Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 09, 2017 is:denegation \den-ih-GAY-shun\ noun: denialExamples:"I sought to interrupt him with some not very truthful denegation; but he waved me down, and pursued his speech." — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae, 1889"I see Horton say emphatically No…. His denegation is plausible; Gray believes it and accepts it…." — Henry James, The Ivory Tower, 1917Did you know?Even if we didn't provide you with a definition, you might guess the meaning of denegation from the negation part. Both words are ultimately derived from the Latin verb negare, meaning "to deny" or "to say no," and both first arrived in English in the 15th century. Negare is also the source of our abnegation ("self-denial"), negate ("to deny the truth of"), and renegade (which originally referred to someone who leaves, and therefore denies, a religious faith). Even deny and denial are negare descendants. Like denegation, they came to us from negare by way of the Latin denegare, which also means "to deny."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 08, 2017 is:slake \SLAYK\ verb1 : satisfy, quench2 : to cause (a substance, such as lime) to heat and crumble by treatment with water : hydrateExamples:"Food trucks offering tacos, barbecue and wood-fired pizza will be available to slake any ale-induced cravings, and live bluegrass music from Turnip Truck and Red Barn Hayloft will serenade the event." — EmmaJean Holly, Valley News (West Lebanon, New Hampshire), 16 Aug. 2017"In eighth grade she traveled with adults in her church group to Juarez, Mexico to spend a week helping out at an orphanage. As a sophomore in high school, she participated in a three-week exchange in Denmark. But short visits didn't fully slake Fisher's desire to live in and explore other cultures." — Rick Foster, The Foxboro (Massachusetts) Reporter, 24 Aug. 2017Did you know?There is no lack of obsolete and archaic meanings when it comes to slake. Shakespearean scholars may know that in the Bard's day slake meant "to subside or abate" ("No flood by raining slaketh ...." — The Rape of Lucrece) or "to lessen the force of" ("It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart." — Henry VI, Part 3). The most erudite word enthusiasts may also be aware of earlier meanings of slake, such as "to slacken one's efforts" or "to cause to be relaxed or loose." These early meanings recall the word's Old English ancestor sleac, which not only meant "slack" but is also the source of that modern term.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 07, 2017 is:prehension \pree-HEN-shun\ noun1 : the act of taking hold, seizing, or grasping2 : mental understanding : comprehension3 : apprehension by the sensesExamples:"The CMC [carpometacarpal] joint of the thumb … performs a variety of movements necessary to perform prehension or grasping." — Mark McDonald, The South Platte Sentinel, 2 Aug. 2017"The tongue is not, properly speaking, in man, an organ for the prehension of solid food, that office being performed by the hand, for which the opponent arrangement of thumb and fingers eminently fits it…." — Robert Bentley Todd, The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, 1852Did you know?It's easy to grasp the origins of prehension—it descends from the Latin verb prehendere, which means "to seize" or "to grasp." Other descendants of prehendere in English include apprehend ("arrest, seize"), comprehend ("to grasp the nature or significance of"), prehensile ("adapted for seizing or grasping"), prison, reprise ("a repeated performance"), and reprisal ("a retaliatory act"). Even the English word get comes to us from the same ancient root that led to the Latin prehendere.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 06, 2017 is:bombard \bahm-BARD\ verb1 : to attack especially with artillery or bombers2 : to assail vigorously or persistently (as with questions)3 : to subject to the impact of rapidly moving particles (as electrons)Examples:After running an editorial supporting the town's controversial plan, the newspaper was bombarded with letters and email from residents wishing to voice their opposition."Hundreds of willing—and unwilling—participants will line up on either side of the lot and bombard each other with tomatoes." — Jimmy Fisher, The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania), 17 Aug. 2017Did you know?In the late Middle Ages, a bombard was a cannon used to hurl large stones at enemy fortifications. Its name, which first appeared in English in the 15th century, comes from the Middle French bombarde, which in turn was probably a combination of the onomatopoeic bomb- and the suffix -arde (equivalent to the English -ard). The verb bombard blasted onto the scene in English in the 17th century, with an original meaning of "to attack especially with artillery"; as weapons technology improved throughout the centuries, such artillery came to include things like automatic rifles and bomber aircraft. Nowadays one can be bombarded figuratively in any number of ways, such as by omnipresent advertising messages or persistent phone calls.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 05, 2017 is:vituperate \vye-TOO-puh-rayt\ verb1 : to criticize or censure severely or abusively2 : to use harsh condemnatory languageExamples:"Hang on, let me tell you a story: Years ago, I had a co-worker who knew I enjoyed golf and who decided that he would vituperate golf. 'It's so boring, it's such a waste of time. Who in his right mind would want to play golf?'" — Jay Nordlinger, The National Review, 17 Apr. 2017"Lenin on the Train … is the latest entry in a vast literature dedicated to answering the question of just how was it that this pointy-bearded intellectual, who spent much of his life in libraries, and whose primary pastime was vituperating against fellow socialists in obscure journals, achieved so much—and at such a drastic human cost." — Daniel Kalder, The Dallas Morning News, 16 Apr. 2017Did you know?Vituperate has several close synonyms, including berate and revile. Berate usually refers to scolding that is drawn out and abusive. Revile means to attack or criticize in a way prompted by anger or hatred. Vituperate can be used as a transitive or intransitive verb and adds to the meaning of revile by stressing an attack that is particularly harsh or unrelenting. It first appeared in English in the mid-16th century and can be traced back to two Latin words: the noun vitium, meaning "fault," and the verb parare, meaning "to make or prepare."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 04, 2017 is:agita \AJ-uh-tuh\ noun: a feeling of agitation or anxietyExamples:"Home-sharing through websites has meant more lodging choices for visitors to Massachusetts. But it's also become a source of considerable agita on Beacon Hill: How to tax and regulate this sudden behemoth?" — The Boston Globe, 18 June 2017"According to an American Psychological Association (APA) report, 43 percent of women say they're more stressed out than they were five years…. Women under age 33 report the highest levels of agita of any generation, with those 33 to 46 close behind." — Shaun Dreisbach, Glamour, April 2016Did you know?Judging by its spelling and meaning, you might think that agita is simply a shortened version of agitation, but that's not the case. Both agitation and the verb it comes form, agitate, derive from Latin agere, meaning "to drive." Agita, which first appeared in American English in the mid-late 20th century, comes from a dialectical pronunciation of the Italian word acido, meaning "heartburn" or "acid," from Latin acidus. (Agita is also occasionally used in English with the meaning "heartburn.") For a while the word's usage was limited to New York City and surrounding regions, but the word became more widespread in the mid-1990s.