Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 23, 2018 is:biannual \bye-AN-yuh-wul\ adjective1 : occurring twice a year2 : occurring every two yearsExamples:"The first is status quo: We could leave current daylight saving time in place, and continue to set our clocks an hour forward in spring and an hour back in fall. But some Californians want to end those biannual clock shifts, in part because they correlate with increases in heart attacks, traffic accidents, and workplace accidents." — Joe Mathews, The Californian (Salinas, California), 15 Aug. 2018"The Television Critics Association's just-ended biannual conference was both a micro look at programming and a macro view of the medium's direction. In a parade stretching over two weeks, about 30 networks, channels and streaming platforms held more than 100 Q&A sessions and countless one-on-one interviews to prove they've got what viewers want." — The Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts), 11 Aug. 2018Did you know?When we describe something as biannual, we can mean either that it occurs twice a year or that it occurs once every two years. So how does someone know which particular meaning we have in mind? Well, unless we provide them with a contextual clue, they don't. Some people prefer to use semiannual to refer to something that occurs twice a year, reserving biannual for things that occur once every two years. This practice is hardly universal among English speakers, however, and biannual remains a potentially ambiguous word. Fortunately, English also provides us with biennial, a word that specifically refers to something that occurs every two years or that lasts or continues for two years.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 22, 2018 is:viva voce \vye-vuh-VOH-see\ adverb: by word of mouth : orallyExamples:"He was examined according to standard inquisitorial procedures derived from Roman law and medieval practice. Interrogators put questions to the accused who answered viva voce, in writing, or both, as demanded." — Donald Weinstein, Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet, 2011"In the old days, voter turnout was significant because the rite was an open event and fun-filled. In colonial Maryland and Virginia, for example, a citizen would cast his vote orally—viva voce—and then would be rewarded with food and strong drink by the candidate he had just voted for." — Thomas V. DiBacco, The Washington Times, 26 Oct. 2016Did you know?Viva voce derives from Medieval Latin, where it translates literally as "with the living voice." In English it occurs in contexts, such as voting, in which something is done aloud for all to hear. Votes in Congress, for example, are done viva voce—members announce their votes by calling out "yea" or "nay." While the phrase was first used in English as an adverb in the 16th century, it can also appear as an adjective (as in "a viva voce examination") or a noun (where it refers to an examination conducted orally).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 21, 2018 is:panoply \PAN-uh-plee\ noun1 a : a full suit of armorb : ceremonial attire2 : something forming a protective covering3 a : a magnificent or impressive arrayb : a display of all appropriate appurtenancesExamples:"Like many of the islands of the Caribbean, Jamaica is home to a cuisine that combines a heady mixture of flavors, spices, techniques and influences from the panoply of cultures that have inhabited its shores." — Maria Sonnenberg, Florida Today, 11 July 2018"'Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse' focuses on the final turbulent decade of a life, but Andrea di Robilant captures the full panoply of quirks and conflicts that often made Papa and those closest to him miserable." — Michael Mewshaw, The Washington Post, 26 July 2018Did you know?Panoply comes from the Greek word panoplia, which referred to the full suit of armor worn by hoplites, heavily armed infantry soldiers of ancient Greece. Panoplia is a blend of the prefix pan-, meaning "all," and hopla, meaning "arms" or "armor." (As you may have guessed already, hopla is also an ancestor of hoplite.) Panoply entered the English language in the 17th century, and since then it has developed other senses which extend both the "armor" and the "full set" aspects of its original use.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 20, 2018 is:milieu \meel-YOO\ noun: the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops : environmentExamples:"In researching my second film, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, I learned just how much independence and bravery it took for Guggenheim to step away from her very traditional roots and move at the age of 20 to Paris, where she … became part of the milieu of the Surrealist artists, and ultimately set out on the path to becoming a world famous patron." — Lisa Vreeland, Town & Country, March 2018"Critics have called [Nicole] Holofcener 'the female Woody Allen,' noting that the two directors, both Jewish, explore a milieu disproportionately populated by writers, artists, and shrinks." — Ariel Levy, The New Yorker, 6 Aug. 2018Did you know?The etymology of milieu comes down to mi and lieu. English speakers learned the word (and borrowed both its spelling and meaning) from French. The modern French term comes from two much older French forms, mi, meaning "middle," and lieu, meaning "place." Like so many terms in the Romance languages, those Old French forms can ultimately be traced to Latin; mi is an offspring of Latin medius (meaning "middle") and lieu is a derivative of locus (meaning "place"). English speakers have used milieu for the environment or setting of something since at least the mid-1800s, but other lieu descendants are much older. We've used both lieu itself (meaning "place" or "stead," as in "in lieu of") and lieutenant since the 13th 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 September 19, 2018 is:atone \uh-TOHN\ verb1 : to make amends : to provide or serve as reparation or compensation for something bad or unwelcome — usually + for2 : to make reparation or supply satisfaction for : expiate — used in the passive voice with forExamples:James tried to atone for the mistakes of his youth by devoting his life to helping others."Tony Stark became Iron Man partially to atone for his history of global weapons profiteering." — Alex Biese and Felecia Wellington Radel, Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press, 1 July 2018Did you know?Atone comes to us from the combination in Middle English of at and on, the latter of which is an old variant of one. Together they meant "in harmony." (In current English, we use "at one" with a similar suggestion of harmony in such phrases as "at one with nature.") When it first entered English, atone meant "to reconcile" and suggested the restoration of a peaceful and harmonious state between people or groups. These days the verb specifically implies addressing the damage (or disharmony) caused by one's own behavior.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 18, 2018 is:lenitive \LEN-uh-tiv\ adjective: alleviating pain or harshness : soothingExamples:Peppermint, chamomile, and ginger are all reputed to have a lenitive effect on the digestive system."The air in Eastbourne … is melancholy with the sweet memories of childhood, and the promises it breathes are prayerful and lenitive: all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." — Howard Jacobson, The Independent (London), 2 Aug. 2008Did you know?Lenitive first appears in English in the 15th century. It derives from the Latin verb lenire ("to soften or soothe"), which was itself formed from the adjective lenis, meaning "soft" or "mild." Lenire also gave us the adjective lenient, which usually means "tolerant" or "indulgent" today but in its original sense carried the meaning of "relieving pain or stress." Often found in medical contexts, lenitive can also be a noun referring to a treatment (such as a salve) with soothing or healing properties.