Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 24, 2017 is: nightmare • \NYTE-mair\ • noun 1 : an evil spirit formerly thought to oppress people during sleep 2 : a frightening dream that usually awakens the sleeper 3 : something (such as an experience, situation, or object) having the monstrous character of a nightmare or producing a feeling of anxiety or terror Examples: Since starting the new medication, John routinely experiences vivid dreams when he sleeps and even suffers from frequent nightmares. "The dream of a stress-free, short-term rental in a balmy locale can easily become a nightmare without due diligence, according to real estate agents and Long Island snowbirds." — Cara S. Trager, Newsday, 19 Feb. 2017 Did you know? Looking at nightmare, you might guess that it is a compound formed from night and mare. If so, your guess is correct. But while the night in nightmare makes sense, the mare part is less obvious. Most English speakers know mare as a word for a female horse or similar equine animal, but the mare of nightmare is a different word, an obsolete one referring to an evil spirit that was once thought to produce feelings of suffocation in people while they slept. By the 14th century the mare was also known as nightmare, and by the late 16th century nightmare was also being applied to the feelings of distress caused by the spirit, and then to frightening or unpleasant dreams. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2017 is: watershed • \WAW-ter-shed\ • noun 1 a : a dividing ridge between drainage areas b : a region or area bounded peripherally by a divide and draining ultimately to a particular watercourse or body of water 2 : a crucial dividing point, line, or factor : turning point Examples: "This year marked a watershed for contemporary classical music in the city. No greater proof was the Ear Taxi Festival, a Chicago-centric marathon of new music performance that, for six heady days in October, brought together some 500 local musicians to present roughly 100 recent classical works...." — John von Rhein, The Chicago Tribune, 22 Dec. 2016 "The Cienega Creek watershed contains some of the highest-quality riparian woodland, riverine and cienega wetland habitats in Arizona." — Jennifer McIntosh, The Arizona Daily Star, 29 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Opinion on the literal geographic meaning of watershed is divided. On one side of the debate are those who think the word can only refer to a ridge of land separating rivers and streams flowing in one direction from those flowing in the opposite direction. That's the term's original meaning, one probably borrowed in the translation of the German Wasserscheide. On the other side of the argument are those who think watershed can also apply to the area through which such divided water flows. The latter sense is now far more common in America, but most Americans have apparently decided to leave the quarrel to geologists and geographers while they use the term in its figurative sense, "turning point." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 22, 2017 is: lief • \LEEF\ • adverb : soon, gladly Examples: "I'd as lief be in the tightening coils of a boa constrictor as be held by that man," declared Miss Jezebel. "I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as / lief have been myself alone." — William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1599 Did you know? Lief began as lēof in Old English and has since appeared in many literary classics, first as an adjective and then as an adverb. It got its big break in the epic poem Beowulf as an adjective meaning "dear" or "beloved." The adverb first appeared in the 13th century, and in 1390, it was used in John Gower's collection of love stories, Confessio Amantis. Since that time, it has graced the pages of works by William Makepeace Thackeray, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and D. H. Lawrence, among others. Today, the adjective is considered to be archaic and the adverb is used much less frequently than in days of yore. It still pops up now and then, however, in the phrases "had as lief," "would as lief," "had liefer," and "would liefer." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 21, 2017 is: ameliorate • \uh-MEE-lee-uh-rayt\ • verb 1 : to make better or more tolerable 2 : to grow better : improve Examples: Access to clean water would ameliorate living conditions within the village. "There is one variable that many childhood experts agree can ameliorate the uncertainty in the lives of 'at risk' youths. A caring adult willing to take a few hours a week for a one-on-one relationship with a child or young adult can have an enormous impact on that child's life and future success." — Alice Dubenetsky, The Vermont Eagle, 18 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Ameliorate traces back to melior, the Latin adjective meaning "better," and is a synonym of the verbs better and improve. When is it better to use ameliorate? If a situation is bad, ameliorate indicates that the conditions have been made more tolerable. Thus, one might refer to drugs that ameliorate the side effects of chemotherapy, a loss of wages ameliorated by unemployment benefits, or a harsh law ameliorated by special exceptions. Improve and better apply when something bad is being made better (as in "the weather improved" or "she bettered her lot in life"), and they should certainly be chosen over ameliorate when something good is getting better still ("he improved his successful program," "she bettered her impressive scores"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 20, 2017 is: hackle • \HACK-ul\ • noun 1 a : one of the long narrow feathers on the neck or back of a bird b : the neck plumage of the domestic fowl 2 : a comb or board with long metal teeth for dressing flax, hemp, or jute 3 a : (plural) hairs (as on a dog's neck and back) that can be erected b : (plural) temper, dander Examples: The rooster's colorful hackle quivered as it stretched out its neck and began to crow. "So before you get your hackles up in response to local sales and gas proposals floated up in Helena, consider the significant benefits they could bring to our local cost of living." — The Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle, 14 Feb. 2017 Did you know? In its earliest uses in the 15th century, hackle denoted either a bird's neck plumage or an instrument used to comb out long fibers of flax, hemp, or jute. Apparently, some folks saw a resemblance between the neck feathers of domestic birds—which, on a male, become erect when the bird is defensive—and the prongs of the comb-like tool. In the 19th century, English speakers extended the word's use to both dogs and people. Like the bird's feathers, the erectile hairs on the back of a dog's neck stand up when the animal is agitated. With humans, use of the word hackles is usually figurative. When you raise someone's hackles, you make them angry or put them on the defensive. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 19, 2017 is: chaffer • \CHAFF-er\ • verb 1 a : haggle, exchange, barter b : to bargain for 2 : (British) to exchange small talk : chatter Examples: "And while Levy and Toriki drank absinthe and chaffered over the pearl, Huru-Huru listened and heard the stupendous price of twenty-five thousand francs agreed upon." — Jack London, "The House of Mapuhi," 1909 "Travelers who had little money to start with frequently traded a stock of wares of their own along the way—leather goods or precious stones for example—or offered their labor here and there, sometimes taking several months or even years to finally work or chaffer their way as far as Egypt." — Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, 1986 Did you know? The noun chaffer was originally used to refer to commercial trading. Chaffer (also spelled chaffare, cheffare, and cheapfare over the years) dates to the 1200s and was formed as a combination of Middle English chep, meaning "trade" or "bargaining," and fare, meaning "journey." The verb chaffer appeared in the 1300s and originally meant "to trade, buy, and sell." In time, both the verb and the noun were being applied to trade that involved haggling and negotiating. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 18, 2017 is: furtive • \FER-tiv\ • adjective 1 a : done in a quiet and secretive way to avoid being noticed : surreptitious b : expressive of stealth : sly 2 : obtained underhandedly Examples: Julia and I exchanged furtive glances across the room when Edward asked who had rearranged his CD collection. "… I create a hidden fortress for the cake at the back of the fridge and by this I mean shove quinoa and brussels sprouts in front of it thus saving it for furtive late night snacking." — Sherry Kuehl, The Kansas City Star, 28 Dec. 2016 Did you know? Furtive has a shadowy history. It may have slipped into English directly from the Latin furtivus or it may have covered its tracks by arriving via the French furtif. We aren't even sure how long it has been a part of the English language. The earliest known written uses of furtive are from the early 1600s, but the derived furtively appears in written form as far back as 1490, suggesting that furtive may have been lurking about for a while. However furtive got into English, its root is the Latin fur, which is related to, and may come from, the Greek phōr (both words mean "thief"). When first used in English, furtive meant "done by stealth," and later also came to mean, less commonly, "stolen." Whichever meaning you choose, the elusive ancestry is particularly fitting, since a thief must be furtive to avoid getting caught in the act. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 17, 2017 is: effulgence • \ih-FULL-junss\ • noun : radiant splendor : brilliance Examples: "There's plenty of conflict about who invented hummus or falafel … and where these dishes reach their dazzling effulgence, but the truth is there are common dishes and flavors to many of the cuisines found along the southern edge of the Mediterranean Sea." — Laura Reiley, The Tampa Bay Times, 6 July 2016 "The performance was riveting, demonstrating both her technical prowess and her clear understanding of line, movement, and energy. The work was exquisitely sculpted into an ever-growing effulgence that crept steadily forward toward a transfixing conclusion." — Wayne F. Anthony, The Blade (Toledo, Ohio), 4 Feb. 2017 Did you know? Apparently, English speakers first took a shine to effulgence in the 17th century; that's when the word was first used in print in our language. Effulgence derives from the Latin verb fulgēre, which means "to shine." Fulgēre is also the root of fulgent, a synonym of radiant that English speakers have used since the 15th century. Another related word, refulgence, is about 30 years older than effulgence. Refulgence carries a meaning similar to effulgence but sometimes goes further by implying reflectivity, as in "the refulgence of the knight's gleaming armor." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2017 is: decry • \dih-KRY\ • verb 1 : to depreciate (as a coin) officially or publicly 2 : to express strong disapproval of Examples: Town officials were surprised by how roundly the changes to the town hall's hours were decried. "He has previously spoken on behalf of music education and decried music piracy and the low royalty rates paid to artists whose songs are streamed online." — George Varga, The San Diego Union Tribune, 12 Feb. 2017 Did you know? Decry, depreciate, disparage, and belittle all mean "to express a low opinion of something," but there are also some subtle differences in their use. Decry, which is a descendant of the Old French verb crier, meaning "to cry," implies open condemnation with intent to discredit ("he decried her defeatist attitude"). Depreciate implies that something is being represented as having less value than commonly believed ("critics depreciated his plays for being unabashedly sentimental"). Disparage implies depreciation by indirect means, such as slighting or harmful comparison ("she disparaged polo as a game for the rich"). Belittle usually suggests a contemptuous or envious attitude ("they belittled the achievements of others"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 15, 2017 is: gadzookery • \gad-ZOO-kuh-ree\ • noun : (British) the use of archaisms (as in a historical novel) Examples: "Several other stories and verses that they jointly contributed to magazines are historical and melodramatic in tone, larded with archaic oaths and exclamations and general gadzookery." — Julia Briggs, A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1987 "Her spare prose and dialogue give a period flavour without the dread excesses of gadzookery." — David Langford, The Complete Critical Assembly, 2002 Did you know? "Gadzooks . . . you astonish me!" cries Mr. Lenville in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. We won't accuse Dickens of gadzookery ("the bane of historical fiction," as historical novelist John Vernon once called it), because we assume people actually said gadzooks back in the 1830s. That mild oath is an old-fashioned euphemism, so it is thought, for "God's hooks" (a reference, supposedly, to the nails of the Crucifixion). Today's historical novelists must toe a fine line, avoiding anachronistic expressions while at the same time rejecting modern expressions such as okay and nice (the latter, in Shakespeare's day, suggesting one who was wanton or dissolute rather than pleasant, kind, or respectable). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 14, 2017 is: besmirch • \bih-SMERCH\ • verb : to cause harm or damage to : sully, soil Examples: "Greenfield is not one of those biographers who set out to besmirch their subjects and deplore their lives, and for whom every detail is an indictment." — Luc Sante, The New York Times Book Review, 25 June 2006 "But to many of us, golf is more than a game…. We occasionally curse its name, but will defend it to the death to any that besmirch it. In short, golf is our addiction." — Joel Beall, Golf Digest, 1 July 2016 Did you know? Since the prefix be- in besmirch means "to make or cause to be," when you besmirch something, you cause it to have a smirch. What's a smirch? A smirch is a stain, and to smirch something is to stain it or make it dirty. By extension, the verb smirch came to mean "to bring discredit or disgrace on." Smirch and besmirch, then, mean essentially the same thing. We have William Shakespeare to thank for the variation in form. His uses of the term in Hamlet ("And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of his will") and Henry V ("Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd with rainy marching in the painful field") are the first known appearances of besmirch in 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 March 13, 2017 is: irenic • \eye-REN-ik\ • adjective : favoring, conducive to, or operating toward peace, moderation, or conciliation Examples: The former senator's irenic nature made her an ideal candidate to be a foreign ambassador. "In a period when relations between religious traditions are characterized by suspicion and lack of understanding, Gregg's even-handed and irenic treatment of each religion's biblical interpretation provides a positive appreciation of each on its own terms and an invitation for each religion to consider rejoining with the others in an important conversation." — Luke Timothy Johnson, Commonweal, 17 June 2016 Did you know? In Greek mythology, Eirene was one of the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons and natural order; in the Iliad the Horae are the custodians of the gates of Olympus. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, the Horae were the daughters of Zeus and a Titaness named Themis, and their names indicate their function and relation to human life. Eirene was the goddess of peace. Her name is also the Greek word for "peace," and it gave rise to irenic and other peaceable terms including irenics (a theological term for advocacy of Christian unity), Irena (the genus name of two species of birds found in southern Asia and the Philippines), and the name Irene. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2017 is: vade mecum • \vay-dee-MEE-kum\ • noun 1 : a book for ready reference : manual 2 : something regularly carried about by a person Examples: "Well into the 20th century, John Barlow's Ideal Handbook, the vade mecum of the rifleman, carried instructions for molding the Keene bullet." — Jim Foral, Gun Digest 2012, 2011 "How to Do Biography is not a prescriptive, do-it-by-the-numbers volume. It's more a vade mecum, a guidebook filled with general advice on issues that face all biographers." — James L. W. West III, The Centre Daily Times (State College, Pennsylvania), 26 Apr. 2009 Did you know? Vade mecum (Latin for "go with me") has long been used of manuals or guidebooks sufficiently compact to be carried in a deep pocket, and it would sometimes appear in the title of such works, as with one of the earliest known uses of the phrase in the title of the 1629 volume Vade Mecum: A Manuall of Essayes Morrall, Theologicall. From the beginning, it has also been used for constant companions that are carried about by a person, such as gold, medications, and memorized gems of wisdom. But these days, vade mecum is primarily encountered in reference to works which are intended to serve as one-stop references or guides to a particular subject, whether or not such a work can actually be carried in one's pocket (a moot distinction, perhaps, in an age when such works can easily reside in a smartphone's memory). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2017 is: minuscule • \MIN-uh-skyool\ • adjective 1 : written in or in the size or style of lowercase letters 2 : very small Examples: The number of bugs in the latest version of the computer program is minuscule compared to the number that surfaced in the earlier version. "What's essentially a minuscule contact lens that never has to be removed or cleaned is changing the way people address near vision challenges." — Kristi King, WTOP.com, 14 Feb. 2017 Did you know? Minuscule derives from the Latin adjective minusculus, which means "rather small." The minuscule spelling is consistent with the word's etymology, but since the 19th century, people have also been spelling it miniscule, perhaps because they associate it with the combining form mini- and words such as minimal and minimum. Usage commentators generally consider the miniscule spelling an error, but it is widely used in reputable and carefully edited publications and is accepted as a legitimate variant in some dictionaries. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 10, 2017 is: tattoo • \ta-TOO\ • noun 1 : a rapid rhythmic rapping 2 a : a call sounded shortly before taps as notice to go to quarters b : outdoor military exercise given by troops as evening entertainment Examples: The impatient man began beating a tattoo with his fingers on the countertop. "As tennis fans, we spend our time watching the players' hands. But the professionals will tell you that matches are more often won with the feet, and this was the greatest contrast yesterday. Murray's size 12s tapped out a rapid tattoo on the turf … as he ran down countless lost causes." — Simon Briggs, The Daily Telegraph (London), 9 July 2016 Did you know? Today's word has nothing to do with skin markings. That other tattoo comes from the Tahitian word tatau. Today's tattoo comes from the Dutch colloquialism "tap toe," which can be translated as "turn off the tap," though it was most often used to mean something like "Shut up! Cease!" The Dutch began using the word taptoe for a drum beat, and then English speakers borrowed the term (changing it slightly, to taptoo and, eventually, to tattoo). It was used especially by the military to name a drum beat (or possibly a bugle call) that signaled the day's end. This taptoo most likely led to our taps, a term for the final bugle call at night in the military. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 9, 2017 is: ominous • \AH-muh-nus\ • adjective : being or exhibiting an omen : portentous; especially : foreboding or foreshadowing evil : inauspicious Examples: Our fears about the picnic being cancelled were heightened by the sight of dark, ominous clouds appearing over the horizon. "An ominous week-long standoff between the government and its rogue first vice president is … dominating talk in the edgy Afghan capital." — Pamela Constable, The Washington Post, 29 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Ominous didn't always mean "foreshadowing evil." If you look closely, you can see the omen in ominous, which gave it the original meaning of "presaging events to come"—whether good or bad. It is ultimately derived from the Latin word omen, which is both an ancestor and a synonym of our omen. Today, however, ominous tends to suggest a menacing or threatening aspect. Its synonyms portentous and fateful are used similarly, but ominous is the most menacing of the three. It implies an alarming character that foreshadows evil or disaster. Portentous suggests being frighteningly big or impressive, but seldom gives a definite forewarning of calamity. Fateful implies that something is of momentous or decisive importance. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 8, 2017 is: ramify • \RAM-uh-fye\ • verb 1 : to split up into branches or constituent parts 2 : to send forth branches or extensions 3 : to cause to branch Examples: "In alternating chapters, 'The Lost Boy' moves back and forth in time, from a present-day whodunit set in a city … to a grim tale set in the 1870s on one of the myriad rocky islands lying off the coast. These narratives are related in fascinating ways, their threads crisscrossing and ramifying inventively." — Anthony Lewis, The Providence Journal, 27 Nov. 2016 "[H. G.] Wells was also publishing inspired books at a furious pace. His first were the scientific textbooks Honours Physiography and Text-book of Biology (both 1893); the latter went into many editions. The topics rapidly ramified. The year 1895 alone saw a short-story collection (The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents), a fantastic romance in which an angel falls to Earth (The Wonderful Visit) and a volume of essays, as well as his first full-length work of fiction, The Time Machine." — Simon J. James, Nature, 8 Sept. 2016 Did you know? Ramify has been part of English since the 15th century and is an offshoot of the Latin word for "branch," which is ramus. English acquired several scientific words from ramus, including biramous ("having two branches"). Another English word derived from ramus is the now obsolete ramage, meaning "untamed" or "wild." Ramage originated in falconry—it was initially used of young hawks that had begun to fly from branch to branch in trees. The most common ramus word, though, is a direct descendant of ramify. Ramification in its oldest sense means "branch, offshoot," but is most commonly used to mean "consequence, outgrowth." Ramify started out as a scientific word, at first referring to branching parts of plants and trees and later to veins and nerves, but it soon branched out into non-scientific and even figurative uses, as in "ideas that ramify throughout society." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 7, 2017 is: syncretism • \SING-kruh-tiz-um\ • noun 1 : the combination of different forms of belief or practice 2 : the fusion of two or more originally different inflectional forms Examples: "Dance caller and historian Phil Jamison … argues convincingly … that American square dance is not a colonial relic from the British Isles, but rather a uniquely American syncretism of European, African and Native American influences." — Gabriel Popkin, The Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2016 "The Yoruba religion was brought to Cuba by Africans from the Yoruba region…. Over time, the religion merged with Catholicism, resulting in a religious syncretism that unites the Yoruba deities (orishas) with Catholic saints." — Abel Fernandez, The Miami Herald, 4 Jan. 2017 Did you know? The ancient Greeks mainly used the term synkrētismos to describe the joining together of Greeks in opposition to a common enemy. In the early 17th century, English speakers adopted the term in the anglicized form syncretism to refer to the union of different religious beliefs. Three centuries later, lexicographers of the 1909 edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language added a new definition of syncretism ("the union or fusion into one or two or more originally different inflectional forms, as of two cases"), but this specialized sense is rarely encountered outside of the field of linguistics. Some related terms that you might encounter are syncretize ("to attempt to unite and harmonize"), syncretist ("one who advocates syncretism"), and syncretic and syncretistic ("characterized or brought about by syncretism"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 6, 2017 is: postulate • \PAHSS-chuh-layt\ • verb 1 : demand, claim 2 a : to assume or claim as true, existent, or necessary b : to assume as an axiom or as a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning (as in logic or mathematics) Examples: "Some postulate that the moment when machines surpass humans in intelligence may not be that far off." — Vicky Allan, The Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 22 Jan. 2017 "[Dr. Kevin] Tracey, a neurosurgeon, scientist and inventor, first advanced what seemed a radical hypothesis in the late 1990s: He postulated that