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 3, 2017 is:salubrious \suh-LOO-bree-us\ adjective: favorable to or promoting health or well-beingExamples:The hot springs are popular both for relaxation and for their reported salubrious effect."There are many reasons why soup so often hits the spot. Certainly, it's got salubrious effects—with chicken soup topping the cure-all list." — Ligaya Figueras, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 24 Feb. 2017Did you know?Salubrious and its synonyms healthful and wholesome all mean favorable to the health of mind or body. Healthful implies a positive contribution to a healthy condition (as in Charles Dickens' advice to "take more healthful exercise"). Wholesome applies to something that benefits you, builds you up, or sustains you physically, mentally, or spiritually. Louisa May Alcott used this sense in Little Women: "Work is wholesome.... It keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence...." Salubrious is used similarly to both words but tends to apply chiefly to the helpful effects of climate or air.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 2, 2017 is:farceur \fahr-SER\ noun1 : joker, wag2 : a writer or actor of farce or satireExamples:Grace's class presentation went very well, but she could have done without the snide remarks from the farceurs at the back of the room."Jerry Lewis didn't just play a nutty professor. For years he reigned as a mad comic scientist of the screen—a brash innovator who exploded conventions and expectations on either side of the camera, and a take-no-prisoners farceur who mixed slapstick antics with a seething man-child persona of his own making." — Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times, 21 Aug. 2017Did you know?You've probably already spotted the "farce" in farceur. But although farceur can now refer to someone who performs or composes farce, it began life as a word for someone who is simply known for cracking jokes. Appropriately, farceur derives via Modern French from the Middle French farcer, meaning "to joke." If you think of farce as a composition of ridiculous humor with a "stuffed" or contrived plot, then it should not surprise you that farce originally meant "forcemeat"—seasoned meat used for a stuffing—and that both farce and farceur can be ultimately traced back to the Latin verb farcire, meaning "to stuff."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 1, 2017 is:censure \SEN-sher\ verb: to find fault with and criticize as blameworthyExamples:"The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government." — Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, New York Times v. United States, 1971"No president has ever been removed by impeachment. No president has ever been indicted. No president has been censured since 1860." — Hannah Ryan, Newsweek, 20 Aug. 2017Did you know?Censure and its synonyms criticize, reprehend, condemn, and denounce all essentially mean "to find fault with openly." Additionally, censure carries a strong suggestion of authority and often refers to an official action. Criticize implies finding fault with someone's methods, policies, or intentions, as in "the commentator criticized the manager's bullpen strategy." Reprehend implies sharp criticism or disapproval, as in "a teacher who reprehends poor grammar." Condemn usually suggests a final unfavorable judgment, as in "the group condemned the court's decision." Denounce adds to condemn the implication of a public declaration, as in "her letter to the editor denounced the corrupt actions of the mayor's office."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 30, 2017 is:apropos \ap-ruh-POH\ preposition: with regard to (something) : concerningExamples:Sean interrupted our conversation about politics and, apropos of nothing, asked who we thought would win the basketball game."Around that time I came across a felicitous quote by Mark Twain, which said, apropos the difficulty of writing about childhood, that you have to be old to write young." — Andrew Winer, The Color Midnight Made, 2002Did you know?English speakers borrowed apropos from the French phrase à propos, literally "to the purpose." Since it first appeared in the 17th century, apropos has been used as an adverb, adjective, noun, and preposition. Left alone, the word probably wouldn't have gotten much attention, but in 1926 noted language expert H. W. Fowler declared of apropos "that it is better always to use of rather than to after it…." While this prescription seems to be based on the use of the preposition de ("of") in the French construction à propos de, rather than the actual usage history of apropos in English, some language commentators take Fowler's recommendation to be virtually a commandment. But others have noted that apropos is sometimes used by itself in professionally edited prose, or, more rarely, is followed by to.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 29, 2017 is:ensconce \in-SKAHNSS\ verb1 : to place or hide securely : conceal2 : to establish or settle firmly, comfortably, or snuglyExamples:Though kept—and used—for years in a private home, the unusual 17th-century porcelain bowl is now safely ensconced behind glass in a local museum."Using their strong back legs, female loggerheads dig until a pit is created that is deep enough to safely ensconce their eggs." — The Press and Standard (Walterboro, South Carolina), 20 July 2016Did you know?You might think of a sconce as a type of candleholder or lamp, but the word can also refer to a defensive fortification, usually one made of earth. Originally, then, a person who was ensconced was enclosed in or concealed by such a structure, out of harm's way. One of the earliest writers to apply the verb ensconce with the general sense of "hide" was William Shakespeare. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the character Falstaff, hoping to avoid detection when he is surprised during an amorous moment with Mrs. Ford, says "She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras." (An arras is a tapestry or wall hanging.)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 28, 2017 is:pace \PAY-see\ preposition: contrary to the opinion of — usually used as an expression of deference to someone's contrary opinionExamples:Pace the editorialist, there are in fact multiple solutions to these kinds of problems."The public museums, great and small, that are one of America's educational glories house collections expensively assembled by rich men and (pace Isabella Gardner and Baltimore's Cone sisters) women with lofty but not selfless motives." — John Updike, The New York Review of Books, 5 Oct. 2006Did you know?Though used in English since the 19th century, the preposition pace has yet to shed its Latin mantle, and for that reason it's most at home in formal writing or in contexts in which one is playing at formality. The Latin word pace is a form of pax, meaning "peace" or "permission," and when used sincerely the word does indeed suggest a desire for both. This Latin borrowing is unrelated to the more common noun pace (as in "keeping pace") and its related verb ("pacing the room"); these also come from Latin, but from the word pandere, meaning "to spread."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 27, 2017 is:disparate \DISS-puh-rut\ adjective1 : containing or made up of fundamentally different and often incongruous elements2 : markedly distinct in quality or characterExamples:The proposed law has the support of a disparate collection of interest groups."Released at San Diego's Comic-Con, the first full-length trailer for the CBS All Access series shows off all the Star Trek hallmarks, sweet ships, scary aliens, and the very human struggle that comes from disparate cultures coming together in unsure times." — Tim Surette, TV Guide, 23 July 2017Did you know?Have you ever tried to sort differing objects into separate categories? If so, you're well prepared to understand the origins of disparate. The word, which first appeared in English in the 16th century, derives from disparatus, the past participle of the Latin verb disparare, meaning "to separate." Disparare, in turn, comes from parare, a verb meaning "to prepare." Other descendants of parare in English include both separate and prepare, as well as repair, apparatus, and even vituperate ("to criticize harshly and usually publicly"). Disparate also functions as a noun. The noun, which is rare and usually used in the plural, means "one of two or more things so unequal or unlike that they cannot be compared with each other," as in "The yoking of disparates, the old and the new, continues to be a [poet Anne] Carson strategy" (Daisy Fried, The New York Times, 21 Apr. 2013).