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 17, 2018 is:chiliad \KILL-ee-ad\ noun1 : a group of 10002 : a period of 1000 years; especially : one reckoned from the beginning of the Christian eraExamples:Erin's pursuit of an MD degree felt like it took a chiliad, but she achieved her goal and is now running her own pediatric clinic."While teachers may offer children some new vocab words, there are some at-home tricks parents can also use to make sure their children learn a chiliad of new words." — Herb Scribner, The Petoskey (Michigan) News-Review, 6 Sept. 2015Did you know?What's the difference between a chiliad and a millennium? Not much: both are a period of 1000 years. While millennium is more widely used, chiliad is actually older. Chiliad first appeared in the late 1500s and was originally used to mean "a group of 1000," as in "a chiliad of arrows"; millennium didn't make its way into written English until some decades later, in the early 1600s. Not surprisingly, both words trace back to roots that mean "thousand." Millennium comes from Latin mille, and chiliad is a descendant of Greek chilioi.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 16, 2018 is:resplendent \rih-SPLEN-dunt\ adjective: shining brilliantly : characterized by a glowing splendorExamples:His eyes were drawn to his elegant wife—resplendent in a fashionable evening gown—who had just appeared at the top of the stairway."The princes, all of whom have served in some capacity in the British armed forces, were resplendent in blue RAF uniforms, and the women glowed in stylish ensembles." — Maria Puente, USA Today, 11 July 2018Did you know?Resplendent has a lot in common with splendid (meaning, among other things, "shining" or "brilliant"), splendent ("shining" or "glossy"), and splendor ("brightness" or "luster"). Each of these glowing terms gets its shine from the Latin verb splendēre ("to shine"). In the case of resplendent, the prefix re- added to splendēre, formed the Latin resplendēre, meaning "to shine back." Splendent, splendor, and resplendent were first used in English during the 15th century, but splendid didn't light up our language until over 175 years later; its earliest known use dates from 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 September 15, 2018 is:melancholia \mel-un-KOH-lee-uh\ noun: a mental condition and especially a manic-depressive condition characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints, and often hallucinations and delusionsExamples:"Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner table, she changed her mind. A little food in the stomach does wonders." — Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, 1900"The ocean as healer beckoned people through the centuries. English doctors of yester-century prescribed 'sea baths' even to dissolve melancholia." — Liza Field, The Roanoke (Virginia) Times, 13 Jan. 2018Did you know?Today's word traces back to Greek melan‑ ("black, dark") and cholē ("bile"). Medical practitioners once adhered to the system of humors—bodily fluids that included black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. An imbalance of these humors was thought to lead to disorders of the mind and body. One suffering from an excess of black bile (believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen) could become sullen and unsociable—liable to anger, irritability, brooding, and depression. Today, doctors no longer ascribe physical and mental disorders to disruptions of the four humors, but the word melancholia is still used in psychiatry (it is identified as a "subtype" of clinical depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and as a general term for despondency. The older term ­melancholy, ultimately from the same Greek roots, is historically a synonym of melancholia but now more often refers to a sad or pensive mood.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 14, 2018 is:advert \ad-VERT\ verb1 : to turn the mind or attention — used with to2 : to call attention in the course of speaking or writing : make reference — used with toExamples:"He also adverted to the practice of demanding that producers take back unsold produce as an 'unfair' practice that concerns the commission." — Patrick Smyth, The Irish Times, 12 Apr. 2018"Painfully as I am affected by the family calamity which has fallen on me, I cannot let this opportunity pass without adverting to another subject which seriously concerns your welfare…." — Wilkie Collins, No Name, 1862Did you know?You may be familiar with the noun advert, which is used, especially in British sources, as a shortened form of advertisement. That's one way to use advert, but it has also been used as a verb in English since the 15th century. There's a hint about the origin of the verb in the idea of "turning" the mind or attention to something; the word derives via Anglo-French from the Latin verb advertere, which in turn comes from Latin vertere, meaning "to turn." Vertere is the ancestor of a number of words in English, including controversy, divert, invert, revert, and even versatile. In addition, we'd like to turn your attention to one particular vertere descendant: avert, meaning "to avoid." Be careful to avoid mixing this one up with advert.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 13, 2018 is:taradiddle \tair-uh-DID-ul\ noun1 : a trivial or childish lie : fib2 : pretentious nonsenseExamples:"The time came when she not only told her taradiddle about having 'hunted quite a lot,' she even came near believing it." — George Orwell, Burmese Days, 1934"As truths go, the history of Miss Rossiter she had laid out was unimpressive: a forked-tongue taraddidle of the highest order and if I were to serve it up to Hardy and be found out afterwards I should be lucky to escape arrest, if not a smack on the legs with a hairbrush for the cheek of it." — Catriona McPherson, Danny Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains, 2009Did you know?The true origin of taradiddle is unknown, but that doesn't mean you won't encounter a lot of balderdash about its history. Some folks try to connect it to the verb diddle (one meaning of which is "to swindle or cheat"), but that connection hasn't been proven and may turn out to be poppycock. You may even hear some tommyrot about this particular sense of diddle coming from the Old English verb didrian, which meant "to deceive," but that couldn't be true unless didrian was somehow suddenly revived after eight or nine centuries of disuse. No one even knows when taradiddle was first used. It must have been before it showed up in a 1796 dictionary of colloquial speech (where it was defined as a synonym of fib), but if we claimed we knew who said it first, and when, we'd be dishing out pure applesauce.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 12, 2018 is:enigmatic \en-ig-MAT-ik\ adjective: of, relating to, or resembling an enigma : mysteriousExamples:"The magic of the Mona Lisa's smile is that it seems to react to our gaze. What is she thinking? She smiles back mysteriously. Look again. Her smile seems to flicker. We glance away, and the enigmatic smile lingers in our minds, as it does in the collective mind of humanity." — Walter Isaacson, The Atlantic, November 2017"The Chapel of the Good Shepherd, also known as the Nevelson Chapel, is the work of Louise Nevelson, a flamboyant New York City sculptor who rose to prominence for her postwar abstract assemblages that turned street detritus into enigmatic works of art." — Jack Balderrama Morley, The Architects Newspaper (archpaper.com), 15 Aug. 2018Did you know?An enigma is a puzzle, a riddle, a mystery. The adjective enigmatic describes what is hard to solve or figure out. An enigmatic person is someone who is a bit mysterious to others. Behind an enigmatic smile are thoughts impossible to guess. The word enigma originally referred not to people or smiles but to words, and specifically to words that formed a riddle or a complicated metaphor that tested one's alertness and cleverness. This meaning is clearly connected to the word's origin. Enigma comes from the Greek word ainissesthai, meaning "to speak in riddles."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 11, 2018 is:deportment \dih-PORT-munt\ noun: the manner in which one conducts oneself : behaviorExamples:The candidate chosen for the position had an exceptional resume, but it was her deportment and personality as exhibited during interviews that were the deciding factors."The one artisanal, teachable thing is outer conduct. You can't restructure a genome, but, as Mr. Turveydrop, in Charles Dickens' 'Bleak House,' insisted, you really can teach deportment." — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 29 Jan. 2018Did you know?Deportment evolved from the verb deport, meaning "to behave especially in accord with a code," which in turn came to us through Middle French from Latin deportare, meaning "to carry away." (You may also know deport as a verb meaning "to send out of the country"; that sense is newer and is derived directly from Latin deportare.) Deportment can simply refer to one's demeanor, or it can refer to behavior formed by breeding or training and often conforming to conventional rules of propriety: "Are you not gratified that I am so rapidly gaining correct ideas of female propriety and sedate deportment?" wrote 17-year-old Emily Dickinson to her brother Austin.