Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 29, 2017 is:bludge \BLUJ\ verb1 : (chiefly Australia & New Zealand) to avoid work or responsibility2 : (chiefly Australia & New Zealand) to get something from or live on another by imposing on hospitality or good nature : spongeExamples:"I'll catch the ferry or bludge a ride on the new boat of one of my commodity-boomed nouveau riche friends." — Phil Haberland, The Guardian Express (Australia), 6 Mar. 2007"What I've never done, however, is use a hangover as an excuse to bludge." — Tom Elliott, The Herald Sun (Australia), 15 Sept. 2017Did you know?Though they can be annoying, people who bludge—bludgers—are relatively harmless. On the other hand, a bully armed with a bludgeon—a "bludgeoner"—can cause serious harm. In the 19th century, bludgeoner was shortened to bludger and used as a slang word for "pimp." That bludger was certainly a kind of bully, one apparently willing to wield a bludgeon now and then to insure his livelihood. In the early 20th century, bludge became the verb for what a bludger does. By then, a somewhat softened bludger had appeared in Australia and New Zealand: the pimping and the bullying were eliminated, and the parasitical tendencies reduced to mere cadging or sponging.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, 2017 is:harbinger \HAHR-bun-jer\ noun1 : one that initiates a major change : a person or thing that originates or helps open up a new activity, method, or technology : pioneer2 : something that foreshadows a future event : something that gives an anticipatory sign of what is to comeExamples:When the star running back went down with an injury in the team's first game, it turned out to be the harbinger of a disappointing season."A lot is riding on the results, which will be widely read as … a harbinger of the 2018 congressional midterm elections." — Laura Vozzella, The Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2017Did you know?When medieval travelers needed lodging for the night, they went looking for a harbinger. As long ago as the 12th century, harbinger was used to mean "one who provides lodging" or "a host," but that meaning is now obsolete. Later on, harbinger was also being used for a person sent ahead of a main party to seek lodgings, often for royalty or a campaigning army, but that old sense has largely been left in the past, too. Those sent ahead would announce the approach of who was following behind, and that's how our modern sense of harbinger (from the Anglo-French herberge, meaning "lodgings") acquired the sense with which we are familiar today, that of something which foretells a future event.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, 2017 is:anneal \uh-NEEL\ verb1 a : to heat and then cool (a material, such as steel or glass) usually for softening and making less brittle; also : to cool slowly usually in a furnaceb : to heat and then cool (double-stranded nucleic acid) in order to separate strands and induce combination at lower temperature with complementary strands2 : strengthen, toughen3 : to be capable of combining with complementary nucleic acid by a process of heating and coolingExamples:"Before and after the Eagles organized team activities last spring, Nelson Agholor retreated to his hometown for a series of training sessions with an old friend and mentor that would _anneal_ his mind as much as his body." — Mike Sielski, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9 Oct. 2017"Primarily I work in brass and silver-soldered brass. The process is heating and annealing the brass, bending it, soldering pieces together to get the general form and then slowly bending until the pieces fit." — Andrew Watt, quoted in The Washington Post, 10 Sept. 2017Did you know?If you were looking for a saying to apply to the word anneal, it might be "everything old is new again." The word was originally associated with one of the oldest technologies of humankind: fire. It derives from the Old English word onǣlan, which was formed from the Old English root āl, meaning "fire." In its earliest known uses, anneal meant simply "to set on fire." That sense has become obsolete, however, and nowadays anneal is associated with metalworking and glasswork as well as a much more recent technological development. As addressed in sense 3 of the definition, it has come to be used in the context of DNA research, in reference to the heating and cooling of double-stranded nucleic acid.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, 2017 is:illustrious \ih-LUSS-tree-us\ adjective: notably or brilliantly outstanding because of dignity or achievements or actions : eminentExamples:During the ceremony, the illustrious star of stage and screen was presented with a lifetime achievement award."For the first time, WWE's illustrious father-daughter duo 'Nature Boy' Ric Flair and Charlotte come together to tell their legendary story through their autobiography Second Nature…." — Jim Varsallone, The Miami Herald, 26 Sept. 2017Did you know?Illustrious people seem to light up everything around them. The etymology of illustrious makes it clear that a shining glow (both literal and figurative) has long been associated with the word. Illustrious derives from the Latin illustris, which was probably a back-formation of the verb illustrare ("to illustrate"), which in turn comes from lustrare, meaning "to purify" or "to make bright," and which is related to the Latin noun lustrum that gave us luster. At one time, illustrious was used in the literal sense of "shining brightly with light," but that meaning is now considered archaic. The word is today almost exclusively used in its figurative application to describe something that stands out brilliantly, much like a bright star stands out in the 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 November 25, 2017 is:non sequitur \NAHN-SEK-wuh-ter\ noun1 : an inference that does not follow from the premises2 : a statement (such as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously saidExamples:Unprepared for the question, the speaker gave a response that was a jumble of non sequiturs and irrelevant observations."Chicago scored well on 'digital security,' because, as the report notes, 'the city is home to several leading cyber security firms and in January its mayor … announced the launch of a new cyber security training initiative.' This non sequitur is like saying that New Jersey is the healthiest state because it is home to so many pharmaceutical companies." — Nicole Gelinas, City Journal, 20 Oct. 2017Did you know?In Latin, non sequitur means "it does not follow." The phrase was borrowed into English in the 1500s by people who made a formal study of logic. For them it meant a conclusion that does not follow from the statements that lead to it. But we now use non sequitur for any kind of statement that seems to come out of the blue. The Latin verb sequi ("to follow") has actually led the way for a number of English words. A sequel follows the original novel, film, or television show. Someone obsequious follows another about, flattering and fawning. And an action is often followed by its consequence.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, 2017 is:mucilaginous \myoo-suh-LAJ-uh-nus\ adjective1 : sticky, viscid2 : of, relating to, full of, or secreting mucilageExamples:"It started quietly last summer, when social media watchers began buzzing about it. Tweens had struck on a recipe for a mucilaginous, stomach-turning substance and were posting videos of themselves playing with it. The slime trend had hit." — Robert Klara, Adweek, 8 May 2017"… okra is best picked right off the vine, before it gets too big. For this recipe, a simple bath in milk, a romp in a bowl of flour and cornmeal, and a dip in hot oil are all that's needed to render the mucilaginous veggie into the ambrosial stuff of cafeteria dreams." — Courtney Bond, Texas Monthly, July 2016Did you know?Unlike its meanings, there's nothing terribly sticky about the origin and use of mucilaginous. Like thousands of other words in the English language, mucilaginous (and the noun mucilage) oozed out of Latin during the 15th century. Mucilage is from Late Latin's word for "mucus," mucilago, and is used for the gelatinous substance found in various plants, such as legumes or seaweeds. Mucilaginous stuck as the noun's adjective form and is used by scientists and foodies alike for sticky or mucous things.