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 26, 2017 is:broadside \BRAWD-syde\ noun1 a : a sizable sheet of paper printed on one side; also : a sheet of paper printed on one or both sides and folded (such as for mailing)b : something (such as a ballad) printed on a broadside2 : all the guns on one side of a ship; also : their simultaneous discharge3 : a volley of abuse or denunciation : a strongly worded attack4 : a broad or unbroken surfaceExamples:"When the Declaration of Independence was ratified, Congress ordered that it be read throughout the colonies. The first broadside was printed in Philadelphia by John Dunlap on the evening of July 4, 1776." — The Salem (Massachusetts) News, 29 Mar. 2016"In response, Kobach said Hensley's broadside was larded with misrepresentations certain to be distasteful to Kansans hungry for decency in politics." — Tim Carpenter, The Topeka (Kansas) Capital-Journal, 16 Aug. 2017Did you know?What do sheets of printed paper and a ship's artillery have in common? Not a whole lot besides their broadsides. The printing and naval senses of broadside arose independently of one another. Printed broadsides may have first been decrees intended for public posting, so they were necessarily printed on one side of large sheets of paper. Soon even matters printed on one side of smallish sheets were called broadsides—advertisements, for example, or the so-called "broadside ballads," popular ditties that people stuck on the wall to sing from. In the nautical sense, broadside was originally the entire side of a ship above the water—which is where the guns were placed. The further use of broadside to refer to firing of the guns eventually led to the figurative "volley of abuse" sense.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 25, 2017 is:anathematize \uh-NATH-uh-muh-tyze\ verb: curse, denounceExamples:"A great deal has happened in a very short time.… Feminist reforms in the home and workplace … have gained renewed momentum. Youth culture has anathematized bullying and accorded pride of place to nerd culture." — Jonathan Chait, The New York Magazine, 29 June 2015"Its reception of [George] Orwell serves as a fascinating case study of Commonweal's history and editorial culture. The magazine's editors and contributors neither anathematized Orwell nor sprinkled him with holy water. Instead they simply gave him the respect they thought he deserved…." — John Rodden and John Rossi, Commonweal, 23 Sept. 2016Did you know?When 16th-century English speakers needed a verb meaning "to condemn by anathema" (that is, by an official curse from church authority), anathematize proved to be just the right word. But anathematize didn't originate in English as a combination of the noun anathema and the suffix -ize. Rather, our verb is based on forebears in Late Latin (anathematizare) and Greek (anathematizein). Anathematize can still indicate solemn, formal condemnation, but today it can also have milder applications. The same is true of anathema, which now often means simply "a vigorous denunciation," or more frequently, "something or someone intensely disliked or loathed."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 24, 2017 is:legerity \luh-JAIR-uh-tee\ noun: alert facile quickness of mind or bodyExamples:The novel's less than compelling plot is counterbalanced by the narrator's wit and legerity."There are brand new vehicles, brand new tracks and brand new ways to get gamers to exercise the kind of hand-digit legerity that other games don't like to employ because it might make the casual audience actually have to work for a victory." — William Usher, CinemaBlend.com, 16 May 2014Did you know?When legerity first appeared in English in the 1500s, it drew significantly upon the concept of being "light on one's feet," and appropriately so. It is derived from the Middle and Old French legereté ("lightness"), which was formed from the Old French adjective leger ("light in weight"). Leger comes from an assumed Vulgar Latin adjective, leviarius, a descendent of the older Latin levis ("having little weight"). These days, legerity can describe a nimbleness of mind as well as of the feet. A cousin of legerity in English is legerdemain, meaning "sleight of hand" or "a display of skill or adroitness." Legerdemain comes from the French phrase leger de main, meaning "light of hand."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 23, 2017 is:toothsome \TOOTH-sum\ adjective1 : agreeable, attractive2 : of palatable flavor and pleasing texture : deliciousExamples:"Next came toothsome slices of bread with three spreads: an herbaceous carrot top pesto, creamy local butter and Cheeky Monkey, a garlicky tomato oil made in Syracuse." — Tracy Schuhmacher, The Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York), 16 Aug. 2017"But the fall brings its own set of toothsome exhibitions that encompass a range of mediums, from the always-solid shows at Bullseye Projects that demonstrate the creative limits of glass to textile art, prints, photography, drawings and, oh yes, lots of painting." — Briana Miller, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 30 May 2017Did you know?One meaning of tooth is "a fondness or taste for something specified." Toothsome comes from this definition of tooth plus the suffix -some, meaning "characterized by." Although toothsome was at first used to describe general attractiveness, it quickly developed a second sense that was specific to the sense of taste (perhaps because from as far back as Chaucer's time, tooth could also refer specifically to eating and the sense of taste). In addition, toothsome is now showing signs of acquiring a third sense, "toothy" (as in "a toothsome grin"), but this sense is not yet established enough to qualify for dictionary entry.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, 2017 is:yeasty \YEE-stee\ adjective1 : of, relating to, or resembling yeast2 a : immature, unsettledb : marked by changec : full of vitalityd : frivolousExamples:"[A]ll this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague but deep impressions … had been disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement." — George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, 1876"'O.K., I'm ready,' Ms. Boym said, addressing this reporter's microphone and letting loose a warm, yeasty laugh." — William L. Hamilton, The New York Times, 28 Nov. 2002Did you know?The word yeast has existed in English for as long as the language has existed. Spellings have varied over time—in Middle English it was yest and in Old English gist or giest—but the word's meaning has remained basically the same for centuries. In its first documented English uses in the 1500s, the adjective yeasty described people or things with a yellowish or frothy appearance similar to the froth that forms on the top of fermented beverages (such as beers or ales). Since then, a number of extended figurative senses of yeasty have surfaced, all of which play in some way or another on the excitable, chemical nature of fermentation, such as by connoting unsettled activity or significant change.