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 10, 2018 is:fathom \FA-thum\ verb1 : probe2 : to take soundings : to measure by a sounding line3 : to penetrate and come to understandExamples:Even those close to him couldn't always fathom why he repeatedly risked his life to climb the world's tallest mountains."It was hard to fathom that this canyon was carved not by natural forces, but by humans. But that's the Mesabi Iron Range for you." — Simon Peter Groebner, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 15 July 2018Did you know?Today's word comes to us from Old English fæthm, meaning "outstretched arms." The noun fathom, which now commonly refers to a measure (especially of depth) of six feet, was originally used for the distance, fingertip to fingertip, created by stretching one's arms straight out from the sides of the body. In one of its earliest uses, the verb fathom meant to encircle something with the arms as if for measuring and was also a synonym of embrace. In the 1600s, however, fathom took on the meaning of using a sounding line to measure depth. At the same time, the verb also developed senses synonymous with probe or investigate, and is now frequently used to refer to the act of getting to the bottom of something, figuratively speaking.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 9, 2018 is:wanderlust \WAHN-der-lust\ noun: strong longing for or impulse toward wanderingExamples:"The trip inspired a new commitment to working with artisans from around the world. It also reanimated her genetic sense of wanderlust. She recently went back to Peru, to meet with a weaver she's been working with since that first trip." — Olivia Stren, Elle, 19 Nov. 2017"David and Victoria Beckham know how to live life to the fullest. Days after ringing in their 19th wedding anniversary, the Beckhams have embarked on a family vacation to Croatia—and it is wanderlust-inducing." — Marissa G. Muller, W Magazine, 17 July 2018Did you know?"For my part," writes Robert Louis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey, "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." Sounds like a case of wanderlust if we ever heard one. Those with wanderlust don't necessarily need to go anywhere in particular; they just don't care to stay in one spot. The etymology of wanderlust is a very simple one that you can probably figure out yourself. Wanderlust is a lust for wandering. The word comes from German, in which wandern means "to hike or roam about," and lust means "pleasure or delight."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 8, 2018 is:periphrasis \puh-RIFF-ruh-sis\ noun1 : use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter form of expression2 : an instance of periphrasisExamples:"There are countless passages of asinine periphrasis: 'The accelerant enzymes her image infuses in Bob create a chemical cocktail he can only counter with self-preservational condescension.' As these examples suggest, the book is only intermittently comprehensible." — James Marriott, The Times (London), 7 Apr. 2018"Literary translation is challenging, and tends to work best when the translator has recourse to the amplifying and telescoping powers of periphrasis, poetic license, and, if it comes to it, a discreet footnote here or there. Few of these tools are at the disposal of the cinematic translator." — Elias Muhanna, The New Yorker, 30 May 2014Did you know?It's easy enough to point out the origins of periphrasis: the word was borrowed into English in the early 16th century via Latin from Greek periphrazein, which in turn comes from the prefix peri-, meaning "all around," and the verb phrazein, "to point out." Two common descendants of phrazein in English are phrase and paraphrase, the latter of which combines phrazein with the prefix para-, meaning "closely resembling." Another phrazein descendant is the less familiar word holophrasis, meaning "the expression of a complex of ideas in a single word or in a fixed phrase." (The prefix holo- can mean "completely.")See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 7, 2018 is:schmooze \SHMOOZ\ verb1 : to converse informally : chat; also : to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections2 : to engage in informal conversation withExamples:Conference attendees will have plenty of chances to schmooze with the industry's power players."We're spending less time schmoozing with our co-workers, going from an average of 2.5 hours a week in the mid-1970s to under an hour in 2012." — Katrina Trinko, The Visalia (California) Times-Delta, 7 May 2018Did you know?Schmooze (also spelled shmooze) is one of a small, but significant, number of words borrowed from Yiddish that have become relatively common members of the English language. Other such words include chutzpah, lox, maven, mensch, nebbish, schlep, and schlock. Though classified as a High German language, Yiddish also borrows from the Slavic and Latinate languages as well as from Aramaic and Hebrew. It was the Hebrew shěmu’ōth ("news, rumor") that provided Yiddish with the noun shmues ("talk") and the verb shmuesn ("to talk or chat"). Although originally used in English to indicate simply talking in an informal and warm manner, schmooze has since also taken on the suggestion of discussion for the purposes of gaining something.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 6, 2018 is:quiddity \KWID-uh-tee\ noun1 : whatever makes something the type that it is : essence2 a : a trifling point : quibbleb : an unusual personal opinion or habit : eccentricityExamples:"The elegant, punky, petroleum-like smokiness that imbues every good mezcal, and which is its quiddity, comes from the burning of the agave heart." — Ray Harvey, The Coloradoan, 19 May 2016"An apparently intractable fact of life is that our thoughts are inaccessible to one another. Our skulls are like space helmets; we are trapped in our heads, unable to convey the quiddity of our sensations." — Jason Pontin, Wired, 16 Apr. 2018Did you know?When it comes to synonyms of quiddity, the Q's have it. Consider quintessence, a synonym of the "essence of a thing" sense of quiddity (this oldest sense of quiddity dates from the 14th century). Quibble is a synonym of the "trifling point" sense; that meaning of quiddity arose from the subtler points of 16th-century academic arguments. And quirk, like quiddity, can refer to a person's eccentricities. Of course, quiddity also derives from a "Q" word, the Latin pronoun quis, which is one of two Latin words for "who" (the other is qui). Quid, the neuter form of quis, gave rise to the Medieval Latin quidditas, which means "essence," a term that was essential to the development of the English quiddity.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 5, 2018 is:banshee \BAN-shee\ noun: a female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon dieExamples:"The family is reputed to have its own banshee that howls when one of them is going to die. Corran remembered that on receiving reports that the banshee had been heard, telegrams were sent to everyone in the family to find out if they were all right." — The Daily Telegraph (London), 16 July 2018"Moments after the banshee wail of the air raid siren began, the teacher of my Grade 6 class shouted, 'Under the desks, children! Quickly!'" — Ken Cuthertson, The Globe and Mail (Canada), 14 April 2018Did you know?In Irish folklore, a bean sídhe (literally "woman of fairyland") was not a welcome guest. When she was seen combing her hair or heard wailing beneath a window, it was considered a sign that a family member was about to die. English speakers modified the mournful fairy's Irish name into the modern word _banshee_—a term we now most often use to evoke her woeful or terrible or earsplitting cry, as in "to scream like a banshee," or attributively, as in "a banshee wail."