the vagus nerve is intimately involved in the function of the immune system." — Delthia Ricks, Newsday, 3 Jan. 2017 Did you know? In 1703, the dedication of the City and County Purchaser and Builders Dictionary included the following words: "These your extraordinary Favours … seem to Postulate from me … a Publick Recognition." That sense of postulate, a synonym of claim or demand, has been used by English speakers since the early 1600s. (The word's Latin grandparent, postulare, has the same meaning, but postulate first appeared earlier in the 1500s in senses restricted to ecclesiastical law.) Postulate was also used as a noun in the late 1500s, with the meaning "demand" or "stipulation." That sense is now considered archaic, but we still use the noun postulate. Today, it usually means "a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 5, 2017 is: affable • \AF-uh-bul\ • adjective 1 : being pleasant and at ease in talking to others 2 : characterized by ease and friendliness Examples: Michelle looked forward to sharing her coffee breaks with Joe, one of her more affable coworkers. "Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson is an affable, chatty fellow. But the filmmaker sounded particularly upbeat Tuesday when he jumped on the phone to talk about the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release of his … Marvel superhero movie." — Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Affable is one of several English words that evolved from the Latin verb fari, which means "to speak." The adjective comes from Latin affabilis, which comes from the fari relative affari ("to speak to"), plus -abilis, meaning "able." Some other fari derivatives are infant, fable, and fate. Infant comes from the Latin infans, which means "incapable of speech" and combines in- and fans, the present participle of fari. Fable comes from the Latin fabula, a fari offspring that means "conversation." Fate comes from the Latin word fatum, meaning "what has been spoken" and deriving from fatus, the past participle of fari. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 4, 2017 is: nugatory • \NOO-guh-tor-ee\ • adjective 1 : of little or no consequence : trifling, inconsequential 2 : having no force : inoperative Examples: "The novel's greatest talker is Sandro's best friend, Ronnie Fontaine, whose photographs (such as we hear about them) seem nugatory, but whose stories are captivating." — James Wood, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2013 "… Christine McVie … was working on 'Keep Me There,' a throwback melodically to her solo album of a few years previously. The opening may have been nugatory, but the chord progression up into the chorus had a driving tension." — David Honigmann, The Financial Times, 9 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Nugatory, which first appeared in English in the 17th century, comes from the Latin adjective nugatorius and is ultimately a derivative of the noun nugae, meaning "trifles." Like its synonyms vain, idle, empty, and hollow, nugatory means "without worth or significance." But while nugatory suggests triviality or insignificance ("a monarch with nugatory powers," for example), vain implies either absolute or relative absence of value (as in "vain promises"). Idle suggests being incapable of worthwhile use or effect (as in "idle speculations"). Empty and hollow suggest a deceiving lack of real substance or genuineness (as in "an empty attempt at reconciliation" or "a hollow victory"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 3, 2017 is: cabotage • \KAB-uh-tahzh\ • noun 1 : trade or transport in coastal waters or airspace or between two points within a country 2 : the right to engage in coastal trade or transport Examples: "If Britain were granted cabotage, B.A.'s planes would be able to operate like a domestic carrier—to hop about the United States, picking up and discharging passengers, and carrying many of them to and from Britain." — John Newhouse, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 1991 "The decision to allow cabotage could see a foreign carrier … fly domestic passengers between the Queensland resort and another destination north of the tropic." — Steve Creedy, The Australian, 29 May 2015 Did you know? Coastlines were once so important to the French that they came up with a verb to name the act of sailing along a coast: caboter. That verb gave rise to the French noun cabotage, which named trade or transport along a coast. In the 16th century, the French legally limited their lucrative coastal trade, declaring that only French ships could trade in French ports. They called the right to conduct such trading cabotage too. Other nations soon embraced both the concept of trade restrictions and the French name for trading rights, and expanded the idea to inland trade 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 March 2, 2017 is: laconic • \luh-KAH-nik\ • adjective : using or involving the use of a minimum of words : concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious Examples: The reporters had a hard time getting the laconic quarterback to share his thoughts after the tough loss. "Far from laconic, Penny is steeped with a positive attitude as she greets students with a smile and asks for their omelet request. With a voracious appetite for conversation, Penny's outgoing personality draws a throng of students to her omelet line." — Haley Thompson, The Courier (Monmouth College), 3 Feb. 2017 Did you know? Laconia was an ancient country in southern Greece, bordering on the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas. Its capital city was Sparta, and the Spartans were famous for their terseness of speech. Laconic comes to us by way of Latin from Greek Lakōnikos, which is derived from Lakōn, meaning "native of Laconia." It has been with us since the 16th century and has sometimes been used with the basic meaning "of or relating to Laconia or its inhabitants" (though we're more apt to use Laconian for this meaning today). In current use, laconic means "terse" or "concise," and thus recalls the Spartan tendency to use the fewest words possible. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 1, 2017 is: exponent • \ik-SPOH-nunt\ • noun 1 : a symbol written above and to the right of a mathematical expression to indicate the operation of raising to a power 2 a : one that expounds or interprets b : one that champions, practices, or exemplifies Examples: "As the leading exponent of naturalism in fiction, [Émile] Zola believed in the clinically accurate depiction of all aspects of human life." — Adam Kirsch, The New Statesman, 18 Jan. 2017 "But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series, 1944 Did you know? You probably won't be surprised to learn that exponent shares an ancestor with proponent—and indeed, the Latin ponere ("to put") is at the root of both terms. Exponent descends from exponere, which joins ponere with ex- ("out") and means "to put forth" or "to explain." Proponent traces to proponere, a word created from the affix pro- ("before") that can mean "to put before," or "to display" or "to declare." Proponent is related to propose and can describe someone who offers a proposal, but today it usually means "one who argues in favor of something." Exponent can also refer to someone who is an advocate, but it tends to refer especially to someone who stands out as a shining representative of something. In addition, it has retained its earlier meaning of "one who expounds." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 28, 2017 is: genuflect • \JEN-yuh-flekt\ • verb 1 a : to bend the knee b : to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship 2 : to be humbly obedient or respectful Examples: "Other jazz pianists would pause to genuflect when they entered a room where Peterson was playing...." — David Hinckley, The New York Daily News, 25 Dec. 2007 "By abdicating [their] responsibility to provide a counterweight to the executive branch, legislative leaders are genuflecting at the feet of the governor." — Kevin Franck, The Boston Herald, 6 Oct. 2016 Did you know? Genuflect is derived from the Late Latin genuflectere, formed from the noun genu ("knee") and the verb flectere ("to bend"). Flectere appears in a number of our more common verbs, such as reflect ("to bend or throw back," as light) and deflect ("to turn aside"). By comparison genu sees little use in English, but it did give us geniculate, a word often used in scientific contexts to mean "bent abruptly at an angle like a bent knee." Despite the resemblance, words such as genius and genuine are not related to genuflect; instead, they are of a family that includes the Latin verb gignere, meaning "to beget." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 27, 2017 is: shunpike • \SHUN-pyke\ • noun : a side road used to avoid the toll on or the speed and traffic of a superhighway Examples: David did some math to determine if the money on the extra gas needed to take the shunpike cost more than the toll for using the freeway. "The News On 6 wanted to see if other drivers would consider a shunpike to save money.'It just depends on what kind of drive it is and how much more time it would take,' said Lisa Underhill, a Claremore resident." — Dan Bewley, Newson6.com (Oklahoma), 24 Aug. 2009 Did you know? America's love affair with the automobile and the development of a national system of superhighways (along with the occasional desire to seek out paths less traveled) is a story belonging to the 20th century. So the word shunpike, too, must be a 20th-century phenomenon, right? Nope. Toll roads have existed for centuries (the word turnpike has meant "tollgate" since at least 1678), and were quite common in 19th-century America. Shunpike has been describing side roads since the middle of that century, almost half a century before the first Model T rolled out of the factory. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 26, 2017 is: indigenous • \in-DIJ-uh-nuss\ • adjective 1 : having originated in and being produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment 2 : innate, inborn Examples: "In all its forms, stone speaks of timelessness, solidity and quality. Indigenous local versions invariably work well as a construction material for houses or for interior surfaces and accessories." — Ben Kendrick, Country Living (UK), January 2017 "About 13 percent of Brazil's land had been set aside for the country's indigenous people based on the territories they historically occupied." — Chris Arsenault, Reuters (reuters.com), 19 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Indigenous derives from the Latin noun indigena (meaning "native"), which was formed by combining Old Latin indu (meaning "in" or "within") with the verb gignere (meaning "to beget"). Another term that comes from the indigena root is indigene, a word for a plant or animal that lives, grows, or originates in a certain area. Indigene is the older of the two; it has been used in English since the late 16th century, whereas the earliest documented use of indigenous occurred nearly 50 years later. Indigenous is used in scientific contexts to describe organisms and the habitats to which they belong, and in expressly non-scientific contexts, as in "emotions indigenous to the human spirit." Most often, however, it's used to describe the native inhabitants of a place. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 25, 2017 is: hoary • \HOR-ee\ • adjective 1 : gray or white with or as if with age 2 : extremely old : ancient Examples: The lichen gives the rocks a hoary appearance. "Take encouragement from this hoary truth: No matter how bad things get, you can always make them worse." — Paul McHugh, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 19 Dec. 2016 Did you know? "How to save the old that's worth saving ... is one of our greatest problems." British novelist John Galsworthy knew the value of preserving the past—and he would likely have counted hoary among those old things worth saving. The word is old indeed; it traces to an Old English adjective, hār, which appeared in Beowulf. That hoary ancestor evolved over time into hoar, a synonym of ancient. Hoary developed from hoar more than 475 years ago, and since then it has been used for anything that is old or that has the whitened look of age (from the hoary bat to the hoary willow). The venerable hoar also remains as a synonym of hoary and as a component of compounds such as hoarfrost. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 24, 2017 is: kudos • \KOO-dahss\ • noun 1 : fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement : prestige 2 : praise given for achievement Examples: "I'd like to be a widow. Then I'd have the freedom of the unmarried, with the kudos of the married. I could eat my cake and have it, too. Oh, to be a widow!" — Lucy Maud Montgomery, "The End of a Quarrel," 1912 "But Kraft deserves kudos for the way he has allowed Belichick to do his job. A man that is obsessed with public relations, he has gotten out of the way when it comes to running the football operations." — Bill Burt, The Eagle-Tribune (Massachusetts), 23 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Deriving from Greek, kudos entered English as slang popular at British universities in the 19th century. In its earliest use, the word referred to the prestige or renown that one gained by having accomplished something noteworthy. The sense meaning "praise given for achievement" came about in the 1920s. As this later sense became the predominant one, some English speakers, unaware of the word's Greek origin, began to treat the word as a plural count noun, inevitably coming up with the back-formation kudo to refer to a single instance of praise. For the same reason, when kudos is used as a subject you may see it with either a singular or plural verb. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 23, 2017 is: finesse • \fuh-NESS\ • verb 1 : to make a finesse in playing cards : to play (a card) in a finesse 2 a : to bring about, direct, or manage by adroit maneuvering b : evade, skirt Examples: "No author can finesse wry, homespun humor better than Fannie Flagg …, whose main claim to literary fame remains the award-winning 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe.'" — Allen Pierleoni, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 20 Jan. 2017 "My base in Johannesburg was the superb Saxon Hotel…. Outside that cocoon of safety a guide was essential. Mine showed a marked reluctance to venture into the badlands of the city centre…. But he finessed the security barriers to take me around Parktown, which more than made up for it." — Clive Aslet, The Daily Telegraph (London), 21 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Finesse was a noun for more than 300 years before it became a verb. In the 15th century the noun finesse was used to refer to refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture. During the 16th century, it developed the "skillful handling of a situation" meaning most common today. The first use of the verb finesse, however, was not as a corollary of one of these meanings. Instead, its meaning had to do with cards: if you finesse in a game like bridge or whist, you withhold your highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played. The other verb meanings of finesse developed soon after this one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 22, 2017 is: mayhap • \MAY-hap\ • adverb : possibly but not certainly : perhaps Examples: "The very footmen sometimes grinned too broadly, the maidservants giggled mayhap too loud, and a provoking air of intelligence seemed to pervade the whole family." — Sir Walter Scott, Waverly, 1814 "Mayhap this thought will lead to another, that perhaps we should have second thoughts about becoming a society all about consumption." — Cheryl Long Feather (Hunkuotawin), The Bismarck Tribune, 21 Nov. 2007 Did you know? If mayhap looks to you like a relative of its synonym perhaps, you're right—the words are related. Both ultimately derive from the Middle English noun hap, meaning "chance" or "fortune." Mayhap was formed by combining the phrase "(it) may hap" into a single word (the word maybe, another synonym of mayhap and perhaps, was developed similarly from may and the verb be). Hap in the phrase is a verb essentially meaning "to happen," and the verb hap comes from the noun hap. Perhaps came about when per (meaning "through the agency of") was combined directly with the noun hap to form one word. Today, mayhap is a rare word in contrast with the very common maybe and perhaps, but it does show up occasionally. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 21, 2017 is: distaff • \DISS-taff\ • adjective 1 a : related through a mother b : inherited or derived from the female parent 2 : female Examples: "Lord Robert Walsingham de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral.… The Duke, his father, was at one time Secretary for Foreign Affairs. They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on the distaff side." — Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor," 1892 "One hint that the article was aimed more at the distaff side was in the second of 15 trends it listed, namely: 'Meet Workleisure: Athleisure is taking on the workplace.' The illustrations were of women, the brands mentioned were feminine lines and, well, that whole concept is just too burdensome to plan and too pricey for my closet." — Mike Tighe, The La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune, 29 Dec. 2016 Did you know? The word distaff was first used for a short staff that held a bundle of fibers—of flax or wool, for example—ready to be spun into yarn or thread. Since spinning was a basic daily task customarily done by women, the distaff came to be the symbol for the work or domain of women. This symbolic use of the noun distaff dates back to the time of Chaucer and is found in several works by Shakespeare. Eventually distaff came to be used for the female branch of a family and then as an adjective, as in "the distaff side of the 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 February 20, 2017 is: onus • \OH-nuss\ • noun 1 : burden 2 : a disagreeable necessity : obligation 3 : blame 4 : stigma Examples: Management has made it clear that the onus is on employees to ask for further training if they don't understand the new procedures. "I feel very fortunate that I never got into this business as a beauty queen. Even back in high school, the actors I idolized were the chameleons. That really took the onus off of what I looked like, and what a beautiful woman is supposed to look like." — Connie Britton, quoted in The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2016 Did you know? Understanding the etymology of onus is not at all burdensome; it's as simple as knowing that English borrowed the word—spelling, meaning, and all—from Latin in the 17th century. We can also add that it's a distant relative of the Sanskrit word for "cart" (a vehicle that carries a burden). English isn't exactly loaded with derivatives of Latin onus, but the root did give us onerous ("troublesome") and exonerate ("to clear from accusation or blame"—thus, "to unburden"). Additionally, our legal language has onus probandi, which is often shortened to onus. It means "burden of proof"—that is, the obligation of proving a disputed assertion in a court of law. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 19, 2017 is: bemuse • \bih-MYOOZ\ • verb 1 : to make confused : puzzle, bewilder 2 : to occupy the attention of : distract, absorb 3 : to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement Examples: She had neither asked for nor expected her newfound celebrity, and was bemused by all the attention she was receiving. "I have no interest in bemusing an audience or puzzling an audience. I don't think my plays are difficult. When they're spoken of in those terms, I'm always surprised." — Tom Stoppard, quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Oct. 2016 Did you know? In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by "a parson much bemus'd in beer." The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who plagued Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant that the parson had found his muse—his inspiration—in beer. That use of bemused harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of "Poets … irrecoverably Be-mus'd." In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to allude to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted "bemus'd in beer" as meaning "left confused by beer," and their confusion gave rise to the first modern sense of bemused above. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 18, 2017 is: protean • \PROH-tee-un\ • adjective 1 : of or resembling Proteus in having a varied nature or ability to assume different forms 2 : displaying great diversity or variety : versatile Examples: "Together, the paintings demonstrate Picasso's protean ability to slip into new visual languages to suit the occasion, his subject and his own whims." — Colin Dabkowski, The Buffalo (New York) News, 13 Jan. 2017 "Love for Sale examines the shape-shifting undergone by popular music, from minstrelsy to hip-hop, and the equally protean ways in which it has reached the public, from printed notation sheets for do-it-yourself parlor revelry in days of yore to the streaming and downloading of our digital era." — Rayyan al-Shawaf, The Los Angeles Review of Books, 16 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Proteus was the original master of disguise. According to Greek mythology, the grizzled old shepherd of Poseidon's sea creatures possessed the gift of prophecy but didn't like to share his knowledge. Proteus would escape those who wanted to question him by changing his shape. The only way to get a straight answer from him was to sneak up behind him during his midday nap and hold onto him (while he frantically changed from shape to shape) until he eventually revealed what he knew. The adjective protean describes anyone or anything that is as mutable and adaptable as the mythological sea-shepherd. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 17, 2017 is: cachet • \ka-SHAY\ • noun 1 : a seal used especially as a mark of official approval 2 : a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige; also : standing or estimation in the eyes of people : prestige 3 : a design, inscription, or advertisement printed or stamped on mail Examples: "It's been 70 years and the Sweetheart City is still going strong with its official valentine card and cachet. The Loveland Chamber of Commerce unveiled the 2016 artwork Tuesday…." — Erin Udell, The Fort Collins Coloradoan, 6 Jan. 2016 "TV is enjoying a surge in critical prestige and has taken over some of the cultural cachet that used to be reserved for the movies." — Ryan Faughnder, The Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2017 Did you know? In the years before the French Revolution, a lettre de cachet was a letter, signed by both the French king and another officer, that was used to authorize a person's imprisonment. Documents such as these were usually made official by being marked with a seal pressed into soft wax. This seal was known in French as a cachet. The word was derived from the Middle French verb cacher, meaning "to press" or "to hide." The "seal" sense of cachet has been used in English since the mid-17th century, and in the 19th century the word started acquiring its extended senses, first referring to a feature or quality conferring prestige, and by century's end to prestige itself. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 16, 2017 is: sward • \SWORD\ • noun 1 : a portion of ground covered with grass 2 : the grassy surface of land Examples: "It was a blind and despairing rush by the collection of men in dusty and tattered blue, over a green sward and under a sapphire sky, toward a fence, dimly outlined in smoke, from behind which spluttered the fierce rifles of enemies." — Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, 1895 "A few hundred yards upstream of the mill was a dam and a small lake. Along its east shore was Riverside Park with its gazebos and grassy swards and, come summer, flocks of picnickers." — Marc Hudson, The Journal Review (Crawfordsville, Indiana), 28 May 2016 Did you know? Sward sprouted from the Old English sweard or swearth, meaning "skin" or "rind." It was originally used as a term for the skin of the body before being extended to another surface—that of the earth's. The word's specific grassy sense dates back more than 500 years, but it rarely crops up in contemporary writing. The term, however, has been planted in a number of old novels, such as in this quote from Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles: "The sun was so near the ground, and the sward so flat, that the shadows of Clare and Tess would stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them...." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 15, 2017 is: voluble • \VAHL-yuh-bul\ • adjective 1 : easily rolling or turning : rotating 2 : characterized by ready or rapid speech : glib, fluent Examples: Having worked as a teacher for almost twenty years, Pamela was voluble on the subject of education. "At 78, the Dutch-born director is generous and voluble, feeling his way through conversation as if he, too, is curious about what he will say next. ('That's it, I'm cutting you off,' a hardened publicist told him, well after our interview was supposed to end.)" — Jeffrey Bloomer, Slate Magazine, 23 Nov. 2016 Did you know? English has many terms for gabby types, but it's important to choose the right word to get across what kind of chatterbox you mean. Talkative usually implies a readiness to engage in talk or a disposition to enjoy conversation. Loquacious generally suggests the power to express oneself fluently, articulately, or glibly, but it can also mean "talking excessively." Garrulous is even stronger in its suggestion of excessive talkativeness; it is most often used for tedious, rambling talkers. Voluble is a word ultimately derived from the Latin verb volvere, meaning "to roll," that describes an individual who speaks easily and often—someone whose words smoothly roll off their tongue, so to speak. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 14, 2017 is: billet-doux • \bill-ee-DOO\ • noun : a love letter Examples: While cleaning out her parents' basement, Amy stumbled upon a box containing billets-doux written by her dad to his high-school sweetheart—her mom. "… when you stop to think about it the entire panoply of behaviours we consider as romantic, from sending little billets-doux, to developing a shared vocabulary of pet names, are … infantile. What's romance, then, but a kind of childish make-believe?" — Will Self, Prospect, 13 Oct. 2016 Did you know? The first recorded use of the French word billet doux (literally, "sweet letter") in an English context occurs in John Dryden's 1673 play Marriage a-la-Mode. In the play, Dryden pokes fun at linguistic Francophiles in English society through the comic character Melanthe, who is described by her prospective lover Rodophil as follows: "No lady can be so curious of a new fashion as she is of a new French word; she's the very mint of the nation, and as fast as any bullion comes out of France, coins it immediately into our language." True to form, Melanthe describes Rodophil with the following words: "Let me die, but he's a fine man; he sings and dances en Français, and writes the billets doux to a miracle." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 13, 2017 is: transpontine • \trans-PAHN-tyne\ • adjective 1 : situated on the farther side of a bridge 2 : (British) situated on the south side of the Thames Examples: Traffic on the Tobin Bridge was at a near standstill, and it took us twenty minutes to reach our transpontine destination in Charlestown. "The moment Waterloo Bridge was planned across the Thames, a new theatre to serve the transpontine coach trade was inevitable." — Robert Gore-Langton, The Spectator (UK), 15 Nov. 2014 Did you know? Usually the prefix trans-, meaning "across," allows for a reciprocal perspective. Whether you're in Europe or America, for example, transoceanic countries are countries across the ocean from where you are. But that's not the way it originally worked with transpontine. The pont- in transpontine is from the Latin pons, meaning "bridge," and the bridge in this case was, at first, any bridge that crossed the River Thames in the city of London. "Across the bridge" meant on one side of the river only—the south side. That's where the theaters that featured popular melodramas were located, and Victorian Londoners used transpontine to distinguish them from their more respectable cispontine ("situated on the nearer side of a bridge") counterparts north of the Thames. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 12, 2017 is: weltanschauung • \VELT-ahn-show-ung ("ow" as in "cow")\ • noun : (often capitalized Weltanschauung) a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint Examples: "In my personal Weltanschauung, there is nothing wrong with arm hair, giant headphones are silly and skin-lightening products are creepy and grim. Others may grade them differently, but that's all part of the same thing too. As soon as you opt in to a belief system where any type of hair, skin or style is 'right' or 'wrong' … you are in the jaws." — Victoria Coren Mitchell, The Observer, 3 Apr. 2016 "Back in the 1960s, behavioral theorists wrote about a culture of poverty. Life below the poverty line has specific characteristics that produce a fairly consistent weltanschauung among the people who share it. That means that they have much in common that shapes their communities." — Hubert Kauffman, The Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine), 4 Dec. 2016 Did you know? The German word Weltanschauung literally means "world view"; it combines Welt ("world") with Anschauung ("view"), which ultimately derives from the Middle High German verb schouwen ("to look at" or "to see"). When we first adopted it from German in the mid-19th century, weltanschauung referred to a philosophical view or apprehension of the universe, and this sense is still the most widely used. It can also describe a more general ideology or philosophy of life. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 11, 2017 is: ragtag • \RAG-tag\ • adjective 1 : ragged, unkempt 2 : composed of diverse often incongruous elements : motley Examples: "Cyndi Lauper was one of the biggest stars of the '80's MTV era…. Her girlish voice and gleefully ragtag appearance became one of the most distinctive images of the time, which helped catapult her to stardom." — The Arizona Republic, 28 Sept. 2016 "[Howard] Shore was a core member of the show's small, ragtag team and not only composed the free-form jazz pieces that opened and closed the show … but also wrote songs and dramatic underscores, appeared in sketches and was in charge of booking musical guests." — Tim Greiving, The Washington Post, 1 Jan. 2017 Did you know? Tag and rag was a relatively common expression in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it was often used pejoratively to refer to members of the lower classes of society. By the 18th century, the phrase had been expanded to ragtag and bobtail. That expression could mean either "the lower classes" or "the entire lot of something" (as opposed to just the more desirable parts—the entire unit of an army, for example, not just its more capable soldiers). Something described as ragtag and bobtail, then, was usually common and unspectacular. Ragtag and bobtail was eventually shortened to ragtag, the adjective we know today, which can describe an odd mixture that is often hastily assembled or second-rate. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 10, 2017 is: adjure • \uh-JOOR\ • verb 1 : to command solemnly under or as if under oath or penalty of a curse 2 : to urge or advise earnestly Examples: The church has strong ties to the community and has long adjured its congregants to devote time to the aid of those less fortunate than themselves. "Byron fled the country, adjuring Annabella to 'be kind' to his beloved sister." — Merle Rubin, The Los Angeles Times, 16 Sept. 2002 Did you know? Adjure and its synonyms entreat, importune, and implore all mean "to ask earnestly." Adjure implies advising as well as pleading, and is often accompanied by the invocation of something sacred ("in God's name, I adjure you to cease"). Entreat implies an effort to persuade or overcome resistance ("he gently entreated her to stay"). Importune goes further, adding a sense of annoying persistence in trying to break down resistance to a request ("importuning viewers for contributions"). Implore, on the other hand, suggests a great urgency or anguished appeal on the part of the speaker ("she implored the king to have mercy"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 9, 2017 is: peradventure • \PER-ud-ven-cher\ • noun 1 : doubt 2 : the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation : chance Examples: "When Henry had his servant brought to him from Argentan more dead than alive, he suffered an Angevin fury. But he knew beyond peradventure that the rebellion had been reborn." — Amy Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitane and the Four Kings, 1950 "For parties in terminal decline to consign themselves to howling at the moon for five years will guarantee beyond peradventure that when the next election comes round people will be truly fed up listening to the noise." — Brian Feeney, The Irish News, 11 May 2016 Did you know? When Middle English speakers borrowed par aventure from Anglo-French (in which language it means, literally, "by chance"), it was as an adverb meaning "perhaps" or "possibly." Before long, the word was anglicized to peradventure, and turned into a noun as well. The adverb is now archaic, though Washington Irving and other writers were still using it in the 19th century. "If peradventure some straggling merchant ... should stop at his door with his cart load of tin ware....," writes Irving in A History of New York. The noun senses we use today tend to show up in the phrase "beyond peradventure" in contexts relating to proving or demonstrating something. The "chance" sense is usually used in the phrase "beyond peradventure of doubt." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 8, 2017 is: carceral • \KAHR-suh-rul\ • adjective : of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison Examples: "The door opened, whining, rattling and groaning in keeping with all the rules of carceral counterpoint." — Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading, 1959 "We are in the midst of a debate around criminal justice right now…. In the midst of such debates it is customary for pundits, politicians, and writers like me to sally forth with numbers to demonstrate the breadth and width of the great American carceral state." — Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, 8 June 2015 Did you know? Our earliest known evidence of carceral—an adjective borrowed directly from Late Latin—dates to the late 16th century, with evidence of incarcerate ("to imprison") appearing shortly thereafter; they're both ultimately from carcer, Latin for "prison." The English verb cancel is also linked to carcer via Latin cancelli, a word meaning "lattice" that likely developed from an alteration of carcer. Carceral is a word that is generally not found outside the confines of academic or legal contexts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 7, 2017 is: nexus • \NEK-sus\ • noun 1 : connection, link; also : a causal link 2 : a connected group or series 3 : center, focus Examples: The new art exhibition is devoted to those artists whose work first began to form a nexus between high art and popular culture. "Starting a weekly column about the nexus between media, technology, culture and politics in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign was like parachuting into a hail of machine-gun crossfire." — Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2016 Did you know? Nexus is all about connections. The word comes from nectere, a Latin verb meaning "to bind." A number of other English words are related to nectere. The most obvious is connect, but annex (meaning "to attach as an addition," or more specifically "to incorporate into a political domain") is related as well. When nexus came into English in the 17th century, it meant "connection." Eventually, it took on the additional meaning "connected series" (as in "a nexus of relationships"). In the past few decades it has taken a third meaning: "center" (as in "the trade nexus of the region"), perhaps from the notion that a point in the center of an arrangement serves to join together the objects that surround it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 6, 2017 is: extremophile • \ik-STREE-muh-fyle\ • noun : an organism that lives under extreme environmental conditions (as in a hot spring or ice cap) Examples: "Beetles with antifreeze blood, ants that sprint on scorching sand and spiders that live high up Mount Everest. These incredible creatures are the extremophiles: animals that survive some of the most inhospitable conditions on Earth, and sometimes even further." — Christopher Brooks, BBC.co.uk, 26 Mar. 2016 "[Andrew] Czaja said research into extremophiles in general gives scientists confidence that life can exist anywhere where the appropriate building blocks, including a liquid medium (such as water) and a source of energy, exist." — Stephanie Margaret Bucklin, Astronomy Magazine, 8 Dec. 2016 Did you know? No, an extremophile is not an enthusiast of extreme sports (though -phile does mean "one who loves or has an affinity for"). Rather, extremophiles are organisms—mostly microorganisms—that thrive in environments once considered uninhabitable, from places with high levels of toxicity and radiation to boiling-hot deep-sea volcanoes to Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have even created a new biological domain to classify some of these extremophiles: Archaea (from Greek archaios, meaning "ancient"). These extremophiles may have a lot in common with the first organisms to appear on earth billions of years ago. If so, they can give us insight into how life on our planet may have arisen. They are also being studied to learn about possible life forms on other planets, where conditions are extreme compared to conditions on Earth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 5, 2017 is: luculent • \LOO-kyuh-lunt\ • adjective : clear in thought or expression Examples: The professor gave a luculent introduction to quantum mechanics. "These glimpses of the Crown-Prince, reflected on us in this manner, are not very luculent to the reader … but some features do gleam forth, good and not so good; which, with others coming, may coalesce into something conceivable." — Thomas Carlyle, The History of Frederick II of Prussia, 1858–1865 Did you know? To shed light on the meaning of luculent, one need only look at its root—the Latin noun lux, meaning "light." The English word first appeared in the 15th century with the meaning "brilliant" or "shining," as in "a luculent flame." By the mid-16th century, the "clear in thought or expression" sense had begun to shine, and by that century's end another sense was flickering with the meaning "illustrious" or "resplendent," as in Ben Jonson's 1599 description of a "most debonair and luculent lady." Both the "illustrious" and the "emitting light" senses have fallen out of use, and even the "clear" sense is now rare. Today's writers seem to prefer another lux descendant with a similar meaning: lucid. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 4, 2017 is: grandee • \grand-DEE\ • noun : a man of elevated rank or station; especially : a Spanish or Portuguese nobleman of the first rank Examples: After winning the golf tournament, the young player shook hands and posed for pictures with the grandees who had supplied the prize fund. "People from around the nation and the world, who could not afford to live here full-time, increasingly come to California as tourists so they can live like Mediterranean grandees for a week or two." — Joel Kotkin, The San Bernardino (California) Sun, 4 Dec. 2016 Did you know? In Medieval Spain and Portugal, the grandes ("great ones," from Latin grandis, meaning "great") were at the pinnacle of the ranks of rich and powerful nobles. A grandee (as it came to be spelled in English) could wear a hat in the presence of the king and queen—the height of privilege—and he alone could address a letter directly to royalty. (Even Christopher Columbus had to direct his reports of the New World to an important noble at court, who read them to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.) Today the term can still be applied to nobility, but it can also be used for anyone of importance and influence anywhere, such as the "pin-striped grandees of London's financial district." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 3, 2017 is: abyssal • \uh-BISS-ul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to the bottom waters of the ocean depths 2 : impossible to comprehend : unfathomable Examples: "Since the accident, researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Oceanology have mapped several deep eddies in the Xisha Trough, an area of abyssal ocean off Hainan." — David Hambling, The Guardian (UK), 29 Dec. 2016 "I'm referring to something that was revealed when the federal opposition parties were talking about a coalition government: The abyssal ignorance, even in parts of the media, about how our own parliamentary system works." — Josée Legault, The Gazette (Montreal), 26 Dec. 2008 Did you know? Abyssal is a relatively rare word, though it's derived from the more prevalent noun, abyss. In contrast, the adjective abysmal is more common than its corresponding noun abysm. All four terms descend from the Late Latin word abyssus, which is in turn derived from the Greek abyssos ("bottomless"). Abyss and abysm are synonymous (both can refer to the mythical bottomless pit in old accounts of the universe or can be used more broadly in reference to any immeasurably deep gulf), but the adjectives abyssal and abysmal are not used identically. Abyssal can mean "incomprehensible" (as in "showed abyssal ignorance") but it's most often found in contexts referring to the bottom of the sea. Abysmal shares the oceanographic sense with abyssal, but it more frequently means "immeasurably great" or "absolutely wretched." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.