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, 2017 is:shofar \SHOH-far\ noun: the horn of an animal (usually a ram) blown as a trumpet by the ancient Hebrews in battle and during religious observances and used in modern Judaism especially during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom KippurExamples:"A collection of local artists will be selling their artwork, crafts, jewelry and Judaica, and gift booths will offer T-shirts, books and traditional Jewish and Israeli items, from mezuzahs to shofars." — Jennifer Nixon, The Arkansas (Little Rock) Democrat-Gazette, 27 Apr. 2017"So I sat as still as possible, letting the melodic intonations of Hebrew roll through me, letting the haunting sound of the shofar fill my chest." — Robyn K. Schneider, Silent Running, 2015Did you know?One of the shofar's original uses was to proclaim the Jubilee year (a year of emancipation of Hebrew slaves and restoration of alienated lands to their former owners). Today, it is mainly used in synagogues during the High Holy Days. It is blown daily, except on Shabbat, during the month of Elul (the 12th month of the civil year or the 6th month of the ecclesiastical year in the Jewish calendar), and is sounded a number of times during the Rosh Hashanah services, and again at the end of the last service (known as neilah) on Yom Kippur. The custom is to sound the shofar in several series that alternate shorter notes resembling sobbing and wailing with longer unbroken blasts.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, 2017 is:holus-bolus \hoh-lus-BOH-lus\ adverb: all at onceExamples:If you shout your questions at me holus-bolus, instead of asking them one at a time, then I won't be able to hear any of them."Grasses are a conundrum. If you plant too many, you end up with a hayfield—not a great look in a garden…. Lazy landscapers shove them in holus-bolus because they will survive just about anything." — Marjorie Harris, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 30 May 2017Did you know?The story of holus-bolus is not a hard one to swallow. Holus-bolus originated in English dialect in the mid-19th century and is believed to be a waggish reduplication of the word bolus. Bolus is from the Greek word bōlos, meaning "lump," and has retained that Greek meaning. In English, bolus has additionally come to mean "a large pill," "a mass of chewed food," or "a dose of a drug given intravenously." Considering this "lumpish" history, it's not hard to see how holus-bolus, a word meaning "all at once" or "all in a lump," came about.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, 2017 is:glabrous \GLAY-brus\ adjective: smooth; especially : having a surface without hairs or projectionsExamples:Unlike the fuzzy peach, the nectarine has a glabrous skin."[T]o augment the body's own ability to shed heat …, Roy Kornbluh and his colleagues … are focusing on the body's glabrous, or hairless, areas. In mammals, these parts act like a car radiator, helping heat escape from the surface. In humans, the palms of the hands and soles of the feet are vital." — Hal Hodson, New Scientist, 30 Jan. 2016Did you know?"Before them an old man, / wearing a fringe of long white hair, bareheaded, / his glabrous skull reflecting the sun's / light…." No question about it—the bald crown of an old man's head (as described here in William Carlos Williams's poem "Sunday in the Park") is a surface without hairs. Williams's use isn't typical, though. More often glabrous appears in scientific contexts, such as the following description of wheat: "The white glumes are glabrous, with narrow acuminate beaks." And although Latin glaber, our word's source, can mean simply "bald," when glabrous refers to skin with no hair in scientific English, it usually means skin that never had hair (such as the palms of the hands).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, 2017 is:amanuensis \uh-man-yuh-WEN-sis\ noun: one employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscriptExamples:"He then proceeded in his investigation, dictating, as he went on, the import of the questions and answers to the amanuensis, by whom it was written down." — Sir Walter Scott, Waverley, 1814"In this version of the myth, Holmes is a real-world character whose exploits were rendered in print by his sidekick and amanuensis Dr. Watson, who's long since dead." — Marc Mohan, The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 17 July 2015Did you know?In Latin, the phrase servus a manu translates loosely as "slave with secretarial duties." (The noun manu, meaning "hand," gave us words such as manuscript, which originally referred to a document written or typed by hand.) In the 17th century the second part of this phrase was borrowed into English to create amanuensis, a word for a person who is employed (willingly) to do the important but sometimes menial work of transcribing the words of another. While other quaint words, such as scribe or scrivener, might have similarly described the functions of such a person in the past, these days we're likely to call him or her a secretary or an administrative assistant.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, 2017 is:portentous \por-TEN-tuss\ adjective1 : of, relating to, or constituting a portent2 : eliciting amazement or wonder : prodigious3 a : being a grave or serious matter b : self-consciously solemn or important : pompousc : ponderously excessiveExamples:Our host had a habit of making portentous proclamations about the state of modern art, which was a bit of a turnoff for us as two art majors."[Glen Campbell] briefly joined the instrumental rock group the Champs, who'd had some success, in 1958, with 'Tequila,' still one of the best encapsulations of the portentous elation brought on by ice-cold margaritas." — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 9 Aug. 2017Did you know?At the heart of portentous is portent, a word for an omen or sign, which comes to us from the Latin noun portentum of the same meaning. And indeed, the first uses of portentous did refer to omens. The second sense of portentous, describing that which is extremely impressive, developed in the 16th century. A third definition—"grave, solemn, significant"—was then added to the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary in 1934. The word's connotations, however, have since moved into less estimable territory. It now frequently describes both the pompous and the excessive.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, 2017 is:travesty \TRAV-uh-stee\ noun1 : a burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment, or subject matter 2 : a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitationExamples:"What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people's cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext." — Émile Zola, letter, 13 Jan. 1898"Fans of anime are ferociously purist and loyal, and for them, I suspect, the very notion of converting [Mamoru] Oshii's masterpiece (as it is deemed to be) into a live-action Hollywood remake smells of both travesty and sellout." — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 10 Apr. 2017Did you know?The noun travesty, which current evidence dates to the 17th century, comes from the French verb travestir, meaning "to disguise." The word's roots, however, wind back through Italian to the Latin verb vestire, meaning "to clothe" or "to dress." Travesty is not the only English descendent of vestire. Others include vestment, divest, and investiture. Travesty, incidentally, can also be a verb meaning "to make a travesty of" or "to parody."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, 2017 is:inoculate \ih-NAHK-yuh-layt\ inoculate1 a : to introduce a microorganism intob : to introduce (something, such as a microorganism) into a suitable situation for growthc : to introduce immunologically active material (such as an antibody or antigen) into especially in order to treat or prevent a disease2 : to introduce something into the mind of3 : to protect as if by inoculationExamples:In 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner discovered that inoculating people with cowpox could provide immunity against smallpox."Typically, ambrosia beetles have a symbiotic relationship with a fungus the beetles carry as spores on their bodies. When the beetles bore into the sapwood of the host tree, the galleries formed from the beetle boring are inoculated with the fungal spores." — Les Harrison, The Wakulla News (Crawfordville, Florida), 12 July 2017Did you know?If you think you see a connection between inoculate and ocular ("of or relating to the eye"), you are not mistaken—both words look back to oculus, the Latin word for "eye." But what does the eye have to do with inoculation? Our answer lies in the original use of inoculate in Middle English: "to insert a bud in a plant for propagation." Latin oculus was sometimes applied to things that were seen to resemble eyes, and one such thing was the bud of a plant. Inoculate was later applied to other forms of engrafting or implanting, including the introduction of vaccines as a preventative against disease.