's good news, we threw an impromptu party to celebrate."West capped off his curious musical guest gig, where he subbed for Ariana Grande, with a rambling rant after NBC's broadcast ended. The impromptu speech was captured by Chris Rock, who posted it to his Instagram Story." — Kim Willis, USA Today, 30 Sept. 2018Did you know?If you think that impromptu looks like a relative of the adjective prompt, you're right; both are ultimately derived from the Latin promere, meaning "to bring forth, take out." Impromptu was borrowed from French, where it meant "extemporaneously," but French speakers picked it up from the Latin phrase in promptu, a promere descendant meaning "in readiness" or "at hand." Something that is impromptu is generally "prompted" (that English verb is from Latin promptus, of the same meaning) by an occasion that generates a response in the form of, for example, a party or a speech that has not been planned. There is also another, much rarer descendant of promere in English: the noun promptuary, meaning "a book of ready reference."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 22, 2018 is:cornucopia \kor-nuh-KOH-pee-uh\ noun1 : a curved, hollow goat's horn or similarly shaped receptacle (such as a horn-shaped basket) that is overflowing especially with fruit and vegetables (such as gourds, ears of corn, apples, and grapes) and that is used as a decorative motif emblematic of abundance2 : an inexhaustible store : abundance3 : a receptacle shaped like a horn or coneExamples:"While the auction will offer a cornucopia of decorative and fine art spanning many centuries and continents, its crown jewels are the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and modern paintings." — James Reginato, Vanity Fair, Holiday 2017"With the veritable cornucopia of fitness gurus, fad diets, weight-loss programmes, and food boot-camps present today, it's not shocking that there is an information overload on nutrition everywhere." — Pooja Sachin Duggal, Business World, 14 Apr. 2018Did you know?Cornucopia comes from Latin cornu copiae, which translates literally as "horn of plenty." A traditional staple of feasts, the cornucopia is believed to represent the horn of a goat from Greek mythology. According to legend, it was from this horn that the god Zeus was fed as an infant. Later, the horn was filled with flowers and fruits, and given as a present to Zeus. The filled horn (or a receptacle resembling it) has long served as a traditional symbol in art and decoration to suggest a store of abundance. The word first appeared in English in the early 16th century; a century later, it developed the figurative sense of an overflowing supply.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2018 is:noisome \NOY-sum\ adjective1 : noxious, harmful2 a : offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smellb : highly obnoxious or objectionableExamples:"The streets were narrow and very dirty, the air smoky and noisome, the people mostly wretched." — Ken Follett, The Man From St. Petersburg, 1982"The last two newspaper offices where I worked were based in not-so-safe or particularly pretty areas of a city, and most nights when I left work I had to breathe in the noisome aromas of swamp gas, paper mill, deteriorating sewer lines and a dog food processing plant…." — Jackie Torok, The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, North Carolina), 27 May 2014Did you know?Noisome sounds like it might be a synonym of noisy, but it's not. Something noisome is disgusting, offensive, or harmful, often in its smell. Noisome does not come from noise, but from the Middle English word noysome, which has the same meaning as noisome. Noysome was formed by combining the noun noy, which means "annoyance," with the adjectival suffix -some ("characterized by a (specified) thing, quality, state, or action"). Noy comes from Anglo-French anui, which also means "annoyance." As you may have already guessed, the English words annoy and annoyance are also related to noisome.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2018 is:perforce \per-FORSS\ adverb: by force of circumstancesExamples:"All that frantic traveling was in lieu of any compelling reason to stay home, and those many, many friendships were perforce conducted at long distance." — Blake Bailey, The New York Times Book Review, 28 Dec. 2012"But by making an opera about television—a source of entertainment for the Everyman—they are, perforce, creating a marriage of high and low." — Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2018Did you know?English speakers borrowed par force from Anglo-French in the 14th century. Par meant "by" (from Latin per) and the Anglo-French word force had the same meaning as its English equivalent, which was already in use by then. At first, perforce meant quite literally "by physical coercion." That meaning is no longer used today, but it was still prevalent in William Shakespeare's lifetime (1564-1616). "He rush'd into my house and took perforce my ring away," wrote the Bard in The Comedy of Errors. The "by force of circumstances" sense of perforce had also come into use by Shakespeare's day. In Henry IV, Part 2, we find "... your health; the which, if you give o'er to stormy passion, must perforce decay."