Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2016 is: imbue • \im-BYOO\ • verb 1 : to permeate or influence as if by dyeing 2 : to tinge or dye deeply 3 : to provide with something freely or naturally : endow Examples: The children were imbued with a passion for nature by their parents, both biologists. "For a 23-year-old newly imbued with national fame, Jacoby Brissett is a man of few vices. One of them is chocolate chip cookies, which in college he baked for his offensive linemen." — Adam Kilgore, The Washington Post, 22 Sept. 2016 Did you know? Like its synonym infuse, imbue implies the introduction of one thing into another so as to affect it throughout. A nation can be imbued with pride, for example, or a photograph might be imbued with a sense of melancholy. In the past imbue has also been used synonymously with imbrue, an obscure word meaning "to drench or stain," but etymologists do not think the two words are related. Imbue derives from the Latin verb imbuere, meaning "to dye, wet, or moisten." Imbrue has been traced back through Anglo-French and Old French to the Latin verb bibere, meaning "to drink." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2016 is: domicile • \DAH-muh-syle\ • noun 1 : a dwelling place : place of residence : home 2 a : a person's fixed, permanent, and principal home for legal purposes b : the place where a corporation is actually or officially established Examples: "I got married, when I was 66, to David Bale.... I thought the women's movement has struggled for 25 years to allow marriage to be an equal partnership, so I no longer had to give up my name, my domicile, my credit rating, so why not? — Gloria Steinem, quoted in The Scottish Daily Mail, 29 Feb. 2016 "Meese estimates he moved 20 times during his 32-year military career. While he could have chosen a number of states for his residence, he elected to keep Texas—where he bought his first house—as his domicile." — Maryalene LaPonsie, U.S. News & World Report, 11 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Domicile traces to Latin domus, meaning "home," and English speakers have been using it as a word for "home" since at least the 15th century. In the eyes of the law, a domicile can also be a legal residence, the address from which one registers to vote, licenses a car, and pays income tax. Wealthy people may have several homes in which they live at different times of the year, but only one of their homes can be their official domicile for all legal purposes. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 23, 2016 is: glaucous • \GLAW-kus\ • adjective 1 a : of a pale yellow-green color b : of a light bluish-gray or bluish-white color 2 : having a powdery or waxy coating that gives a frosted appearance and tends to rub off Examples: "Her eyes, a clear, glaucous gray, express unambiguous yearning." — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 26 May 2016 "Waxy, hard, hairy and glaucous leaves help prevent water loss." — Patrice Hanlon, The Mercury News (California), 10 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Glaucous came to English—by way of Latin glaucus—from Greek glaukos, meaning "gleaming" or "gray," and has been used to describe a range of pale colors from a yellow-green to a bluish-gray. The word is often found in horticultural writing describing the pale color of the leaves of various plants as well as the powdery bloom that can be found on some fruits and leaves. The stem glauc- appears in some other English words, the most familiar of which is glaucoma, referring to a disease of the eye that can result in gradual loss of vision. Glauc- also appears in the not-so-familiar glaucope, a word used to describe someone with fair hair and blue eyes (and a companion to cyanope, the term for someone with fair hair and brown eyes). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2016 is: frieze • \FREEZ\ • noun 1 : the part of an entablature between the architrave and the cornice 2 : a sculptured or richly ornamented band (as on a building or piece of furniture) 3 : a band, line, or series suggesting a frieze Examples: "The house commands a hilltop and is forbidding, imposing, but softened with a frieze of beautiful American elms." — Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary, 1970 "But many of the iconic features of the old ballpark, such as the curved frieze atop the three-tiered grandstand, have been preserved." — Kevin Baxter, The Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Today's word is not the only frieze in English. The other frieze refers to a kind of heavy wool fabric. Both of the frieze homographs derive from French, but each entered that language through a different channel. The woolen homograph is from the Middle Dutch word vriese, which also refers to coarse wool. The frieze that we are featuring as our word today is from the Latin word frisium, meaning "embroidered cloth." That word evolved from phrygium and Phrygia, the name of an ancient country of Asia Minor whose people excelled in metalwork, wood carving, and (unsurprisingly) embroidery. That embroidery lineage influenced the use of frieze for the middle division of an entablature, which commonly has a decorated surface resembling embroidered cloth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 21, 2016 is: evanescent • \ev-uh-NESS-unt\ • adjective : tending to vanish like vapor Examples: "As stunning as his dishes could be, in the end, the maestro understood its evanescent nature. Furstenberg remembers Richard telling him, 'It's supposed to be food.'" — Tom Sietsema, The Washington Post, 15 Aug. 2016 "I think because we are young, issues we encounter with mental health are often excused as evanescent, and therefore not something to be taken seriously." — Morgan Hughes, The Marquette Tribune (Marquette University), 6 Sept. 2016 Did you know? The fragile, airy quality of things evanescent reflects the etymology of the word evanescent itself. It derives from a form of the Latin verb evanescere, which means "to evaporate" or "to vanish." Given the similarity in spelling between the two words, you might expect evaporate to come from the same Latin root, but it actually grew out of another steamy Latin root, evaporare. Evanescere did give us vanish, however, by way of Anglo-French and Vulgar Latin. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 20, 2016 is: hoick • \HOIK\ • verb : to move or pull abruptly : yank Examples: "Occasionally he hoicks up the waistband of his trousers when he thinks no one is looking." — Elizabeth Day, The Observer, 24 Feb. 2015 "The flutist … looks forward, unfolding a retinue of futuristic techniques—sounds that purr like a cat, pop like a cork or hoick like a spitball—on the way to a final improvisation…." — David Allen, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Etymologists suspect that hoick is an alteration of the verb hike, which is itself akin to hitch. According to the evidence, hike entered the language during the first decade of the 19th century, whereas hoick appeared near that century's close. The word hoick can be used for any type of abrupt pulling movement but is commonly used for the sudden pulling back on the joystick of an airplane; a rough, jerky movement when rowing; and a jerky, elevated shot in cricket. In fox hunting, the word hoicks is used to call attention to a hound that has picked up the scent and to bring the pack together. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19, 2016 is: colubrine • \KAHL-yuh-bryne\ • adjective 1 : of, relating to, or resembling a snake 2 : of or relating to a large cosmopolitan family (Colubridae) of chiefly nonvenomous snakes Examples: The trellis's latticework was covered with colubrine ivy. "Most of the colubrine snakes are entirely harmless, and are the common snakes that we meet everywhere." — Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, 1914 Did you know? Colubrine may be less common than other animal words—such as canine, feline, and bovine—but it has been around for a good long while. Ultimately derived from the Latin colubra ("snake"), it slithered into the English language in the 16th century. (Cobra, by the way, comes from the same Latin word, but it entered English through Portuguese.) Some other words for "snakelike" are serpentine (a more common alternative) and ophidian (from the Greek word for snake: ophis). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 18, 2016 is: jacquerie • \zhah-kuh-REE\ • noun : (often capitalized Jacquerie) a peasants' revolt Examples: "There were no bloodthirsty sansculottes preparing to erect guillotines; nor were farmers, however angry about government excise taxes and other matters—as Shays's Rebellion suggested—ready to burn down the manorial estates of their feudal overlords in some version of an American jacquerie." — Steve Fraser, Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, 2008 "The thicker the masonry, the more likely the fortress would withstand the anticipated Jacquerie." — Michael Knox Beran, National Review, 7 Sept. 2009 Did you know? The first jacquerie was an insurrection of peasants against the nobility in northeastern France in 1358, so-named from the nobles' habit of referring contemptuously to any peasant as "Jacques," or "Jacques Bonhomme" (in French bonhomme means "fellow"). It took some time—150 years—for the name of the first jacquerie to become a generalized term for other revolts. The term is also occasionally used to refer to the peasant class, as when Madame Defarge in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities tells her husband to "consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 17, 2016 is: ab initio • \ab-ih-NISH-ee-oh\ • adverb : from the beginning Examples: "Like many of contemporary architecture's most celebrated figures, [Zaha] Hadid is often presented as an artist who conceives her buildings entirely ab initio." — Ellis Woodman, The Daily Telegraph (London), 3 Sept. 2012 "Two months ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Federal Court judges are not eligible to represent Quebec on its bench. Justice Nadon's nomination was therefore void ab initio." — André Pratte, The Globe and Mail (Canada), 29 May 2014 Did you know? We'll tell you right from the beginning where ab initio comes from. This adverb was adopted at the beginning of the 17th century directly from Latin, where it translates as "from the beginning." (Initio is a form of the noun initium, meaning "beginning," which gave rise to such English words as initial, initiate, and initiative.) Ab initio most frequently appears in legal contexts, but it is not surprising to find it used outside of the courtroom. The phrase is also used as an