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 23, 2017 is:viand \VYE-und\ noun1 : an item of food; especially : a choice or tasty dish2 : (plural) provisions, foodExamples:"The family sat down to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands was deposited before them." — Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, 1891"No fewer than three restaurants are planned for the new hotel, including one at ground level, and two others on the top two floors of the building, providing city vistas along with the viands." — Lewis Lazare, The Chicago Business Journal, 13 May 2016Did you know?Are you someone who eats to live, or someone who lives to eat? Either way, you'll find that the etymology of viand reflects the close link between food and life. Viand was borrowed into English in the 15th century from the Anglo-French viaunde or viande (viande), meaning "meat," is still found in modern French usage). The Anglo-French viaunde derives ultimately from the Medieval Latin vivanda ("food"), an alteration of vivendus, a participial form of the verb vivere, meaning "to live." Vivere is the ancestor of a number of other lively and life-giving words in English, including victual, revive, survive, convivial, and vivacious.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, 2017 is:obliterate \uh-BLIT-uh-rayt\ verb1 a : to remove from recognition or memoryb : to remove from existence2 : to make undecipherable by wiping out or covering overExamples:The children's chalk drawings remained on the sidewalk until a rainstorm came along and obliterated them."That was before Hurricane Maria obliterated the only tropical rain forest in the United States forest system. Left behind was a scene so bare that on a recent visit, it was possible to see the concrete skyline of San Juan about 30 miles west—a previously unimaginable sight." — Luis Ferré-Sadurní, The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017Did you know?Far from being removed from existence, obliterate is thriving in our language today with various senses that it has acquired over the years. True to its Latin source, oblitteratus—from the prefix ob-, meaning "in the way," and littera, meaning "letter"—it began in the mid-16th century as a word for removing something from memory. Soon after, English speakers began to use it for the specific act of blotting out or obscuring anything written, and eventually its meaning was generalized to removing anything from existence. In the meantime, physicians began using obliterate for the surgical act of filling or closing up a vessel, cavity, or passage with tissue. Its final stamp on the English lexicon was delivered in the mid-19th century: "to cancel a postage or revenue stamp."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, 2017 is:wifty \WIF-tee\ adjective: eccentrically silly, giddy, or inane : ditzyExamples:"Developers are, by nature, dreamers and gamblers, seeing opportunity and growth where others see only the Steak & Bagel Train. Many developers appear a tad wifty, perhaps existing in some altered state of consciousness, but this project is in a class by itself." — Karen Heller, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 Oct. 2012"… he paints a tender and sensitive portrait of a modern-day Don Quixote trapped in his own grand, wifty delusions." — Laura Bennett, The Boston Globe, 2 July 2009Did you know?Wifty is a synonym of ditzy. And, like ditzy, its origins remain unknown. The earliest print evidence of wifty goes back to the early 20th century, though the word was certainly being used in spoken English before that. Ditzy stumbled into American slang decades later—we are able to trace it back to the 1970s. But dizzy, which in its Old English origins meant "foolish" or "stupid," has been used in a sense similar to ditzy or wifty since the 16th century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2017 is:bombinate \BAHM-buh-nayt\ verb: to make a sustained deep murmuring, humming, or buzzing sound : buzz, droneExamples:The only sounds Jared could hear in the office that night were those of his own typing and the air conditioner bombinating."Black-marketeers and scalpers began buzzing around the theatres, bombinating ceaselessly, … 'Ten-for-five, ten-for five, ten-for-five.'" — Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey, 1991Did you know?Bombinate sounds like it should be the province of bombastic blowhards who bound up and bombard you with droning blather at parties—and it is. The word derives from the Greek word bombos, a term that probably originated as an imitation of a deep, hollow sound (the kind we would likely refer to as "booming" nowadays). Latin speakers rendered the original Greek form as bombus, and that root gave forth a veritable din of raucous English offspring, including not only bombinate, but also bomb, bombard, and bound ("a leap or jump"). However, Latin bombus is not a direct ancestor of bombastic, which traces to bombyx, a Greek name for the silkworm.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, 2017 is:fervid \FER-vid\ adjective1 : very hot : burning2 : marked by often extreme intensity of feelingExamples:"Here at the Toronto International Film Festival, there are posters for an upcoming Guillermo del Toro-curated exhibit called 'Influences' that will let you sample the movies and books and music that fed the director's fervid imagination." — David Edelstein, Vulture, 14 Sept. 2017"The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to perform much of their aimless journeyings under the moon, and in the cool of the morning or evening twilight; the midday sun … being still too fervid to allow of noontide exposure." — Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, 1860Did you know?The Latin verb fervēre can mean "to boil" or "to glow," as well as, by extension, "to seethe" or "to be roused." In English, this root gives us three words that can mean "impassioned" by varying degrees: fervid, fervent, and perfervid. Fervid and fervent are practically synonymous, but while fervid usually suggests warm emotion that is expressed in a spontaneous or feverish manner (as in "fervid basketball fans"), fervent is reserved for a kind of emotional warmth that is steady and sincere (as in "a fervent belief in human kindness"). Perfervid combines fervid with the Latin prefix per- ("thoroughly") to create a word meaning "marked by overwrought or exaggerated emotion," as in "a perfervid display of patriotism."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, 2017 is:belaud \bih-LAWD\ verb: to praise usually to excessExamples:"Several cheers went up. Piccard, unaware of the scene unfolding behind him, seemed to think they were meant to belaud his plan." — Jake Silverstein, Nothing Happened and Then It Did: A Chronicle in Fact and Fiction, 2011"We believe it was about 1835 that Mr. Dearborn republished the Culprit Fay, which then, as at the period of its original issue, was belauded by the universal American press…." — Edgar Allan Poe, "J. G. C. Brainard" in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1850Did you know?You may recognize the word laud (meaning "to praise or extol") in belaud. In fact, belaud was formed by combining the prefix be- and the verb laud. Since be- can denote both "to a greater degree" and "excessively or ostentatiously," it perhaps should come as no surprise that while laud may imply praise to a deserved degree, belaud often has the connotations of unreasonable or undeserved praise. Incidentally, both laud and by extension belaud derive from the Latin verb laudare, which in turn traces back to laud-, meaning "praise." Other descendants of laud- in English include laudatory, laudable, and even laudation, meaning "an act of praising."