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 4, 2018 is:ingratiate \in-GRAY-shee-ayt\ verb: to gain favor or favorable acceptance for by deliberate effort — usually used with withExamples:"He ingratiated himself with Crispin, deliberately ignoring Crispin's suspicion of him." — Zadie Smith, White Teeth, 2000"Ford is also hoping to ingratiate itself with investors as its stock price still hovers around $11." — Nora Naughton, The Detroit News, 20 June 2018Did you know?17th-century English speakers combined the Latin noun gratia, meaning "grace" or "favor," with the English prefix in- to create the verb ingratiate. When you ingratiate yourself, you are putting yourself in someone's good graces to gain their approval or favor. English words related to ingratiate include gratis and gratuity. Both of these reflect something done or given as a favor through the good graces of the giver.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 3, 2018 is:mentor \MEN-tor\ noun1 : a trusted counselor or guide2 : tutor, coachExamples;Graduates of the program sometimes go on to become mentors to those making their way through the rigorous process of earning their certification."If you can find a mentor who is experienced in your field, they can provide you with insights that you may not get anywhere else. Think of them as kind of being a walking, talking, unofficial guidebook. They know the unspoken truths." — Abdullahi Muhammed, Forbes.com, 30 June 2018Did you know?We acquired mentor from the literature of ancient Greece. In Homer's epic The Odyssey, Odysseus was away from home fighting and journeying for 20 years. During that time, Telemachus, the son he left as a babe in arms, grew up under the supervision of Mentor, an old and trusted friend. When the goddess Athena decided it was time to complete the education of young Telemachus, she visited him disguised as Mentor and they set out together to learn about his father. Today, we use the word mentor for anyone who is a positive, guiding influence in another (usually younger) person's life.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 2, 2018 is:coeval \koh-EE-vul\ adjective: of the same or equal age, antiquity, or durationExamples:"Fantasy is at least as immense as realism and much older—essentially coeval with literature itself. Yet fantasy was relegated for fifty years or sixty years to the nursery." — Ursula Le Guin, quoted in Electric Literature, 1 Apr. 2016"If animals are our other, there is nothing quite so other as the octopus. It is the alien with whom we share our planet, a coeval evolutionary life form whose slithery slipperiness and more than the requisite number of limbs … symbolize the dark mystery and fear of the deep." — Philip Hoare, The Guardian, 18 Sept. 2017Did you know?Coeval comes to English from the Latin word coaevus, meaning "of the same age." Coaevus was formed by combining the co- prefix ("in or to the same degree") with Latin aevum ("age" or "lifetime"). The root aevum is also a base in such temporal words as longevity, medieval, and primeval. Although coeval can technically describe any two or more entities that coexist, it is most typically used to refer to things that have existed together for a very long time (such as galaxies) or that were concurrent with each other in the distant past (parallel historical periods of ancient civilizations, for example).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 1, 2018 is:symposium \sim-POH-zee-um\ noun1 a : a convivial party (as after a banquet in ancient Greece) with music and conversationb : a social gathering at which there is free interchange of ideas2 a : a formal meeting at which several specialists deliver short addresses on a topic or on related topics — compare colloquiumb : a collection of opinions on a subject; especially : one published by a periodicalc : discussionExamples:"Scholars, culinary historians, writers, and chefs come together for this symposium … that chronicles the fascinating history of beef in the region." — Saveur, October 2009"In 1977 [astronomer Beatrice Tinsley] organized and hosted a symposium that brought together the world's experts on the evolution of stars and galaxies. The transcribed proceedings … have become a classic reference for researchers." — The New York Times, 18 July 2018Did you know?It was drinking more than thinking that drew people to the original symposia and that gave us the word symposium. The ancient Greeks would often follow a banquet with a drinking party they called a symposion. That name came from sympinein, a verb that combines pinein, meaning "to drink," with the prefix syn-, meaning "together." Originally, English speakers only used symposium to refer to such an ancient Greek party, but in the 18th century British gentlemen's clubs started using the word for gatherings in which intellectual conversation was fueled by drinking. By the end of the 18th century, symposium had gained the more sober sense we know today, describing meetings in which the focus is more on the exchange of ideas and less on imbibing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 31, 2018 is:duress \dur-RESS\ noun1 : forcible restraint or restriction2 : compulsion by threat; specifically : unlawful constraintExamples:"I understand the impulse to marvel at Mr. Mandela's civility and eloquence, even under duress. How, it's easy to wonder, could a man form such generous, brilliant philosophies in the face of cruelty and injustice?" — Tayari Jones, The New York Times, 6 July 2018    "It's a pattern that runs throughout history. People assume they can pollute for free until the pollution builds up and becomes a serious problem. Then—under duress—they start paying for the trouble." — Nathanael Johnson, Grist, 3 July 2018Did you know?Duress is a word of hardy stock. It has been a part of the English language since the 14th century and has a number of long-lived relatives. Duress itself came into Middle English through the Anglo-French duresce (meaning "hardness" or "severity"), which stems from Latin durus, meaning "hard." Some obvious relatives of this robust root are durable, endure and obdurate (meaning "unyielding" or "hardened in feelings"). Some others are dour (meaning "harsh," "unyielding," or "gloomy") and the preposition during.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 30, 2018 is:buttonhole \BUT-un-hohl\ verb: to detain in conversation by or as if by holding on to the outer garments ofExamples:"Her colleagues remember [Shila] Kaur at the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, buttonholing senior health officials and patiently explaining to them why people thousands of miles away needed better access to medicines or were worried about the rise of antibiotic resistance." — Andrew Green, The Lancet, 13 Jan. 2018"… rather than forcing her out, they turned her into a household name, someone who is stopped in the street by fans keen to take a selfie with a champion of human rights. And indeed I witnessed such popular support; she arrived a few minutes ahead of me, and had already been buttonholed by the time I stomped up those restaurant stairs." — Michael Short, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 12 May 2018Did you know?Buttonhole is easy to pin down as a noun referring to the slit or loop through which a button is passed to fasten something, but its shift to a verb meaning "to detain in conversation" requires some explanation. Buttonhole is an alteration of another verb now long out of use: buttonhold, which literally meant to hold on to the buttons or lapels of someone's coat when speaking to him or her. In the mid-19th century, English speakers altered the verb to buttonhole, perhaps as a result of hearing buttonhold as buttonholed. The overlap is apparent in an early instance of this spelling in an 1862 London publication called All Year Round: "The man who is button-holed, or held … and must listen to half an hour's harangue about nothing interesting."