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2018 is:henchman \HENCH-mun\ noun1 : a trusted follower : right-hand man2 : a political follower whose support is chiefly for personal advantage3 : a member of a gangExamples:"The story follows the lives to two very different characters—Frank Guidry, a henchman_for one of New Orleans' most powerful and vicious gangsters, and Charlotte, a woman struggling to raise her two daughters while dealing with a feckless, drunken husband." — James D. Watts Jr., The Tulsa (Oklahoma) World, 11 Oct. 2018"Since Mr. Mugabe's ouster, Mr. Mnangagwa has tried to remake Zimbabwe's image by portraying the government as business-friendly. He has appeared often at investors' conferences, wearing warm, colorful scarves to offset his fearsome reputation as Mr. Mugabe's former henchman." — Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times, 30 July 2018Did you know?The earliest known examples of today's word in written English show it being used as a term for a squire or a page, but the word may have seen earlier use with the meaning "groom." It first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century and is a combination of Old English hengest ("a male horse") and man. In the mid-1700s, henchman began to be used for the personal attendant of a Scottish Highland chief. This sense, made familiar to many English readers by Sir Walter Scott, led to the word's use in the broader sense of "right-hand man," which in turn evolved into the other meanings.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2018 is:chapel \CHAP-ul\ noun1 : a subordinate or private place of worship2 : a place of worship used by a Christian group other than an established church3 : a choir of singers belonging to a chapel4 : a chapel service or assembly at a school or collegeExamples:The school required all of its students to attend chapel daily."The monastery contains a chapel, 26 bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, meeting rooms, offices, a library and a gift shop." — Thomas Saccente, The Times Record (Fort Smith, Arkansas), 8 Oct. 2018Did you know?Chapel is ultimately derived from the Late Latin word cappa, meaning "cloak." How did we get from a garment to a building? The answer to this question has to do with a shrine created to hold the sacred cloak of St. Martin of Tours. In Medieval Latin, this shrine was called cappella (from a diminutive of cappa, meaning "short cloak or cape") in reference to the relic it contained. Later, the meaning of cappella broadened to include any building that housed a sacred relic, and eventually to a place of worship. Anglo-French picked up the term as chapele, which in turn passed into English as chapel in the 13th century. In case you are wondering, the term a cappella, meaning "without instrumental accompaniment," entered English from Italian, where it literally means "in chapel style."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2018 is:susurrous \soo-SUR-us\ adjective: full of whispering soundsExamples:As the vacationers slept, the only sound was the susurrous breeze blowing through the curtains of the open window."Silence, more anticipatory than uncomfortable, replaced the susurrous swirl of conversation, that tentative tête-à-tête among those who may or may not be acquainted but have a certain thing in common." — Sam McManis, SFGate.com, 9 Mar. 2015Did you know?Susurrous derives from the Latin noun susurrus, meaning "a hum" or "a whisper," and may be a distant relative of swarm (think of the collective hum of a beehive). Susurrus is itself an English noun with the meaning "a whispering or rustling sound" (Stephen King provides us with the example of "a violent susurrus of air"). Both the noun and the adjective (note that the two are spelled differently) are products of the 19th century, but they were preceded by the noun susurration, which in the 15th century originally meant "malicious whispering or rumor." Today susurrous is used to describe any kind of sound that resembles a whisper: a light breeze through a tree, perhaps, or the murmurs of intrigued theatergoers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2018 is:exculpate \EK-skull-payt\ verb: to clear from alleged fault or guiltExamples:A false lead from an ancestry site is no different than eliminating