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, 2017 is:jalousie \JAL-uh-see\ noun1 : a blind with adjustable horizontal slats for admitting light and air while excluding direct sun and rain2 : a window made of adjustable glass louvers that control ventilationExamples:The rooms of the little bungalow were protected from the brutal tropical heat by wooden jalousies."All the old jalousies have been replaced with new windows framed in mahogany, but many interior doors and much of the original hardware have been retained." — Christine Davis, The Palm Beach Daily News, 14 July 2011Did you know?Etymologists are clear on the source of the word jalousie—it's French for "jealousy"—but the relationship between the emotion and the window treatments originally referred to as jalousies is not something they've speculated much about. Is it that those peering out through the original jalousie blinds were jealous of the people outside? Or is it more likely that the jealousy festered in the hearts of those outside, who could see the blinds but not the faces and lives of the people they hid? This excerpt from the October 23, 1766 entry in the Duchess of Northumberland's diary perhaps provides a clue: "Rows of Seats with Jalousies in Front that [the women] may not be seen."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, 2017 is:lollygag \LAH-lee-gag\ verb: to spend time idly, aimlessly, or foolishly : dawdleExamples:Owen had a habit of lollygagging in the morning when he was supposed to be getting ready for school, and that meant that he was sometimes late."We were spoiled in the heart of summer by daylight that lingered until 10 p.m. We felt no sense of hurry. We could get home from work and still have almost five hours to lollygag away catching walleyes, water-skiing or having picnics on the beach." — Sam Cook, The Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune, 29 Sept. 2017Did you know?You certainly didn't want to be known as a lollygagger at the beginning of the 20th century. Back then, lollygag was slang for "fooling around" (sexually, that is). That sense of lollygag was in use at least as long ago as 1868, and it probably originated as an alteration of the older (and more dawdlingly innocent) lallygag. Nowadays, lollygag doesn't usually carry such naughty connotations, but back in 1946, one Navy captain considered lollygagging enough of a problem to issue this stern warning: "Lovemaking and lollygagging are hereby strictly forbidden.... The holding of hands, osculation and constant embracing of WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service], corpsmen or civilians and sailors or any combination of male and female personnel is a violation of naval discipline...."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, 2017 is:proximity \prahk-SIM-uh-tee\ proximity: the quality or state of being proximate : closenessExamples:"[T]he company's main advantages as an exporter include proximity to the U.S. market, quality of production and its ability to alter production to suit the needs and design tastes of U.S. consumers." — Thomas Russell, Furniture Today, 4 Oct. 2017"Common interests, shared experiences and momentum are the things that bind superficial relationships…, but remove the natural closeness that proximity creates and you find that having once shared a few high school classes is not enough to sustain a lifelong relationship." — Jonathan Look, Forbes, 24 Sept. 2017Did you know?The history of proximity hinges on the idea of closeness, both physical and metaphorical. English speakers borrowed the word from Middle French, which in turn acquired it from Latin proximitat-, proximitas, forms of the adjective proximus, meaning "nearest" or "next." A number of other languages, including [Catalan](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Catalan), Portuguese, and Italian, derived similar words from Latin proximus. Other descendants of proximus in English include proximal, proximate, and the somewhat more rare approximal (meaning "contiguous").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, 2017 is:stellar \STEL-er\ adjective1 a : of or relating to the stars : astralb : composed of stars2 : of or relating to a theatrical or film star3 a : principal, leadingb : outstandingExamples:Kelly's stellar academic record should help her gain acceptance to almost any college she wants to attend."The carbon-rich asteroid is like a time capsule from more than 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system formed. Scientists hope that the samples that Osiris-Rex collects and brings to Earth in 2023 will contain clues from the earliest history of our stellar neighborhood." — Nicholas St. Fleur, The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2017Did you know?Stella, the Latin word for "star," shines brightly in the word constellation, but stella words have been favored by scientists to describe earthly things as much as heavenly bodies. Stellar was once used to mean "star-shaped." That use is no longer current, but today biologists and geologists might use one of these synonyms: stellular, stellate, and stelliform. Poets, too, have looked to stella. John Milton used stellar in its infancy when he wrote in Paradise Lost "these soft fires … shed down their stellar virtue." Stellar shot into its leading role as a synonym of star (as when we say "stellar pupil") in the late 1800s.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, 2017 is:roué \roo-AY\ noun: a man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure : rakeExamples:"Hugh Grant, as a roué who seems to realize that his charm is a regrettably cheap commodity, enjoyed something of a comeback in Florence Foster Jenkins." — Tom Gliatto, People, 17 Jan. 2017       "[Roger Moore's] Bond was a roué, a bounder, a debonair playboy not remotely like a real spy and arguably all the better for it." — Alex Bilmes, Esquire, 25 May 2017See 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 12, 2017 is:shilly-shally \SHIL-ee-SHAL-ee\ verb1 : to show hesitation or lack of decisiveness or resolution2 : dawdleExamples:"As for buying Concord grapes at either a farm stand or a supermarket, the rule of thumb is, when you see them, claim them. Don't shilly-shally, because the season for this most coveted of grapes is fleeting." — Heidi Legenbauer Williams, The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, New York), 9 Sept. 2016"He chaired a meeting this month that called on reluctant officials not to shilly-shally with economic and social reforms…." — The Economist, 18 Feb. 2017Did you know?Shall I? Shall I? When you just don't know what to do, it may feel as if asking that question twice will somehow help you decide. The 17th century saw the use of the phrase "stand shall I, shall I" to describe vacillation or indecision. By that century's end, the phrase had been altered to "shill I, shall I," most likely because people just liked the vowel alteration (that's the same process that gave us dillydally and wishy-washy). Soon after, the adverbial shilly-shally made the jump from slang to literature and writers began applying it as an adjective, a noun, and a verb as well.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2017 is:doughty \DOW-tee\ adjective: marked by fearless resolution : valiantExamples:Noticing that the cashier shorted him a nickel, the doughty child marched up to the counter and demanded it from her."The early lighthouse keepers were a doughty lot, and had to be, insofar as their job wasn't merely to light the wick, but save the occasional ship that foundered…." — Verne Gay, Newsday, 26 May 2010Did you know?Doughty is a persevering English word. In Old English, it shows up as dohtig, which was probably an alteration of dyhtig that resulted from the influence of the Old English dohte, meaning "had worth." By the 13th century, the spelling doughty had begun to appear. The expected pronunciation would be \DAW-tee\, paralleling other similarly spelled old words like bought and sought. But over the centuries, the spelling was sometimes confused with that of the now-obsolete word doubty, meaning "full of doubt," and thus, so it is conjectured, we have the pronunciation we use today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 10, 2017 is:pathos \PAY-thahss\ noun1 : an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion2 : an emotion of sympathetic pityExamples:"Clowns have always been represented as tricksters and jokers, from the days of jesters all the way through Ronald McDonald, but the high jinks were always paired with pathos and humanity." — Vulture, 7 Sept. 2017"The best survival movies are often harrowing; packed with loss and pathos while testing the limits of human endurance." — Mathew DeKinder, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 Oct. 2017Did you know?The Greek word pathos means "suffering," "experience," or "emotion." It was borrowed into English in the 16th century, and for English speakers, the term usually refers to the emotions produced by tragedy or a depiction of tragedy. Pathos has quite a few kin in English. Pathetic is used to describe things that move us to pity. Empathy is the ability to feel the emotions of another. Though pathology is not literally "the study of suffering," it is "the study of diseases." You can probably guess at more relatives of pathos. Sympathy, apathy, antipathy, sociopath, and psychopath are a few.