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, 2017 is:marginalia \mahr-juh-NAY-lee-uh\ noun1 : marginal notes or embellishments (such as in a book)2 : nonessential itemsExamples:"Over the next nine days, John Hughes completed the first draft of Home Alone, capped by an eight-hour, 44-page dash to the finale. Before finishing, he'd expressed concerns in the marginalia of his journal that he was working too slowly." — James Hughes, The Chicago Magazine, 10 Nov. 2015"In Arderne's texts the marginalia has a clear purpose, but in other manuscripts the meaning of the drawings can be indecipherable. There are countless examples of unusual marginalia—monkeys playing the bagpipes, centaurs, knights in combat with snails, naked bishops, and strange human-animal hybrids that seem to defy categorization." — Anika Burgess, Atlas Obscura, 9 May 2017Did you know?We don't consider a word's etymology to be marginalia, so we'll start off by telling you the etymology of this one. Marginalia is a New Latin word that borrows from the Medieval Latin adjective marginalis ("marginal") and ultimately from the noun margo, meaning "border." Marginalia is a relatively new word; it dates from the 19th century despite describing something—notes in the margin of a text—that had existed as far back as the 11th century. An older word, apostille (or _apostil_) once referred to a single annotation made in a margin, but that word is rare 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 September 13, 2017 is:precocious \prih-KOH-shus\ adjective1 : exceptionally early in development or occurrence2 : exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early ageExamples:"They explained to me that we were going to watch people audition…. I ended up jumping onstage and singing something…. They thought I was precocious enough to be put in the chorus of the production. I was the only kid." — Johnny Galecki, quoted in The Las Cruces (New Mexico) Sun-News, 8 Mar. 2017"Apricots, almonds, and other fruit trees are notoriously vulnerable to frost damage of buds or precocious flowers…." — Michael Bone et al., Steppes: The Plants and Ecology of the World's Semi-arid Regions, 2015Did you know?Precocious got started in Latin when the prefix prae-, meaning "ahead of," was combined with the verb coquere, meaning "to cook" or "to ripen," to form the adjective praecox, which means "early ripening" or "premature." By the mid-1600s, English speakers had turned praecox into precocious and were using it especially of plants that produced blossoms before their leaves came out. By the 1670s, precocious was also being used to describe humans who developed skills or talents before others typically did.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, 2017 is:scour \SKOW-er\ verb1 : to move about quickly especially in search2 : to go through or range over in or as if in a searchExamples:The dog scoured the terrain in search of the tennis ball I had thrown."The rescue team scoured the ground and a New Hampshire National Guard Black Hawk helicopter also searched the area." — Emily Sweeney, The Boston Globe, 18 July 2017Did you know?There are two distinct homographs of the verb scour in English. One means to clean something by rubbing it hard with a rough object; that scour, which goes back to at least the early 14th century, probably derives—via Middle Dutch and Old French—from a Late Latin verb, excurare, meaning "to clean off." Today's word, however, which appears in the 13th century, is believed to derive from the Old Norse skūr, meaning "shower." (Skūr is also distantly related to the Old English scūr, the ancestor of our English word shower.) Many disparate things can be scoured. For example, one can scour an area (as in "scoured the woods in search of the lost dog") or publications (as in "scouring magazine and newspaper articles").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, 2017 is:bibelot \BEE-buh-loh\ noun: a small household ornament or decorative object : trinketExamples:"Moonlight furbished the brown cylindrical floor vase and its gnarled branch, as well as an aquarium bibelot in the shape of a ruined arch on his bedside table." — Nicholson Baker, The New Yorker, 27 June - 4 July 1994"The sitting room is inviting, with its smart soft furnishings and bibelots, many of them from Samantha's mother, Lady Astor's, furnishing business, OKA—a sort of one-stop-tasteful decorating shop for the well-heeled." — Debora Robertson, The Telegraph (UK), 4 Aug. 2017Did you know?Can you think of a six-letter synonym of bibelot that starts with the letter "g"? No? How about an eight-letter one? Crossword puzzle whizzes might guess that the words we are thinking of are gewgaw and gimcrack. Like these, bibelot, which English speakers borrowed from French, has uses beyond wordplay. In addition to its general use as a synonym of trinket, it can refer specifically to a miniature book of elegant design (such as those made by Tiffany and Faberge). It also appears regularly in the names of things as diverse as restaurants and show dogs.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, 2017 is:conversant \kun-VER-sunt\ adjective: having knowledge or experienceExamples:The ideal candidate for the sommelier position will have expert knowledge of the various wine varieties served in the restaurant and be conversant in the rich vocabulary of viniculture."My sister is a cognitive scientist at M.I.T., more conversant than most people in the mental processes involved in tracking and misplacing objects." — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 13 Feb. 2017Did you know?The adjectives conversant and conversational are related; both are descendants of Latin conversari, meaning "to associate with." Conversant dates to the Middle Ages, and an early meaning of the word was simply "having familiar association." One way to associate with others is to have a conversation with them—in other words, to talk. For a short time in the 19th century conversant could mean "relating to or suggesting conversation," but for the most part that meaning stayed with conversational while conversant went in a different direction. Today, conversant is sometimes used, especially in the United States, with the meaning "able to talk in a foreign language," as in "she is conversant in several languages," but it is more often associated with knowledge or familiarity, as in "conversant with the issues."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, 2017 is:disport \dih-SPORT\ verb1 : divert, amuse2 : display3 : to amuse oneself in light or lively fashion : frolicExamples:"At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week, Miss Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and disport in the water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap." — William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1848"More stunts follow in Act II: Les Incredibles, an enormous Russian man who flings his tiny Canadian wife through the air; a stunning aerialist known as Lucky Moon; a family of three, Los Lopez, disporting themselves on the high-wire." — Margaret Gray, The Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 2017Did you know?Geoffrey Chaucer was one of the earliest writers to amuse the reading public with the verb disport. Chaucer and his contemporaries carried the word into English from Anglo-French, adapting it from desporter, meaning "to carry away, comfort, or entertain." The word can ultimately be traced back to the Latin verb portare, meaning "to carry." Deport, portable, and transport are among the members of the portare family.