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 29, 2018 is:taciturn \TASS-uh-tern\ adjective: temperamentally disinclined to talkExamples:"The waiter, previously friendly and good-humored, was tonight solemn and taciturn." — Taylor Stevens, The Informationist, 2011"One was taciturn and steady; the other was volatile and virtuosic. When Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe met in the Wimbledon singles final in 1980, they provided a compelling study in contrasts, both in personality and playing style." — Andrew R. Chow, The New York Times, 5 July 2018Did you know?Taciturn shows up in English in the first half of the 18th century. James Miller, a British clergyman educated at Oxford, gives an early example of its use in his 1734 satiric drama, wherein a character describes a nephew with the following: "When he was little, he never was what they call Roguish or Waggish, but was always close, quiet, and taciturn." It seems we waited unduly long to adopt this useful descendent of the Latin verb tacēre, meaning "to be silent"; we were quicker to adopt other words from the tacēre family. We've been using tacit, an adjective meaning "expressed without words" or "implied," since at least the mid-17th century. And we've had the noun taciturnity, meaning "habitual silence," since at least the mid-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 August 28, 2018 is:lodestar \LOHD-stahr\ noun: one that serves as an inspiration, model, or guideExamples:"Tisvilde, on Zealand's north coast, stands out as a lodestar for the city's creative set, ever since two of those historic hotels, the Helenkilde Badehotel and Tisvilde Strandhotel, were tastefully renovated a decade ago by the former Royal Danish Ballet principal Alexander Kølpin." — Alex Postman, Condé Nast Traveler, March/April 2012  "I had to spend hours preparing to be half as good as Charles. I'm still working on it. Even before I knew him, he was my lodestar—and he always will be." — Marc A. Thiessen, The Washington Post, 13 June 2018Did You Know?The literal, albeit archaic, meaning of lodestar is "a star that leads or guides," and it is a term that has been used especially in reference to the North Star. (The first half of the word derives from the Middle English word lode, meaning "course.") Both the literal and the figurative sense ("an inspiration or guide") date back to the 14th century, the time of Geoffrey Chaucer. The literal sense fell out of use in the 17th century for the most part, and so, for a while, did the figurative sense—but it appeared again 170 years later, when Sir Walter Scott used it in his 1813 poem The Bridal of Triermain.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 27, 2018 is:rubric \ROO-brik\ noun1 : an authoritative rule; especially : a rule for conduct of a liturgical service2 : heading, title; also : class, category3 : an explanatory or introductory commentary : gloss; specifically : an editorial interpolation4 : an established rule, tradition, or custom5 : a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or testsExamples:"… Katharine Briggs (1875-1968) and her daughter, Isabel Myers (1897-1980), … devised a rubric that identified personality according to four 'easy to understand and easily relatable' categories: extravert or introvert, thinking or feeling, sensing or intuiting, judging or perceiving." — Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2018"The whole rubric of employer-employee relations is undergoing a transformation—and the approach of treating employees as mere units in an assembly line is fast becoming outdated. In today's context, the extent of a company's employee engagement does play a role in a professional's decision to join it." — Avik Chanda, quoted in Business World, 27 Apr. 2018Did You Know?Centuries ago, whenever manuscript writers inserted special instructions or explanations into a book, they put them in red ink to set them off from the black used in the main text. (They used the same practice to highlight saints' names and holy days in calendars, a practice which gave us the term red-letter day.) Ultimately, such special headings or comments came to be called rubrics, a term that traces back to ruber, the Latin word for "red." While the printing sense remains in use today, rubric also has an extended sense referring to any class or category under which something is organized.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 26, 2018 is:puissant \PWISS-unt\ adjective: of great force or vigor : strong, powerfulExamples:The article was written by one of the nation's most respected and puissant advocates for the rights of minorities."When Elektra finally understands and calls out his name, the orchestra unleashed a berserk fury of sound, after which Goerke floated a serene but puissant high note, beginning the ecstatic soliloquy that marks one of the opera's emotional high points." — Charles T. Downey, The Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2014Did You Know?Puissant has some powerful ties to some more commonplace English words. Although puissant has a considerably fancier feel than power and potent, all three words share the same Latin ancestor: posse, a verb meaning "to be able." (English posse, meaning "a group of people sharing some common interest," is also related to the Latin verb but came into the language via the Medieval Latin phrase posse comitatus, literally "power of the county.") Potent came from potent-, potens, a present participle of posse. Power came to us by way of Anglo-French poer, which itself comes from a Vulgar Latin alteration of posse. From poer also came the Anglo-French adjective pussant, meaning "able" or "powerful," and English speakers borrowed that to form puissant in 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 August 25, 2018 is:jaunty \JAWN-tee\ adjective: sprightly in manner or appearance : livelyExamples:"Hitching his wistful voice and elegant violin to a jaunty tempo suggesting an Appalachian hoedown, Andrew Bird evokes a sense of restless longing on this album, his 12th." — Jon Young, Mother Jones, March/April 2012"All this, Twain relates in a jaunty, first-person style, almost a cleaned-up, more formal version of the voice he used in his previous novel, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1885)." — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post, 3 July 2018Did You Know?You might not guess that the words jaunty and genteel are related—but they are. Both words evolved from the French word gentil, which carried the sense of "noble." At first jaunty was used, like genteel, for things aristocratic, but as the years went by people stopped using it that way. Today jaunty is used to describe things that are lively and perky rather than things that are aristocratic and elegant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 24, 2018 is:marshal \MAR-shul\ noun1 a : a high official in the household of a medieval king, prince, or noble originally having charge of the cavalry but later usually in command of the military forcesb : a person who arranges and directs the ceremonial aspects of a gathering2 a : field marshalb : a general officer of the highest military rank3 a : an officer having charge of prisonersb : a ministerial officer appointed for a judicial district (as of the U.S.) to execute the process of the courts and perform various duties similar to those of a sheriffc : a city law officer entrusted with particular dutiesd : the administrative head of a city police department or fire departmentExamples:The marshal confirmed that the house fires were arson and were likely set by the same person."On the first day, … the guy I was playing with ricocheted his ball off a tree and into a swamp. Lost ball. Except that when we get up there, the guy … says, 'Got it! Here it is!' and points down to a ball in the rough. I said, 'There's no way that's your ball. I watched it go into the swamp.' Even the marshal standing there agreed with me…." — Raymond Floyd, quoted in Golf Digest, June 2018Did You Know?Although most French words are derived from Latin, a few—among them marshal—are Germanic. In the last centuries of the Roman Empire, the Germanic Franks occupied what is now France and left behind a substantial linguistic legacy, including what became medieval French mareschal. Mareschal came from a Frankish compound noun corresponding to Old High German marahscal, composed of marah, meaning "horse" (Old English mearh, with a feminine form mere, whence English mare), and scalc, meaning "servant" (Old English scealc). The original marshal was a servant in charge of horses, but by the time the word was borrowed from French into English in the 14th century, it referred primarily to a high royal official.