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 9, 2017 is:cotton \KAH-tun\ verb1 : to take a liking — used with to2 : to come to understand — used with to or on toExamples:"He was so much fun to have in the company. He had that warm, inviting voice. Audiences just cottoned to him." — Gary Gisselman, quoted in The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 3 Mar. 2016"This exhibition—like many of [Jim] Henson's shows—is mainly for adults, concerned with the craft of puppetry and the expansion of broadcast media…. Henson, born in Greenville, Miss., in 1936, had an early gift for landscape drawing, but he cottoned on quickly to the potentials of a new medium—and to the branding opportunities that the medium would allow." — Jason Farago, The New York Times, 21 July 2017Did you know?The noun cotton first appears in English in the late Middle Ages. It comes, via Anglo-French and Old Italian, from the Arabic word for cotton, quṭun or quṭn. In the 15th century, cotton acquired a verb use meaning "to form a nap on (cloth)." Though this verb sense is now obsolete, our modern-day use might have spun from it. In 1822, English philologist Robert Nares reported that cotton had been used to mean "to succeed" and speculated that this use came from "the finishing of cloth, which when it cottons, or rises to a regular nap, is nearly or quite complete." The meaning of cotton shifted from "to get on well" to "to get on well together," and eventually to the sense we know today, "to take a liking to." The "understand" sense appeared later, in the early 20th 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 November 8, 2017 is:mandarin \MAN-drin\ adjective1 : of, relating to, or typical of a public official in the Chinese Empire of any of nine superior grades2 : marked by polished ornate complexity of languageExamples:"I don't think there's anything about the novel that doesn't impress me: its stream of satirical invention…; its mandarin prose that perfectly conjures the trancelike drift of a modern consciousness overwhelmed by detail; and its breathtaking risks with structure…." — Alan Moore, quoted in The International New York Times, 10 Sept. 2016"The good doctor's prose is measured and self-assured, replete with allusions to classical texts. Here is a wonderfully lively, promiscuous mind, unashamed of its erudition. The voice attains a richly spun, mandarin quality; the text comes to have the feeling of so much silk." — Rafael Campo, The Washington Post, 22 Nov. 1998Did you know?The Portuguese were the first to refer to a Chinese official as a "mandarin." The word hails from the Portuguese word mandarim, which developed, by way of Malay měntěri, from Sanskrit mantrin, meaning "counselor." Mandarins were promoted by successfully completing the imperial Chinese examination system, which was primarily based on the teachings of Confucian texts. In time, mandarin became a word for a pedantic official, a bureaucrat, or a person of position and influence. The noun passed into the English language in the late 16th century, and the adjective appeared in the early 17th. You may also know Mandarin as a word for the chief dialect of China or be familiar with the mandarin orange (the fruit's name comes from the orange color of a mandarin official's robe).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 7, 2017 is:archetype \AHR-kih-type\ noun1 : the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies : prototype; also : a perfect example 2 : a transcendent entity that is a real pattern of which existing things are imperfect representations : idea3 : (psychology) an inherited idea or mode of thought in the psychology of C. G. Jung that is derived from the experience of the race and is present in the unconscious of the individualExamples:"That archetype of the clean-cut, indefatigable and incorruptible agent was largely the invention of J. Edgar Hoover, who led the FBI for 48 years, from May 1924 to May 1972." — Vanessa Romo, NPR.org, 13 July 2017"In Nashville, … [Shania] Twain has come to be embraced as an elder and an archetype. Carrie Underwood had to prove that she could handle one of Twain's hits when she competed on American Idol en route to becoming one of the reigning pop-country figures of the post-Shania era." — Jewly Hight, Vulture, 29 Sept. 2017Did you know?Archetype derives via Latin from the Greek adjective archetypos ("archetypal"), formed from the verb archein ("to begin" or "to rule") and the noun typos ("type"). (Archein also gave us the prefix arch-, meaning "principal" or "extreme," used to form such words as archenemy, archduke, and archconservative.) Archetype has specific uses in the fields of philosophy and psychology. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, for example, believed that all things have ideal forms (aka archetypes) of which real things are merely shadows or copies. And in the psychology of C. G. Jung, archetype refers to an inherited idea or mode of thought that is present in the unconscious of the individual. In everyday prose, however, archetype is most commonly used to mean "a perfect example of 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 November 6, 2017 is:esemplastic \ess-em-PLASS-tik\ adjective: shaping or having the power to shape disparate things into a unified wholeExamples:"Art achieves its impact from something Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its esemplastic power, the ability to make sense out of chaos, to 'shape into one' the many truths around us." — Teresa Jordan, The Year of Living Virtuously: Weekends Off, 2014 "The prison walls of self had closed entirely round him; he was walled completely by the esemplastic power of his imagination…." — Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, 1929Did you know?"Unusual and new-coined words are, doubtless, an evil; but vagueness, confusion, and imperfect conveyance of our thoughts, are a far greater," wrote English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Biographia Literaria, 1817. True to form, in that same work, he assembled esemplastic by melding the Greek phrase es hen, meaning "into one," with plastic to fulfill his need for a word that accurately described the imagination's ability to shape disparate experiences into a unified whole (e.g., the poet's imaginative ability to communicate a variety of images, sensations, emotions, and experiences in the unifying framework of a poem). The verb intensify was another word that Coleridge was compelled to mint while writing Biographia.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 5, 2017 is:parable \PAIR-uh-bul\ noun: example; specifically : a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principleExamples:The priest opened his homily by relating the parable of the Good Samaritan, from the Gospel of Luke."Remotely based on the 1844 Hans Christian Andersen tale 'The Snow Queen,' a parable about faith and friendship, the movie ['Frozen'] retained only the central metaphor of a woman who can freeze people's hearts with her witchcraft." — Jesse Green, The New York Times, 15 Sept. 2017Did you know?Parable comes to us via Anglo-French from the Late Latin word parabola, which in turn comes from Greek parabolē, meaning "comparison." The word parabola may look familiar if you remember your geometry. The mathematical parabola refers to a kind of comparison between a fixed point and a straight line, resulting in a parabolic curve; it came to English from New Latin (Latin as used since the end of the medieval period, especially in scientific description and classification). Parable, however, descends from Late Latin (the Latin language used by writers in the 3rd to 6th centuries). The Late Latin term parabola referred to verbal comparisons: it essentially meant "allegory" or "speech." Other English descendants of Late Latin parabola are parole and palaver.