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, 2017 is:extemporaneous \ek-stem-puh-RAY-nee-us\ adjective1 : composed, performed, or uttered on the spur of the moment : impromptu2 : provided, made, or put to use as an expedient : makeshiftExamples:Everyone was surprised to hear my normally taciturn brother give a heartfelt, extemporaneous speech at our parents' 50th anniversary party."At the last Japanese performance—in Fukui, some 200 miles to the west of Tokyo—audiences were so exuberant that Slatkin and solo pianist Makoto Ozone indulged in an extemporaneous duet." — Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News, 26 July 2017Did you know?Extemporaneous, which comes from Latin ex tempore ("out of the time"), joined the English language sometime in the mid-17th century. The word impromptu was improvised soon after that. In general usage, extemporaneous and impromptu are used interchangeably to describe off-the-cuff remarks or speeches, but this is not the case when they are used in reference to the learned art of public speaking. Teachers of speech will tell you that an extemporaneous speech is one that has been thoroughly prepared and planned but not memorized, whereas an impromptu speech is one for which absolutely no preparations have been made.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, 2017 is:propagate \PRAH-puh-gayt\ verb1 : to reproduce or cause to reproduce biologically : multiply2 : to cause to spread out and affect a greater number or greater area : extend3 : to pass along to offspring4 : to foster growing knowledge of, familiarity with, or acceptance of (such as an idea or belief) : publicizeExamples:"It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say." — Samuel Johnson, The Adventurer, 25 Aug. 1753"… Jonathan Anderson … wonders if he could propagate a honeysuckle-scented yellow azalea that is blooming around an early Georgian garden temple…." — Hamish Bowles, Vogue, August 2017Did you know?The origins of propagate are firmly rooted in the field of horticulture. The word was borrowed into English in the 16th century from Latin propagatus, the past participle of the verb propagare, which means "to set (onto a plant) a small shoot or twig cut for planting or grafting." Propagare, in turn, derives from propages, meaning "layer (of a plant), slip, offspring." It makes sense, therefore, that the earliest uses of propagate referred to facilitating reproduction of a plant or animal. Nowadays, however, the meaning of propagate extends to the "reproduction" of something intangible, such as an idea or belief. Incidentally, propaganda also comes to us from propagare, although it took a somewhat different route into English.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 6, 2017 is:robot \ROH-baht\ noun1 a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (such as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasizedb : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically2 : a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks3 : a mechanism guided by automatic controlsExamples:Isaac Asimov is famous for writing science-fiction stories about robots which were governed by specific laws of behavior."The six-girl team and their chaperone completed their journey just after midnight from their hometown of Herat, Afghanistan, to enter their ball-sorting robot in the three-day high school competition starting Sunday in the U.S. capital." — Josh Lederman, The St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch, 17 July 2017Did you know?In 1920, Czech writer Karel Ĉapek published a play titled R.U.R. Those initials stood for "Rossum's Universal Robots," which was the name of a fictional company that manufactured human-like machines designed to perform hard, dull, dangerous work for people. The machines in the play eventually grew to resent their jobs and rebelled—with disastrous results for humans. During the writing of his play, Ĉapek consulted with his brother, the painter and writer Josef Ĉapek, who suggested the name robot for these machines, from the Czech word robota, which means "forced labor." Robot made its way into our language in 1922 when R.U.R. was translated into English.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 5, 2017 is:scrupulous \SKROO-pyuh-lus\ adjective1 : having moral integrity : acting in strict regard for what is considered right or proper2 : punctiliously exact : painstakingExamples:"As a child, I somehow absorbed the idea that getting in the way of other people or wasting their time was a terrible offense. I have been scrupulous about standing to the right on escalators, not blocking aisles, not showing up late." — Rebecca Solnit, Harper's, July 2017"Don't do business on the side with an elected official who can benefit your clients by lowering their property assessments. But if you do, be absolutely scrupulous about filling out every disclosure form. Or you'll look like you're trying to hide something—and maybe you are." — The Chicago Sun-Times, 27 July 2017Did you know?Scrupulous and its close relative scruple ("an ethical consideration or principle") come from the Latin noun scrupulus, the diminutive of scrupus. Scrupus refers to a sharp stone, so scrupulus means "a small sharp stone." Scrupus retained its literal meaning but eventually also came to be used with the metaphorical meaning "a source of anxiety or uneasiness," the way a sharp pebble in one's shoe would be a source of pain. When the adjective scrupulous entered the language, it meant "principled," but now it also commonly means "painstaking" or "careful."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, 2017 is:fruition \froo-ISH-un\ noun1 : pleasurable use or possession : enjoyment2 a : the state of bearing fruitb : realizationExamples:"… wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition." — William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 1848"Many brands depend on crowdfunding to bring a concept to fruition." — Curtis Sparrer, Adweek.com, 7 Apr. 2017Did you know?Fruition must come from the word fruit, right? Not exactly. Fruition and fruit are related (both ultimately come from the Latin verb frui, meaning "to enjoy"), but they were derived independently. The original meaning of fruition had nothing to do with fruit. Rather, when the term was first used in the early 15th century, it meant only "pleasurable use or possession." Not until the 19th century did fruition develop a second meaning, "the state of bearing fruit," possibly as the result of a mistaken assumption that fruition evolved from fruit. The "state of bearing fruit" sense was followed quickly by the figurative application to anything that can be "realized" and metaphorically bear fruit, such as a plan or a project.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, 2017 is:vociferous \voh-SIF-uh-rus\ adjective: marked by or given to vehement insistent outcryExamples:"A few days after NBC decided to cancel time-traveling adventure drama Timeless, the network changed its mind and renewed the series for a second season, thanks in part to a vociferous fan campaign…. — USA Today, 17 July 2017"Legislation for a pilot program that would install speed-detecting cameras on the most dangerous traffic corridors … has been shelved after facing vociferous opposition and tepid support." — Robert Salonga, The Marin Independent Journal (California), 27 Apr. 2017Did you know?Vociferous, deriving from a combination of the Latin vox ("voice") with ferre ("to carry"), is one of a number of English words that describe those who compel attention by being loud and insistent. Vociferous implies a vehement shouting or calling out, but to convey the insistency of a demand or protest, clamorous might be a better choice. You could use strident to suggest harsh and discordant noise in a protest, or obstreperous to imply loud, unruly and aggressive resistance to restraint. But someone who is noisy and turbulent due to high spirits rather than dissatisfaction might more aptly be called boisterous.