suspects through regular detective work; except people are more easily exculpated." — Julie O'Connor, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), 13 May 2018"But the longer and more often you misremember something, the truer it becomes. Misremembering a bad thing as less bad might liberate a survivor, but it also might exculpate a perpetrator." — Margaret Lyons, The New York Times, 26 May 2018Did you know?You need not take the blame if you're unfamiliar with the origins of exculpate, and we would be glad to enlighten you, if that's the case. The word, which was adopted in the 17th century from Medieval Latin exculpatus, traces back to the Latin noun culpa, meaning "blame." Some other descendants of culpa in English include culpable ("meriting condemnation or blame") and inculpate ("incriminate"), as well as the considerably rarer culpatory ("accusing") and disculpate (a synonym of exculpate). You may also be familiar with the borrowed Latin phrase mea culpa, which translates directly as "through my fault" and is used in English to mean "a formal acknowledgment of personal fault or error."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2018 is:memento \muh-MEN-toh\ noun: something that serves to warn or remind; also : souvenirExamples:The box on the shelf in her closet is filled with mementos of Julie's basketball career—awards, newspaper clippings, team photographs, and her old uniform."Old photos and other mementos from his father's time in the military covered the small table." — Amaris Castillo, The Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, 6 Oct. 2018Did you know?Memento comes from the imperative form of meminisse, a Latin verb that literally means "to remember." (The term memento mori, meaning "a reminder of mortality," translates as "remember that you must die.") The history of memento makes it clear where its spelling came from, but because a memento often helps one remember a particular moment, people occasionally spell the term momento. This is usually considered a misspelling, but it appears often enough in edited prose to have been entered in most dictionaries as an acceptable variant spelling.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2018 is:tomfoolery \tahm-FOO-luh-ree\ noun: playful or foolish behaviorExamples:The antics in the play itself apparently inspired tomfoolery behind the scenes as well, as cast members reported a host of practical jokes including a few on opening night."Presented as an oral history in a series of conversations between the couple, the book features anecdotes, hijinks, photos, and a veritable grab bag of tomfoolery." — Brandy McDonnell, NewsOK.com, 1 Oct. 2018Did you know?In the Middle Ages, Thome Fole was a name assigned to those perceived to be of little intelligence. This eventually evolved into the spelling tomfool, which, when capitalized, also referred to a professional clown or a buffoon in a play or pageant. The name Tom seems to have been chosen for its common-man quality, much like Joe Blow for an ordinary person or Johnny Reb for a soldier in the Confederate army, but tomfoolery need not apply strictly to actions by men. In Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908), for example, Marilla Cuthbert complains of Anne: "She's gadding off somewhere with Diana, writing stories or practicing dialogues or some such tomfoolery, and never thinking once about the time or her duties."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2018 is:recalcitrant \rih-KAL-suh-trunt\ adjective1 : obstinately defiant of authority or restraint2 a : difficult to manage or operateb : not responsive to treatmentc : resistantExamples:The magazine, aimed at parents and caregivers of young children, will include the latest in child development science as well as practical information, like tricks for persuading even the most recalcitrant toddler to cooperate."But the reforms are stalled, held back by recalcitrant bureaucrats loathe to give up their authority and perks…." — William M. LeoGrande, Newsweek, 11 May 2018Did you know?Long before any human was dubbed "recalcitrant" in English (that first occurred in the 18th century), there were stubborn mules (and horses) kicking back their heels. The ancient Romans noted as much (Pliny the Elder among them), and they had a word for it: recalcitrare, which literally means "to kick back." (Its root calc-, meaning "heel," is also the root of calcaneus, the large bone of the heel in humans.) Certainly Roman citizens in Pliny's time were sometimes willful and hardheaded—as attested by various Latin words meaning "stubborn"—but it wasn't until later that writers of Late Latin applied recalcitrare and its derivative adjective to humans who were stubborn as mules.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.