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 4, 2017 is:stridulate \STRIJ-uh-layt\ verb: to make a shrill creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures — used especially of male insects (such as crickets or grasshoppers)Examples:"When attacked from the side, the crickets stridulated and tried to bite their attacker." — Matt Walker, BBC News, 28 July 2009"Every day throughout the year begins and ends with … insects rattling and stridulating, and birds singing their hearts out." — Alex Shoumatoff, Yale Environment 360, 18 May 2017Did you know?Stridulate is one member of a word family that has its ancestry in the Latin word stridulus, meaning "shrill." The word alludes to the sharp, high-pitched sound that is produced by a number of insects—particularly crickets and grasshoppers but also certain beetles—as well as other animals, usually as a mating call or a signal of territorial behavior. Stridulus comes from stridere, which is the direct source of our noun stridor, a word found in medical dictionaries. Stridor means "a harsh, shrill, or creaking noise" and also "a harsh vibrating sound heard during respiration in cases of obstruction of the air passages."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 3, 2017 is:tin-pot \TIN-PAHT\ adjective: cheap or trivial of its kind : petty, small-time, two-bitExamples:"Every fascist, authoritarian and tin-pot dictator in history has tried to shut down dissent." — Michael Goodwin, The New York Post, 15 June 2017"What a gaggle of tin-pot soldiers we were, the intelligent bored silly, the mediocre exhausted, and the dense frightened out of their wits." — Paul West, Harper's, January 2009Did you know?Tin has never commanded as much respect as some other metals. As a reflection of this, its name has long been used in terms denoting the tawdry or petty. Tin-pot has been used for minor or insignificant things or people since the early 1800s. Tinhorn has named fakes or frauds (especially gamblers) since the second half of that century, and tin lizzie has been a nickname for an inexpensive car since Ford introduced the Model T. Another example is tin-pan, meaning "noisy, harsh, tinny." That word features in the name of the famous Tin Pan Alley, in which it evokes the tinny sound of pianos pounded furiously by musicians plugging tunes to producers.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 2, 2017 is:clew \KLOO\ noun1 : a ball of thread, yarn, or cord2 : something that guides through an intricate procedure or maze of difficulties : clue3 a : a lower corner or only the after corner of a sailb : a metal loop attached to the lower corner of a sailc : (plural) a combination of lines by which a hammock is suspendedExamples:"High overhead, topmen scrambled to furl and unfurl sails and tend to yards and booms and spars and various clews." — Corey Kilgannon, The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2009"But this boldness that I took to be presumption was a vital clew to the nature of Ernest Everhard." — Jack London, The Iron Heel, 1908Did you know?The "ball of thread" meaning of clew (from Middle English clewe and ultimately from Old English cliewen) has been with us since before the 12th century. In Greek mythology, Ariadne gave a ball of thread to Theseus so that he could use it to find his way out of her father's labyrinth. This, and similar tales, gave rise to the use of clew for anything that could guide a person through a difficult place. This use led, in turn, to the meaning "a piece of evidence that leads one toward the solution of a problem." Today, the variant spelling clue, which appeared in the 17th century, is the more common spelling for the "evidence" sense, but you'll find clew in some famous works of literature. Also, clew is the only choice for the sailing senses.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 1, 2017 is:apodictic \ap-uh-DIK-tik\ adjective: expressing or of the nature of necessary truth or absolute certaintyExamples:"On the humbler level of recorded evidence, what is one to make of a thinker-scholar who ruled with apodictic, magisterial certainty that 'Shakespeare's tragedies are second-class with the exception of Lear'?" — George Steiner, The Times Literary Supplement, 4 June 1993"Her writing, collected in a volume titled Sweet Nothings (a title intended, one suspects, to ward off serious criticism), has an apodictic, take-it-or-leave-it quality: 'Art is a low-risk, high-reward crime.'" — Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, Winter 2016Did you know?Apodictic is a word for those who are confident about that of which they speak. It's a handy word that can describe a conclusive concept, a conclusive person, or even that conclusive person's conclusive remarks. A well-known close relative of apodictic is paradigm ("an outstandingly clear or typical example"); both words are built on Greek deiknynai, meaning "to show." More distant relatives (from Latin dicere, a relative of deiknynai that means "to say") include diction, dictate, edict, and predict.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 31, 2017 is:werewolf \WAIR-woolf\ noun: a person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming a wolf's formExamples:"The John Landis-directed video opens with a disclaimer stating that by creating the music video, [Michael] Jackson in no way endorsed supernatural practices—which includes the belief that humans could ever transform into werewolves." — Leslie Richin, Billboard.com, 2 Dec. 2016"It's true, the fashion community and the supernatural don't always mix. Werewolves, for one, are not very respectful when it comes to their outfits—they tend to tear away their clothes." — Marshall Heyman, Harper's, 14 Feb. 2017Did you know?Though some doubts about the word's etymology still remain, werewolf probably comes from a prehistoric West Germanic compound whose constituent parts gave Old English wer ("man") and wulf ("wolf"). The word is related to Middle Dutch weerwulf and Old High German werwolf. Another rather obscure word for werewolf is lycanthrope, which traces back through Latin to a Greek combination of lyk- (from lykos, meaning "wolf") and anthrōpos (meaning "human being"). English also sometimes makes use of the French-derived word loup-garou, from Old French leu ("wolf") and garoul or garulf (a word of Germanic origin meaning "werewolf").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2017 is:descry \dih-SKRYE\ verb1 : to catch sight of2 : find out, discoverExamples:In their research, the psychologists descried an association between violent crime and hot weather."Recent construction work on the Borough side had uncovered a cache of human bones. Builders soon reported strange noises and moving objects, and some refused to work. A visiting medium claimed to descry hundreds of tortured souls, including the shade of Guy Fawkes." — Matt Brown, Time Out, 20 Feb. 2008Did you know?With descry and the more common decry ("to express strong disapproval of"), we have a case of linguistic double-dipping. That is, English borrowed from the same French root twice. Both words ultimately come from the Old French verb decrier, meaning "to proclaim" or "to decry." English speakers borrowed the term as descry in the 14th century and used it to mean "to proclaim" or "to spy out from a distance" (as a watchman might), and eventually simply "to catch sight of" or "discover." Meanwhile, in French, decrier itself developed into the modern French décrier ("to disparage, to decry"). English speakers borrowed this word as decry in the 17th century. Be careful not to confuse descry and decry. They may be close relatives, but in modern English they have distinct meanings.