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, 2017 is:enthrall \in-THRAWL\ verb: to hold spellbound : charmExamples:"But [Luke] Bryan didn't need much trickery to enthrall the crowd, ready to party to 'Rain is a Good Thing,' 'Crash My Party' and 'Do I' among his string of hits." — Amanda St. Amand, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 15 June 2013"In this picture she gazes up, her thoughts far from the page, seemingly too enthralled by her photographer to concentrate on her task." — Megan Marshall, Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast, 2017Did you know?In Middle English, enthrallen meant "to hold in thrall." Thrall then, as now, meant "bondage" or "slavery"; it comes from an Old Norse word, thraell, which is probably related to an Old High German word for "servant." An early figurative use of enthrall appeared in the following advice from the 16th century, translated from a Latin text by Thomas Newton: "A man should not … enthrall his credit and honour to Harlots." But we rarely use even this sense of mental or moral enslavement anymore. Today the word is often used in its participle form, enthralled, which sometimes means "temporarily spellbound" ("we listened, enthralled, to the old woman's oral history"), but more often suggests a state of being generally captivated, delighted, or taken by some particular thing.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, 2017 is:confrere \KAHN-frair\ noun: colleague, comradeExamples:"Antonio Sánchez is a drummer of sharp and sweeping talent, best known to some observers as the percussive engine behind the movie 'Birdman' and to others as a close confrere of the guitarist Pat Metheny." — The New York Times, 2 Sept. 2016"A practiced collaborator …, [Andy] Warhol made other creatives his confreres early on too.… Working with interior designer Suzie Frankfurt, the pair's 'Wild Raspberries' was a silly, mock cookbook accompanied by delightfully oddball illustrations." — Felicia Feaster, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9 June 2017Did you know?Confrere arrived in English from Anglo-French in the 15th century, and ultimately derives from the Medieval Latin confrater, meaning "brother" or "fellow." (Frater, the root of this term, shares an ancient ancestor with our word brother.) English speakers also began using another descendant of confrater in the 15th century: confraternity, meaning "a society devoted to a religious or charitable cause." In the past, confrere was often used specifically of a fellow member of a confraternity, but these days it is used more generally.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, 2017 is:soi-disant \swah-dee-ZAHNG\ adjective: self-proclaimed, so-calledExamples:"It's one of the few soi-disant walking boots we've seen this month that you might be able to, you know, walk in." — The Times (London), 3 Mar. 2010"The scene was reminiscent of the heyday of the late, great Pasadena Art Museum in the 60s and 70s when an assortment of soi-disant art buffs regularly turned out, in cockamamie get-ups, for exhibition openings." — Patt Diroll, The Pasadena (California) Star-News, 24 Nov. 2014Did you know?Soi-disant, which in French means literally "saying oneself," is one of hundreds of French terms that entered English in the 18th century, during the period known as the Enlightenment. Even as political antipathies between France and England were being played out on battlefields in Europe and America, English speakers were peppering their speech and writing with French. Soi-disant first began appearing in English texts in the mid-18th century as a disparaging term for someone who styles or fancies himself or herself in some role. Crêpe, vis-à-vis, étiquette, and sang-froid are a few of the other French terms that became naturalized in English at that time.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, 2017 is:interstice \in-TER-stus\ noun1 : a space that intervenes between things; especially : one between closely spaced things2 : a short space of time between eventsExamples:"The vehicle of this affirmation—if indeed it is that—is a message that the Mara character writes on a scrap of paper and then jams into an interstice in an archway before painting over it, evoking a prayer wedged in the Western Wall." — Nick Pinkerton, Artforum, 6 July 2017"You will find no wittily sardonic yet sympathetic aunts who happen to write fiction in the interstices of the day's other duties, no talented and unmarried daughters of deceased clergymen negotiating with London publishers from a Hampshire cottage." — Nicholas Dames, The Atlantic, September 2017Did you know?You don't need to read between the lines to understand the history of interstice; its etymology is plain to see. Interstice derives from the Latin interstitium, which is itself formed from the prefix inter-, meaning "between," and -stes, meaning "standing." Interstices are the cracks and crevices of life, and the word is often used for both the literal and figurative gaps of the world. In modern uses, interstice can even refer to gaps in time or to special niches in the larger expanse of something else. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould used it, for example, to comment, "Dinosaurs held sway for 100 million years while mammals, all the while, lived as small animals in the interstices of their world."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, 2017 is:coalesce \koh-uh-LESS\ verb1 : to grow together2 a : to unite into a whole : fuseb : to unite for a common end : join forces3 : to arise from the combination of distinct elementsExamples:"Parties typically struggle to coalesce on complex legislative issues." — Frances Lee, The Washington Post, 23 July 2017"Their first gig was at the Kennedy Center. More gigs followed, ... and the musicians coalesced into a working band, on the road three weeks out of every month." — Fred Kaplan, The New Yorker, 22 May 2017Did you know?Coalesce unites the prefix co- ("together") and the Latin verb alescere, meaning "to grow." (The words adolescent and adult also grew from alescere.) Coalesce, which first appeared in English in the mid-16th century, is one of a number of verbs in English (along with mix, commingle, merge, and amalgamate) that refer to the act of combining parts into a whole. In particular, coalesce usually implies the merging of similar parts to form a cohesive unit.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, 2017 is:emissary \EM-uh-sair-ee\ noun1 : one designated as the agent of another : representative2 : a secret agentExamples:As the company's emissary to the meeting, Sarah was tasked with presenting the proposal that had been the focus of the team's work for several months."In recent years, emissaries of Belgium's soccer association have been invited around the planet to advise larger, richer nations on how to develop young players." — Rory Smith, The New York Times, 4 July 2017Did you know?An emissary is often a person who is sent somewhere in order to act as a representative. The key word in that sentence is sent; emissary derives from Latin emissus, the past participle of the verb emittere, meaning "to send out." Emissary first appeared in print in English in the early 1600s, not too long after the arrival of another emittere descendant: emit. In addition, emittere itself comes from Latin mittere ("to send"), which is an ancestor of many English words, including admit, commit, mission, omit, permit, premise, promise, and submit.