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 23, 2018 is:oblige \uh-BLYJE\ verb1 : to constrain by physical, moral, or legal force or by the exigencies of circumstance2 a : to put in one's debt by a favor or serviceb : to do a favor forc : to do something as or as if as a favorExamples:"Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall." — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1847"The band has been playing the anniversary shows around the country since mid-2017, and after West Coast fans demanded a local performance, the nine-piece ska band from Boston happily obliged." — Kelli Skye Fadroski, The Chico (California) Enterprise-Record, 29 June 2018Did You Know?Oblige shares some similarities with its close relative obligate, but there are also differences. Oblige derives via Middle English and the Anglo-French obliger from Latin obligare ("to bind to"), a combination of ob- ("to or toward") and ligare ("to bind"), whereas obligate descends directly from obligatus, the Latin past participle of obligare. Both oblige and obligate are frequently used in their past participle forms to express a kind of legal or moral constraint. Obligated once meant "indebted for a service or favor," but today it typically means "required to do something because the law requires it or because it is the right thing to do." Obliged is now the preferred term for the sense that Southern author Flannery O'Connor used in a 1952 letter: "I would be much obliged if you would send me six copies."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 22, 2018 is:exigent \EK-suh-junt\ adjective1 : requiring immediate aid or action2 : requiring or calling for much : demandingExamples:The patients were triaged so that exigent cases would be given immediate care."I have argued that a warrant to seize the needle should allow the police to seize the haystack to search for the needle. But there's a catch: The government should ordinarily not be allowed to use whatever else they find in the haystack. If the warrant is only to seize a needle, the police can only take away and use the needle, unless there are exigent circumstances exposed by the discovery of other evidence." — Orin Kerr, Reason, 29 June 2018Did You Know?Exigent is a derivative of the Latin present participle exigere, which means "to demand." Since its appearance in Middle English, the law has demanded a lot from exigent. It first served as a noun for a writ issued to summon a defendant to appear in court or else be outlawed. The noun's meaning was then extended to refer to other pressing or critical situations. Its adjectival sense followed and was called upon to testify that something was urgent and needed immediate aid or action. Nowadays, the adjective is seen frequently in legal contexts referring to "exigent circumstances," such as those used to justify a search by police without a warrant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 21, 2018 is:cerulean \suh-ROO-lee-un\ adjective: resembling the blue of the skyExamples:"The images in Nicolas Party's paintings are simple, vivid, inexplicably funny, and profoundly odd. He paints the face of a man in a brown hat with a large snail on top, against a background of cerulean blue." — Dodie Kazanjian, Vogue, June 2018"The new oceanfront pool is scheduled to debut by summer's end…; complete with cabanas and a second tiki bar serving food all day, it will bring guests even closer to the cerulean Atlantic." — Alexandra Kirkman, Forbes, 2 July 2018Did you know?Cerulean comes from the Latin word caeruleus, which means "dark blue" and is most likely from caelum, the Latin word for "sky." An artist rendering a sky of blue in oils or watercolors might choose a tube of cerulean blue pigment. Birdwatchers in the eastern U.S. might look skyward and see a cerulean warbler (Dendroica cerulea). Cerulean is not the only color name that's closely associated with the sky. Azure (which ultimately comes from a Persian word for "lapis lazuli," a rich blue stone) describes the color of a cloudless sky and can even be a noun meaning "the unclouded sky."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 20, 2018 is:satiety \suh-TYE-uh-tee\ noun1 : the quality or state of being fed or gratified to or beyond capacity : surfeit, fullness2 : the revulsion or disgust caused by overindulgence or excessExamples:"Yes, avocado is high in fat, but it's the good, monounsaturated kind that helps increase satiety so you feel full with fewer calories." — Georgia Downard, Self, June 2011"High fiber foods increase satiety, or the feeling of fullness, and reduce appetite. Feeling fuller for longer can reduce a person's overall calorie intake." — Laura Sant, The Preston Citizen, 20 June 2018Did you know?You may have accurately guessed that satiety is related to satisfy, satiate (meaning "to satisfy fully or to excess"), and sate (which means "to glut" or "to satisfy to the full"). Satiety, along with the others, ultimately comes from the Latin word satis, which means "enough." English speakers apparently couldn't get enough of satis- derived words in the 15th and 16th centuries, when all of these words entered the language. Satiety itself was borrowed into English in the mid-1500s from the Middle French word satieté 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 August 19, 2018 is:imperturbable \im-per-TER-buh-bul\ adjective: marked by extreme calm, impassivity, and steadiness : sereneExamples:The imperturbable captain did not panic when the boat sailed into the path of a violent storm."Synchronicity is no stranger to sports. Back in 2016, a clip of two synchronized swimmers, strutting toward the pool like cool, imperturbable twins, went briefly viral." — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 17 January 2018Did you know?There is an interesting time lag between the appearance of imperturbable and its antonym, perturbable. Although imperturbable is known to have existed since the middle of the 15th century, perturbable didn't show up in written English until 1800. The verb perturb (meaning "to disquiet" or "to throw into confusion") predates both imperturbable and perturbable; it has been part of English since the 14th century. All three words derive from Latin perturbare (also meaning "to throw into confusion"), which in turn comes from the combination of per- (meaning "thoroughly") and turbare, which means "to disturb." Other relatives of imperturbable include disturb and turbid.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 18, 2018 is:adulation \aj-uh-LAY-shun\ noun: excessive or slavish admiration or flatteryExamples:"It's hard to imagine the safest environment being one where thousands of people are within feet of you and millions more are watching your every move. But that was the case with Tiger Woods. … When he played, he was wrapped in a blanket of admiration, adulation and respect." — Frank Nobilo, Golf Digest, November 2017"I am very shy from the attention more so than I anticipated. Growing and increasing with time, the more adulation or positive feedback I get, the more reclusive I feel, which is really not something I anticipated." — Lorin Ashton, quoted in Billboard, 9 June 2017Did you know?If adulation makes you think of a dog panting after its master, you're on the right etymological track; the word ultimately derives from the Latin verb adulari, meaning "to fawn on" (a sense used specifically of the affectionate behavior of dogs) or "to flatter." Adulation, which came to us from Latin by way of Old French, can be traced back as far as the 15th century in English. The verb adulate, the noun adulator, and the adjective adulatory later joined the language.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 17, 2018 is:thwart \THWORT\ verb1 a : to oppose successfully : defeat the hopes or aspirations ofb : to run counter to so as to effectively oppose or baffle : contravene2 : to pass through or acrossExamples:The baby howled when her mother thwarted her in her effort to crawl up the stairs."… nearly 1,850 firefighters already working the blaze planned to build 'indirect lines'— containment lines placed in front of the fire's active edge—but were faced with the possibility that their efforts could be thwarted by the weather." — Sarah Ravani, The San Francisco Chronicle, 20 July 2018Did you know?Thwart and its synonyms foil and frustrate all suggest checking or defeating another's plan or preventing the achievement of a goal. Foil implies checking or defeating so as to discourage future efforts ("the police foiled the attempted robbery"), while frustrate suggests making all efforts, however vigorous or persistent, futile or ineffectual ("frustrated attempts at government reform"). Thwart usually indicates frustration caused by opposition ("the army thwarted an attempted coup").