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2017 is:causerie \kohz-REE\ noun1 : an informal conversation : chat2 : a short informal essayExamples:The professor invited the award-winning playwright to her class to have a causerie with her literature students."[The book] is, to be technical, a causerie, a brilliant and engaging, though none too rigorous, monologue by a self-described archaeologist of gossip, a man who has been everywhere and seen everything and known everyone…." — Simon Callow, _The Guardian_ (UK), 15 Mar. 2017Did you know?Causerie first appeared in English in the early 19th century, and it can be traced back to French causer ("to chat") and ultimately to Latin causa ("cause, reason"). The word was originally used to refer to a friendly or informal conversation. Then, in 1849, the author and critic Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve began publishing a weekly column devoted to literary topics in the French newspaper Le Constitutionnel. These critical essays were called "Causeries du lundi" ("Monday chats") and were later collected into a series of books of the same name. After that, the word causerie acquired a second sense in English, referring to a brief, informal article or essay.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2017 is:alfresco \al-FRESS-koh\ adjective or adverb: taking place or located in the open air : outdoor, outdoorsExamples:The restaurant has a lovely outdoor patio for customers who want to dine alfresco."The sleek San Fernando Road gym features ... a hand-built lounge area with highlighter-hued patio furniture and ... alfresco exercise mats and boxing bags. — Sophia Kercher, The Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2017Did you know?In addition to describing a type of dining, alfresco can also describe a kind of painting. The word fresco, which comes from the Italian adjective fresco, meaning "fresh," refers to a method of painting on fresh plaster. Although the "outdoors" sense of alfresco is by far the most common in current use, the term is sometimes used to describe painting done in the fresco manner—that is, on fresh plaster.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2017 is:wardrobe \WOR-drohb\ noun1 a : a room or closet where clothes are keptb : a receptacle for clothes : clothespressc : a large trunk in which clothes may be hung upright2 a : a collection of wearing apparel (as of one person or for one activity)b : a collection of stage costumes and accessories3 : the department of a royal or noble household entrusted with the care of wearing apparel, jewels, and personal articlesExamples:Over the years, Sandra has managed to acquire a large and varied wardrobe."Stylists will be on hand to guide shoppers to a personalized wardrobe, which customers can then order online to be delivered to the store that same day." — Travis M. Andrews, The Los Angeles Times, 13 Sept. 2017Did you know?There is a lot of word history packed into wardrobe. The word was borrowed by Middle-English speakers from a variant of Anglo-French garderobe. A combination of garder and robe, garderobe itself has been borrowed into English as a synonym of wardrobe. If the roots of garderobe look familiar, it is because they are the source of a number of different English words. Garder has given us the verbs guard and ward. And French robe, of course, is the source of the English robe and shares its own origins with the English verbs rob and reave (a synonym of plunder). If this connection seems odd, it might help to know that robe can be traced back to Germanic origins related to the Old High German words roub ("booty" or "looted clothing") and roubōn ("to rob").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 26, 2017 is:slapdash \SLAP-dash\ adjective: done or made without careful planning : haphazard, slipshodExamples:"Sunflower Cottage just above the weir had been taken by two female animals…. More, it was being done properly, the River Bank's housewives agreed. There was none of this casual, slapdash housekeeping that bachelor gentlemen were so apt to consider sufficient." — Kij Johnson, The River Bank: A Sequel to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, 2017"Much to my surprise, Gus didn't take me to task regarding my chronic gerund abuse or my slapdash approach to punctuation." — Jerry Nelson, The Farm Forum (Aberdeen, South Dakota), 11 Sept. 2017Did you know?One of the first known uses of slapdash in English came in 1679 from the British poet and dramatist John Dryden, who used it as an adverb in his play The kind keeper; or Mr. Limberham: "Down I put the notes slap-dash." The Oxford English Dictionary defines this sense in part as "[w]ith, or as with, a slap and a dash," perhaps suggesting the notion of an action (such as painting) performed with quick, imprecise movements. Over 100 years later, the word acquired the adjectival sense with which we are more familiar today, describing something done in a hasty, careless, or haphazard manner.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2017 is:overwhelm \oh-ver-WELM\ verb1 : upset, overthrow2 a : to cover over completely : submergeb : to overcome by superior force or numbersc : to overpower in thought or feelingExamples:"The ships … [are] small enough to maneuver into tricky anchorages and light enough on passengers to not overwhelm the wildlife or fragile communities they access." — Sophy Roberts, Traveler, September 2017"Studies have shown that people can feel empathy, attachment, and other emotions toward robots that exhibit signs of life.… When [the Mars rover] Curiosity serenaded itself with a robotic version of 'Happy Birthday' a few years ago—a very human act—some people were in tears, overwhelmed by sympathy for a machine…." — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 15 Sept. 2017Did you know?You could say that the introduction of _overwhelm_ to the English language was a bit redundant. The word, which originally meant "to overturn or upset," was formed in Middle English by combining the prefix over- with the verb whelmen, which also meant "to overturn." Whelmen has survived in English as whelm, a verb which is largely synonymous with overwhelm. Since their appearance in the 14th century, however, overwhelm has won over English speakers who have come to largely prefer it to whelm, despite the latter's brevity. Perhaps the emphatic redundancy of overwhelm makes it seem like the more fitting word for describing the experience of being overcome by powerful forces or feelings.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2017 is:pelf \PELF\ noun: money, richesExamples:"Nowadays Western Union is good only if you want to wire cash to your child in college or pelf to a partner in peril." — Vincent L. Hall, The Dallas Morning News, 19 June 2011"The glitter of guineas is like the glitter of buttercups, the chink of pelf is like the chime of bells, compared with the dreary papers and dead calculations which make the hobby of the modern miser." — G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men, 1912Did you know?In the late Middle Ages, the Anglo-French word pelfre, meaning "booty" or "stolen goods," was borrowed into English as pelf with the added meaning of "property." (Pelfre is also an ancestor of the English verb pilfer, meaning "to steal.") Eventually, pelf showed gains when people began to use it for "money" and "riches." In some regions of Britain the word's use was diversified further, in a depreciative way, to refer to trash and good-for-nothings. The first of those meanings was a loss by about the mid-17th century; the second has little value outside of the Yorkshire region of England.