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, 2017 is:accoutrement \uh-KOO-truh-munt\ noun1 a : equipment, trappings; specifically : a soldier's outfit usually not including clothes and weapons — usually used in pluralb : an accessory item of clothing or equipment — usually used in plural2 : an identifying and often superficial characteristic or device — usually used in pluralExamples:The little closet was cluttered with belts and scarves and other accoutrements of use to a fashion-conscious teenager."Tour a contemporary American college campus and the guide will apologize for anything without the accoutrements of a yuppie condo. Stainless steel appliances and granite countertops became necessary to learning linear algebra while I wasn't looking." — Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe, Inside Higher Ed (insidehighered.com), 23 July 2017Did you know?Accoutrement and its relative accoutre, a verb meaning "to provide with equipment or furnishings" or "to outfit," have been appearing in English texts since the 16th century. Today both words have variant spellings—accouterment and accouter. Their French ancestor, accoutrer, descends from an Old French word meaning "seam" and ultimately traces to the Latin word consuere, meaning "to sew together." You probably won't be too surprised to learn that consuere is also an ancestor of couture, a word referring to the business of making fashionable clothes, as well as to the clothes themselves.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 26, 2017 is:burgle \BER-gul\ verb1 : to break into and steal from 2 : to commit burglary againstExamples:The broken window alerted the security guard that the office may have been burgled."Residents … had long been complaining about a surge in crime. One area resident tells Newsweek her house had been burgled a few years ago while she and her husband were inside." — Jeff Stein, Newsweek, 16 Sept. 2016Did you know?Burglary, which means "forcible entry into a building especially at night with the intent to commit a crime (such as theft)," and burglar ("one who commits burglary") have been with us since the 16th century. Burgle and its synonym burglarize didn't break into the language until the 19th century. Burgle is a back-formation (that is, a word formed by removing a suffix or prefix) from burglar. Burglarize comes from burglar as well, with the addition of the familiar -ize ending. Both verbs were once disparaged by grammarians—burgle was considered to be "facetious" and burglarize was labeled "colloquial"—but they are both now generally accepted. Burglarize is more common in American English, whereas burgle is preferred in British English.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 25, 2017 is:picaresque \pik-uh-RESK\ adjective: of or relating to rogues or rascals; also : of, relating to, suggesting, or being a type of fiction dealing with the episodic adventures of a usually roguish protagonistExamples:"His specialty was the picaresque novel, which took the hero (with the reader happily perched on his shoulder) on a wild ride…." — Martin Rubin, The Washington Times, 16 Mar. 2012"Rafting down the Mississippi, Twain captured pre-Civil War America with a picaresque tale of marks and swindlers, innocents and thugs." — Ron Charles, The Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2017Did you know?Picaresque derives from Spanish picaresco, which means "of or relating to a picaro," the picaro being the rogue or bohemian usually at the center of picaresque fiction. The typical picaro is a wandering individual of low social standing who happens into a series of adventures among people of various higher classes, and often relies on wits and a little dishonesty to get by. The first known novel in this style is Lazarillo de Tormes (circa 1554), an irreverent work about a poor boy who works for a series of masters of dubious character. The novel has been attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, but his authorship is disputable.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, 2017 is:opine \oh-PYNE\ verb1 : to express opinions2 : to state as an opinionExamples:In a letter to the editor, the writer _opined_ that the town library should be open for longer hours during the summer months to give bored children a place to go and something to do. "Fans have opined about the merits and misfires of their team's uniforms since the middle of the 19th century. In 1909, the St. Louis Republic snarkily proclaimed 'really, baseball uniforms are the ugliest things in the world.'" — Todd Radom, The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2017Did you know?Opine has been around since the 15th century, and while it certainly is not a rare word today, it hasn't always been taken seriously. Commentators have described it as a stilted word, appropriate only in facetious use—and, indeed, it does have a tendency to turn up in humorous writing. Recent evidence, however, suggests that it is being used in perfectly respectable contexts more often. It typically serves to emphasize that the opinion being reported is just that—an opinion. Opine is not a back-formation of opinion; both words derived independently from the Middle French opiner ("to express one's opinion") and the Latin opinari, meaning "to have an opinion" or "to think."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 23, 2017 is:flagrant \FLAY-grunt\ adjective: conspicuously offensive; especially : so obviously inconsistent with what is right or proper as to appear to be a flouting of law or moralityExamples:In a flagrant violation of the family's code of ethics, someone had finished the ice cream and left the empty container in the freezer."The history of acting, in [Dan] Fox's account, is one of constant flux between naturalism and styles of flagrant artifice, but both are modes of pretending." — Christian Lorentzen, The New York Magazine, 4 Apr. 2016Did you know?In Latin, flagrare means "to burn," and flagrans means "burning" or "fiery hot" (both literally and figuratively). When it was first used in the 16th century, flagrant had the same meaning as flagrans, but by the 18th century it had acquired its current meaning of "conspicuously bad." Some usage commentators warn against using flagrant and blatant interchangeably. While both words denote conspicuousness, they are not exact synonyms. Blatant is usually used of some person, action, or thing that attracts disapproving attention (e.g., "a blatant grammatical error"). Flagrant is used similarly, but usually carries a heavier weight of violated morality (e.g., "flagrant abuse of public office").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, 2017 is:nobby \NAH-bee\ adjective: cleverly stylish : chic, smartExamples:The restaurant was a bit too nobby for my tastes, but I did enjoy the food."Sponsorship of nobby events seems to be the favourite PR trick for City firms in the soup." — Patrick Hosking, The New Statesman, 2 June 2003Did you know?Nobby comes from the noun nob, which is used in British English to mean "one in a superior position in life." (Nob may have begun as a slang word for "head," but etymologists aren't completely sure. A possible connection to noble has been suggested as well.) Appearing in English in the 18th century, nobby was first used to describe people in society's upper echelons. It has since extended in usage to describe the places frequented by such people, as well as their genteel customs. Charles Dickens, for example, wrote in Bleak House (1853) of "[r]especting this unfortunate family matter, and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet."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, 2017 is:hebetude \HEB-uh-tood\ noun: lethargy, dullnessExamples:Tired from being out late the night before, Jennifer allowed herself to fall into the hebetude of a lazy Sunday afternoon."The leaden weight of an irremediable idleness descended upon General Feraud, who having no resources within himself sank into a state of awe-inspiring hebetude." — Joseph Conrad, "The Duel: A Military Story," 1908Did you know?Hebetude usually suggests mental dullness, often marked by laziness or torpor. As such, it was a good word for one Queenslander correspondent, who wrote in a letter to the editor of the Weekend Australian of "an epidemic of hebetude among young people who … are placing too great a reliance on electronic devices to do their thinking and remembering." Hebetude comes from Late Latin hebetudo, which means pretty much the same thing as our word. It is also closely related to the Latin word for "dull," hebes, which has extended meanings such as "obtuse," "doltish," and "stupid." Other hebe- words in English include hebetudinous ("marked by hebetude") and hebetate ("to make dull").See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.