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 16, 2018 is:volatile \VAH-luh-tul\ adjective1 a : characterized by or subject to rapid or unexpected changeb : unable to hold the attention fixed because of an inherent lightness or fickleness of disposition2 a : tending to erupt into violence : explosiveb : easily arousedc : lighthearted, lively3 : readily vaporizable at a relatively low temperature4 : difficult to capture or hold permanently : evanescent, transitory5 : flying or having the power to flyExamples:Our financial advisor cautioned us to be conservative with our investments while the stock market was still volatile."A second round of testing has been ordered for a Massachusetts charter school where elevated levels of toxic chemicals were detected. … Initial testing … found high levels of petroleum and other volatile organic compounds." — The Associated Press, 8 July 2018Did you know?Volatile was originally for the birds—quite literally. Back in the 14th century, volatile was a noun that referred to birds (especially wild fowl) or other winged creatures, such as butterflies. That's not as flighty as it sounds. Volatile traces back to the Latin verb volare, which means "to fly." By the end of the 16th century, people were using volatile as an adjective for things that were so light they seemed ready to fly. The adjective was soon extended to vapors and gases, and by the early 17th century, volatile was being applied to individuals or things as prone to sudden change as some gaseous substances. In recent years, volatile has landed in economic, political, and technical contexts far flown from its avian origins.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 15, 2018 is:nonchalant \adjective\ nahn-shuh-LAHNT: having an air of easy unconcern or indifferenceExamples:"After the doors closed, the man … grabbed onto the train from the outside. And off he went, surfing through the subway tunnel while some commuters … rode unsuspecting inside, according to a video captured by another subway rider…. The video … shows the man holding on in a calm, nonchalant manner, even letting down one of his arms." — Samantha Schmidt, The Washington Post, 12 July 2018"By the time of [Jennifer] Lawrence's arrival, the teenage girl sitting next to me—a Hunger Games obsessive—was completely starstruck, gawping and garbling. Obviously, I was the nonchalant journalist, unfazed by fame and all that nonsense." — The London Evening Standard, 20 Jan. 2014Did you know?Since nonchalant ultimately comes from words meaning "not" and "be warm," it's no surprise that the word is all about keeping one's cool. The French word nonchalant, which strolled into English in the 1700s, has essentially held the same meaning in English as in French. It was derived from the Old French verb nonchaloir ("to disregard") and can be traced back to Latin non ("not") and calēre," meaning "to be warm." Unconcerned is one synonym of nonchalant, along with casual, complacent, and insouciant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 14, 2018 is:gaffer \GAF-er\ noun1 : an old man — compare gammer2 a British : foreman, overseerb British : employer3 : a head glassblower4 : a lighting electrician on a motion-picture or television setExamples:Before the first day of shooting, the gaffer spent several days setting up all the lights."There were no gaffers or best boys or Foley artists who called Wilmington home. Many folks didn't even know what all those words meant." — Amy Hotz, The Star-News (Wilmington, North Carolina), 11 May 2018Did you know?Though movie and cinema buffs associate gaffer with Hollywood, the word actually pre-dates motion pictures by about 300 years. The first recorded use of gaffer dates from the 16th century, when it was used as a title of respect for an older gentleman. Later it was used as a generic noun for any elderly man, and then it picked up the sense "foreman" (still used in British English), perhaps because the foreman was the most experienced and, most likely, the oldest person in a work crew. Today gaffer is usually applied to the head lighting electrician on a movie set. The gaffer's assistant is called the best boy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 13, 2018 is:orgulous \OR-gyuh-lus\ adjective: proudExamples:The hotel manager tended to adopt an orgulous air with those guests who were not regular visitors and who might be unaware of the building's rich and storied history."He astutely recognized that intimate relations with the orgulous Kennedys could only heighten his influence. Indeed, apart from Robert Kennedy and Douglas Dillon, McNamara was the only member of Kennedy's Cabinet to enter the president's social life." — Jacob Heilbrunn, The New Republic, 22 Mar. 1993Did you know?"In Troy, there lies the scene. From Isles of Greece / The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd, / Have to the port of Athens sent their ships." Thus William Shakespeare begins the Trojan War tale Troilus and Cressida, employing orgulous, a colorful word first adopted in the 13th century from Anglo-French orguillus. After the Bard's day, orgulous dropped from sight for 200 years; there is no record of its use until it was rejuvenated by the pens of Robert Southey and Sir Walter Scott in the early 1800s. 20th-century authors (including James Joyce and W. H. Auden) continued its renaissance, and it remains an elegant (if infrequent) choice for today's writers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 12, 2018 is:lapidary \LAP-uh-dair-ee\ noun1 : a cutter, polisher, or engraver of precious stones usually other than diamonds2 : the art of cutting gemsExamples:Lapidary is more of a science than an art: the cutter needs to be aware of the physical properties of the material before fashioning it."Even before it was acquired by Harry Winston in 2013, the 101.73-carat gem … was described by Christie's as 'the most perfect diamond ever offered for sale at auction.' It took two years for lapidaries to cut the flawless pear-shaped stone, which has since been named the Winston Legacy." — Town & Country, October 2017Did you know?The Latin word for "stone" is lapis; in that language, something "of or relating to stone" is described as lapidarius. Gem cutters obviously relate well to stone, and during the 14th century someone decided that lapidarius should be related to them. The spelling of the term was modified, and it was borrowed into English as a name for both gem cutters and their art. Since the 1700s, lapidary has also been used as an adjective describing things having the elegance and precision of inscriptions carved on stone monuments or things relating to the art of gem cutting.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 11, 2018 is:circuitous \ser-KYOO-uh-tus\ adjective1 : having a circular or winding course2 : not being forthright or direct in language or actionExamples:While either method will yield the correct answer, one is far less circuitous and therefore considered superior."The path has been circuitous and turbulent, but Andersen is back on a football field, back in those comfortable colors and trademark visor, and back at Utah." — Christopher Kamrani, The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah), 9 Mar. 2018Did you know?If you guessed that circuitous is related to circuit, you're right—both words come from Latin circuitus, the past participle of the verb circumire, meaning "to go around." Circumire is derived, in turn, from Latin circum, meaning "around," plus ire, which means "to go." Other circum descendants making the rounds in English include circumference ("the perimeter of a circle"), circumvent (one meaning of which is "to make a circuit around"), circumlocution ("the act of 'talking around' a subject"), and circumnavigate ("to go around"). There's also the prefix circum-, which means "around" or "about," and the familiar word circumstance, which describes a condition or event that "stands around" 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 August 10, 2018 is:rash \RASH\ adjective: marked by or proceeding from undue haste or lack of deliberation or cautionExamples:"I know you're upset about not getting a raise, but I think it would be rash to quit your job in protest," said Martha to her friend."We were at the mall, and two of my boys were bored and asked to ride the escalator up to the second floor while I checked out. We were in a department store where I could see the escalators from where I was standing and, being flustered and overwhelmed, I made a rash decision and said, 'Sure, one time.'" — Carmen Rasmusen Herbert, The Deseret News, 1 July 2018Did you know?The earliest known uses of rash (then spelled rasch) occur in a northern dialect of 15th-century Middle English. Its earlier origins are not known for sure, though it is clearly related to a number of similar words in the Germanic languages, including Old High German rasc ("fast, hurried, strong, clever"), Old Norse röskr ("brave, vigorous"), and Middle Dutch rasch ("quick, nimble, agile, vigorous"). It is not, however, related to the English noun rash ("an eruption on the body," as in a "skin rash"). The noun rash, which first appeared in English around 1700, comes by way of French and Vulgar Latin from Latin rasus, the past participle of radere ("to scrape" or "to shave").