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 23, 2017 is:burke \BERK\ verb1 : to suppress quietly or indirectly  2 : bypass, avoidExamples:The mob boss dropped a few well-timed bribes to prosecutors in an effort to burke any investigation into possible wrongdoing."There is, however, a respectable and reasonable ethical argument against clinical trials of correctional treatment methods which must not be burked in our enthusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge." — Norval Morris, "Should Research Design and Scientific Merits Be Evaluated?," in Experimentation with Human Beings, 1972Did you know?When an elderly pensioner died at the Edinburgh boarding house of William Hare in 1827, the proprietor and his friend William Burke decided to sell the body to a local anatomy school. The sale was so lucrative that they decided to make sure they could repeat it. They began luring nameless wanderers (who were not likely to be missed) into the house, getting them drunk, then smothering or strangling them and selling the bodies. The two disposed of at least 15 victims before murdering a local woman whose disappearance led to their arrest. At Burke's execution (by hanging), irate crowds shouted "Burke him!" As a result of the case, the word burke became a byword first for death by suffocation or strangulation and eventually for any cover-up.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2017 is:nuncupative \NUN-kyoo-pay-tiv\ adjective: spoken rather than written : oralExamples:"He left me a small Legacy in a nuncupative Will, as a Token of his Kindness for me, and he left me once more to the wide World." — Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1791"He did leave a will in which he bequeathed everything to Rebecca; but it turns out that John's will was not a written will. It was a nuncupative will, which means on his deathbed, John verbally told persons how he wanted his estate divided or dispensed." — Sharon Tate Moody, The Tampa (Florida) Tribune, 27 Dec. 2015Did you know?Nuncupative (from Latin nuncupare, meaning "to name") has been part of the English language since at least the 15th century, most typically appearing in legal contexts as a modifier of the noun will. The nuncupative will originated in Roman law, where it consisted of an oral declaration made in the presence of seven witnesses and later presented before a magistrate. Currently, nuncupative wills are allowed in some U.S. states in extreme circumstances, such as imminent peril of death from a terminal illness or from military or maritime service. Such wills are dictated orally but are usually required to be set down in writing within a statutorily specified time period, such as 30 days. Witnesses are required, though the number seven is no longer specified.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 21, 2017 is:adversity \ad-VER-suh-tee\ noun: a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortuneExamples:The movie is about a group of determined mountain climbers who triumph in the face of adversity."In this way, [the movie] 'It' was meant to reflect how our childhood experiences and fears influence the people we become, and how our adult selves use that to deal with adversity." — Maria Sciullo, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 17 Sept. 2017Did you know?Adversity, mishap, misfortune, and mischance all suggest difficulty of one sort or another. Adversity particularly applies to a state of grave or persistent misfortune (as in "a childhood marked by great adversity"). Mishap suggests an often trivial instance of bad luck (as in "the usual mishaps of a family vacation"). Misfortune is the most common and the most general of the terms, often functioning as a simple synonym of "bad luck" (as in "having the misfortune to get a flat tire on the way to their wedding"). Mischance applies especially to a situation involving no more than slight inconvenience or minor annoyance (as in "a small mischance that befell us").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 20, 2017 is:knee-jerk \NEE-jerk\ adjective: readily predictable : automatic; also : reacting in a readily predictable wayExamples:The letter to the editor asserted that the proposed institution of a curfew was a knee-jerk reaction to the problem of an uptick of nighttime crime in the city."The habitual or knee-jerk apologist runs a great risk of losing herself through all her apologies. She sees so many of the things she does as offenses or wrongs and takes responsibility for things that are not properly hers." — Peg O'Connor, Psychology Today, 23 June 2017Did you know?Around 1876, the sudden involuntary extension of the leg in response to a light blow just below the knee, which is also known as the patellar reflex, was given the refreshingly simple designation knee jerk. In the 1950s, knee-jerk became an adjective with a figurative sense that doesn't require any actual twitching. "As a salesman, I'm getting a bit weary of the knee-jerk association of a con artist with my professional calling," a correspondent once wrote to The New York Times Magazine. Knee-jerk often has a negative connotation. It usually denotes a too-hasty, impulsive, perhaps even irrational response that is often based on preconceived notions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19, 2017 is:hew \HYOO\ verb1 : to cut or fell with blows (as of an ax)2 : to give form or shape to with or as if with an ax3 : conform, adhereExamples:"He is best known stateside for the … productions of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Richard III' that he brought to Broadway in 2013, which hewed as closely as possible to the staging choices made at the turn of the 17th century." — Eric Grode, The New York Times, 5 Sept. 2017"Although the novel hews to the broad outlines of the Drumgold investigation, Lehr takes major liberties with the story, inventing plot twists, scenes, and characters…." — Malcolm Gay, The Boston Globe, 7 Sept. 2017Did you know?Hew is a strong, simple word of Anglo-Saxon descent. It can suggest actual ax-wielding, or it can be figurative: "If … our ambition hews and shapes [our] new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their flavor in garden-beds" (Ralph Waldo Emerson). It's easy to see how the figurative "shape" sense of hew developed from the literal "hacking" sense, but what does chopping have to do with adhering and conforming? That sense first appeared in the late 1800s in the phrase "hew to the line." The "hew line" is a line marked along the length of a log indicating where to chop in order to shape a beam. "Hewing to the line," literally, is cutting along the mark—adhering to it—until the side of the log is squared.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 18, 2017 is:malign \muh-LYNE\ verb: to utter injuriously misleading or false reports about : speak evil ofExamples:The tech guru recalls how as a high schooler he was often maligned or simply ignored by the popular kids in his school."I am a contrarian on the Apple Watch, which I believe has been unfairly maligned by tech pundits. I love mine, and I get pretty frustrated by a lot of Apple products." — Nick Wingfield, The New York Times, 14 Sept. 2017Did you know?When a word's got mal- in it, it's no good. That prefix traces to the Latin word malus (which means "bad"), and it puts the negative vibes in both the verb and adjective forms of malign (from the Latin malignus, meaning "evil in nature") and a host of other English words. You can see it in malpractice (bad medical practice) and malady (a bad condition, such as a disease or illness, of the body or mind). A malefactor is someone guilty of bad deeds, and malice is a desire to cause injury, pain, or distress to another person. Other mal- formed words include malaise, malcontent, maladroit, malodorous, and malnourished.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 17, 2017 is:euphony \YOO-fuh-nee\ noun1 : pleasing or sweet sound; especially : the acoustic effect produced by words so formed or combined as to please the ear2 : a harmonious succession of words having a pleasing soundExamples:He awakened on a warm morning to the euphony of birdsong outside his window."After the war, 'A Shropshire Lad' travelled in the breast pockets of the generation who had taken up rambling and rediscovering the English countryside, even though—aside from a few place names, like Bredon Hill and Wenlock Edge, evidently chosen more for euphony than for anything else—it's not much of a geographic guide." — Charles McGrath, The New Yorker, 26 June 2017Did you know?Euphony was borrowed from French at the beginning of the 17th century; the French word (euphonie) derives from the Late Latin euphonia, which in turn traces back to the Greek adjective euphōnos, meaning "sweet-voiced" or "musical." Euphōnos was formed by combining the prefix eu- ("good") and phōnē ("voice"). In addition to its more commonly recognized senses, euphony also has a more specific meaning in the field of linguistics, where it can refer to the preference for words that are easy to pronounce. This preference may be the cause of an observed trend of people altering the pronunciation of certain words—apparently in favor of sound combinations that are more fluid and simpler to say out loud.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 16, 2017 is:chary \CHAIR-ee\ adjective1 : hesitant and vigilant about dangers and risks2 : slow to grant, accept, or expendExamples:"Alexander Graham Bell didn't expect his telephone to be widely used for prank calls. And Steve Jobs was chary of children using his iThings." — Hayley Krischer, The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2017"An A-1 writer but also chary with spoken words, he told me: 'I don't own a computer. I write longhand. In notebooks. It's then typed up. Retyped until I feel I've got it.'" — Cindy Adams, The New York Post, 2 Aug. 2017Did you know?It was sorrow that bred the caution of chary. In Middle English chary meant "sorrowful," a sense that harks back to the word's Old English ancestor caru (an early form of care, and another term that originally meant "sorrow" or "grief"). In a sense switch that demonstrates that love can be both bitter and sweet, chary later came to mean "dear" or "cherished." That's how 16th-century English dramatist George Peele used it: "the chariest and the choicest queen, That ever did delight my royal eyes." Both sorrow and affection have largely faded from chary, however, and in Modern English the word is most often used as a synonym of either careful or sparing.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 15, 2017 is:razzmatazz \raz-muh-TAZ\ noun1 : a confusing or colorful often gaudy action or display : razzle-dazzle2 : inflated, involved, and often deliberately ambiguous language : double-talk3 : vim, zingExamples:We were disappointed by the candidate's speech, which offered plenty of razzmatazz but little substance."The fireworks, the razzmatazz, the artifice do not add to the sense of occasion. Instead of augmenting the competition's charm, they detract from it." — Rory Smith, The New York Times, 28 May 2017Did you know?English speakers are fond of forming new words through reduplication of a base word, usually with just a slight change of sound. Think of okeydoke, fuddy-duddy, super-duper, roly-poly, fiddle-faddle, and dillydally. Another word is razzle-dazzle, formed by the reduplication of dazzle (itself a frequentative of daze). In the late-19th century, the spirit that prompted razzle-dazzle (one early meaning of which is "a state of confusion or hilarity") seems to have also inspired razzmatazz. The coiners of razzmatazz may also have had jazz in mind. Some of the earliest turn-of-the century uses of razzmatazz refer to rag-time or early jazz styles. By the mid-20th century, we'd come round to the "razzle-dazzle" sense, though we still haven't completely settled on the spelling. You might, for example, see razzamatazz.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 14, 2017 is:palliate \PAL-ee-ayt\ verb1 : to reduce the violence of (a disease); also : to ease (symptoms) without curing the underlying disease2 : to cover by excuses and apologies3 : to moderate the intensity ofExamples:"He had an ability to describe and champion technological innovation and global integration in a rhetoric that palliated fears of change." — Matthew Continetti, Commentary, 16 Nov. 2016"I have held onto generations of them not just for the headaches I inherited but for bellyaches, cramps, the cold, a cold, the side effects of antimalarial pills, tennis elbow. I've found that a hot-water bottle excels at palliating less-specific aches, ones that don't answer to 'Where does it hurt?'" — Chantel Tattoli, The New York Times Magazine, 19 Jan. 2017Did you know?Long ago, the ancient Romans had a name for the cloak-like garb that was worn by the Greeks (distinguishing it from their own toga); the name was pallium. In the 15th century, English speakers modified the Late Latin word palliatus, which derives from pallium, to form palliate. Our term, used initially as both an adjective and a verb, never had the literal Latin sense referring to the cloak you wear, but it took on the figurative "cloak" of protection. Specifically, the verb palliate meant (as it still can mean) "to lessen the intensity of a disease." The related adjective palliative describes medical care that focuses on relieving pain or discomfort rather than administering a cure.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 13, 2017 is:lagniappe \LAN-yap\ noun: a small gift given a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase; broadly : something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measureExamples:Our meal began with a lagniappe of pickled vegetables."Lagniappe—the unexpected surprises, the extras—are one of the reasons I love New Orleans.… I live, and travel, for the unexpected surprise. I may get lost, but there's usually an unexpected treat in that unplanned detour." — Jill Schensul, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), 19 Mar. 2017Did you know?"We picked up one excellent word," wrote Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi (1883), "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word—'lagniappe'.... It is Spanish—so they said." Twain encapsulates the history of lagniappe quite nicely. English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word la ñapa. (What Twain didn't know is that the Spanish word is from Quechua, from the word yapa, meaning "something added.") Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying "Give me something for lagniappe," to which the shopkeeper would respond with "a bit of liquorice-root, … a cheap cigar or a spool of thread." It took a while for lagniappe to catch on throughout the country, but in time, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this "excellent word."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 12, 2017 is:interdigitate \in-ter-DIJ-uh-tayt\ verb: to become interlocked like the fingers of folded handsExamples:A finger joint is formed when the "fingers" on the ends of two boards interdigitate for a secure fit."Forest and savanna interdigitate over a great front thousands of miles long and a half million square miles in area—half the size of the entire central African forest." — David Western, Discover, October 1986Did you know?It probably won't surprise you to learn that interdigitate comes from the prefix inter-, as in interlock, and the Latin word digitus, meaning "finger." Digitus also gave us digit, which is used in English today to refer to (among other things) the finger or toe of any animal. Interdigitate usually suggests an interlocking of things with fingerlike projections, such as muscle fibers or the teeth of an old-fashioned bear trap. The word can also be used figuratively to imply a smooth interweaving of disparate things, such as the blending of two cultures within a shared region.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 11, 2017 is:tendentious \ten-DEN-shus\ adjective: marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view : biasedExamples:The book proved to be a tendentious account of the town's history, written to rescue the reputation of one of its less scrupulous founders."The French satirical publication … has a record of ruffling feathers with tendentious headlines." — Daniel J. Solomon, The Forward (forward.com), 29 Aug. 2017Did you know?Tendentious is one of several words English speakers can choose when they want to suggest that someone has made up his or her mind in advance. You may be partial to predisposed or prone to favor partisan, but whatever your leanings, we're inclined to think you'll benefit from adding tendentious to your repertoire. A derivative of the Medieval Latin word tendentia, meaning "tendency," plus the English suffix -ious, tendentious has been used in English as an adjective for biased attitudes since at least the end of the 19th century.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.