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 9, 2018 is:weald \WEELD\ noun1 : a heavily wooded area : forest2 : a wild or uncultivated usually upland regionExamples:"With food, terroir remains the best term to define how variations in landscape and climate in a place give a region a certain identity. This is aired strikingly, with Toby Glanville's photographs of the estuary and marshes, weald and orchards—a soothing greyness, an atmosphere of English Nordic to get you into the mood and cook Harris's recipes, mostly easy to make." — Rose Prince, The Spectator, 18 Nov. 2017"Challenger's house was on the very edge of the hill, and from its southern face, in which was the study window, one looked across the vast stretch of the weald to where the gentle curves of the South Downs formed an undulating horizon." — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Poison Belt, 1913Did you know?If weald were a tree, it would have many annual rings. It has been in use as a general word for "forest" since the days of Old English, and it has also long been used, in its capitalized form, as a geographic name for a once-heavily forested region of southeast England. Weald is also often capitalized today when used to refer to wooded areas like the Weald of Kent and the Weald of Sussex in England. In time, the word branched out to designate any wild and uncultivated upland regions. A related word is wold, meaning "an upland plain or stretch of rolling land."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 8, 2018 is:debunk \dee-BUNK\ verb: to expose the sham or falseness ofExamples:"Illusionists and comedians Penn and Teller have made a career out of pulling back the curtain, whether to reveal the methods magicians employ in their tricks or to debunk pseudoscientific claptrap on their former television series." — Marc Mohan, The Oregonian, 7 Mar. 2014"The show tells great stories, but it's also devoted to helping you debunk fantastical ones. Its recurring 'Skeptic Check' feature deflates pseudoscientific claims and conspiracy theories." — Erin Blakemore, The Washington Post, 26 June 2018Did you know?If you guessed that debunk has something to do with bunk, meaning "nonsense," you're correct. We started using bunk around the turn of the 20th century. (It derived, via bunkum, from a remark made by a congressman from Buncombe County, North Carolina.) Within a couple of decades, debunk was first used in print for the act of taking the bunk out of something. There are plenty of synonyms for debunk, including disprove, rebut, refute, and the somewhat rarer confute. Even falsify can mean "to prove something false," in addition to "to make something false." Debunk itself often suggests that something is not merely untrue but also a sham; one can simply disprove a myth, but if it is debunked, the implication is that it was a grossly exaggerated or foolish claim.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 7, 2018 is:fungible \FUN-juh-bul\ adjective1 : being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation2 : interchangeable3 : flexibleExamples:"The good news—in one way of looking at it—is that Sears had significant fungible assets of decent value to raise cash and a more than cozy relationship with a few willing buyers." — Steve Dennis, Forbes.com, 31 May 2018"The more difficult assessment is that this bizarro environment is a product of our resistance to the idea that our relationships to art and artists can be alive and fungible, that they can change." — Stephen Kearse, Pitchfork, 25 June 2018Did you know?Fungible—which derives from the Latin verb fungi, meaning "to perform" (no relation to the noun fungus and its plural fungi)—is a word that often shows up in legal and political contexts. Something fungible can be exchanged for something else of the same kind. For example, when we say "oil is a fungible commodity," we mean that when a purchaser is expecting a delivery of oil, any oil of the stipulated quantity and quality will usually do. Another example of something fungible is cash. It doesn't matter what twenty dollar bill you get—it's still worth the same amount as any other twenty dollar bill. In contrast, something like a work of art isn't fungible; a purchaser would expect a specific, identifiable item to be delivered. In broader use, fungible can mean "interchangeable," or sometimes "readily changeable to adapt to new 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 August 6, 2018 is:mufti \MUFF-tee\ noun: ordinary dress as distinguished from that denoting an occupation or station; especially : civilian clothes when worn by a person in the armed forcesExamples:"Norderval sings in a soaring, evocative line. Even in mufti, her performance, not as honed as it will be after another three weeks of rehearsals, is riveting." — Cynthia Robins, The San Francisco Chronicle, 17 June 2001"'I'm Chief Inspector Barnaby. Can I help you?' 'Well…' She eyed him doubtfully. 'May I ask why you're in mufti?' 'In what? Oh'—he followed her stern gaze. 'I'm a detective. Plain clothes.'" — Caroline Graham, The Killings at Badger's Drift, 1987Did you know?In the Islamic tradition, a mufti is a professional jurist who interprets Muslim law. When religious muftis were portrayed on the English stage in the early 19th century, they typically wore costumes that included a dressing gown and a tasseled cap—an outfit that some felt resembled the clothing preferred by the off-duty military officers of the day. The clothing sense of mufti, which first appeared in English around that same time, is thought to have developed out of this association of stage costume and civilian clothing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 5, 2018 is:bereft \bih-REFT\ adjective1 : deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something — usually used with of2 : lacking something needed, wanted, or expected — used with of3 : suffering the death of a loved one : bereavedExamples:"The sustaining whirlwind had let her down, to stumble on again …, bereft of moral support which is wanted in life more than all the charities of material help." — Joseph Conrad, Chance, 1913"People rarely relate intimate tales of misery and isolation on Facebook. Rather, social media postings typically feature fun and friendship, and people who lack them are likely to feel left out and bereft." — Jane E. Brody, The New York Times, 26 June 2018Did you know?In Old English, the verb berēafian meant "to plunder or rob." The modern equivalent (and descendant) of berēafian is bereave, a verb that implies that you have robbed or stripped someone of something, often suddenly and unexpectedly, and sometimes by force. Bereft comes from the past participle of bereave; Shakespeare uses the participle in The Merchant of Venice, when Bassanio tells Portia, "Madam, you have bereft me of all words." But by Shakespeare's day bereft was also being used as an adjective. The Bard uses it in The Taming of the Shrew, as a newly obedient and docile Katharina declares, "A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled—muddy, … thick, bereft of beauty."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.