adjective meaning "starting from or based on first principles" (as in "predicted from ab initio calculations"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 16, 2016 is: lavation • \lay-VAY-shun\ • noun : the act or an instance of washing or cleansing Examples: "… we cannot keep the skin healthy without frequent lavations of the whole body in pure water. It is impossible to calculate the benefits of this simple practice." — Walt Whitman, "Bathing, Cleanliness, Personal Beauty," June 1846 "In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations…." — Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960 Did you know? It sounds logical that you would perform a lavation in a lavatory, doesn't it? And it is logical: both words come from Latin lavare, meaning, appropriately, "to wash." English picked up a few other words from this root as well. In medicine, the therapeutic washing out of an organ is lavage. There is also lavabo (in Latin, literally, "I shall wash"), which in English can refer to a ceremony at Mass in which the celebrant washes his hands, to the basin used in this religious ceremony, or to other kinds of basins. Even the word lavish, via a Middle French word for a downpour of rain, comes to us from lavare. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 15, 2016 is: waggish • \WAG-ish\ • adjective 1 : resembling or characteristic of a wag : displaying good-humored mischief 2 : done or made for sport : humorous Examples: "A warm person who enjoys banter with often-waggish reporters, [Elizabeth] Brenner joked that her next move would be to take a newspaper-carrier route in Pewaukee. 'No, that's not what I'm going to do,' she quickly added. 'Can't get up that early.'" — Rick Romell, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 17 May 2016 "The waggish reaction to Guaranteed Rate's name and arrow logo is like the feedback Energy Solutions received when its name replaced that of Delta Air Lines on the Utah Jazz's arena a decade ago. Energy Solutions' business—disposing of low-level nuclear waste in the Utah desert—led to people calling the arena the Dump, the Isotope and Radium Stadium." — Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, 25 Aug. 2016 Did you know? One who is waggish acts like a wag. What, then, is a wag? Etymologists think wag probably came from waghalter, a word that was once used for a gallows bird (that is, a person who was going to be, or deserved to be, hanged). Waghalter was apparently shortened to wag and used jokingly or affectionately for mischievous pranksters or youths. Hence a wag is a joker, and waggery is merriment or practical joking. Waggish can describe the prank itself as well as the prankster type; the class clown might be said to have a "waggish disposition" or be prone to "waggish antics." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 14, 2016 is: nemesis • \NEM-uh-siss\ • noun 1 a : one that inflicts retribution or vengeance b : a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent 2 a : an act or effect of retribution b : a source of harm or ruin : curse Examples: "My nemesis was a young woman who, at the end of the film, had the honour of sending me to my doom at the bottom of a well. Her name meant nothing to me then: Jennifer Aniston." — Warwick Davis, Dailymail.com, 10 Apr. 2010 "The leaves were pale … and, upon closer inspection, the stems had small nibble marks on them. I immediately suspected slugs since they've been my nemesis in the past so I sprang into action." — Susan Mulvihill, The Spokesman Review (Spokane, Washington), 21 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Nemesis was the Greek goddess of vengeance, a deity who doled out rewards for noble acts and punishment for evil ones. The Greeks believed that Nemesis didn't always punish an offender immediately but might wait generations to avenge a crime. In English, nemesis originally referred to someone who brought a just retribution, but nowadays people are more likely to see animosity than justice in the actions of a nemesis. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 13, 2016 is: univocal • \yoo-NIV-uh-kul\ • adjective 1 : having one meaning only 2 : unambiguous Examples: The president declared that it was important to send a univocal message of support to the beleaguered country. "Often cited as America's greatest indigenous art form, jazz wriggles away from any univocal definition, resisting the confines of a single track like water flowing on broken ground." — Charles Donelan, The Santa Barbara (California) Independent, 23 Sept. 2010 Did you know? Earliest known print evidence of univocal, in the sense of "having one meaning only," dates the word to the mid-1500s, somewhat earlier than its more familiar antonym equivocal (meaning "often misleadingly subject to two or more interpretations"). Both words trace back to the Latin noun vox, which means "voice." The prefix uni- ("one") was combined with vox to create the Late Latin word univocus, from which English speakers borrowed univocal. Univocal was indeed once used in the sense of "speaking in one voice" (or "unanimous") as its etymology would imply, but that use is now obsolete. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 12, 2016 is: phlegmatic • \fleg-MAT-ik\ • adjective 1 : resembling, consisting of, or producing the humor phlegm 2 : having or showing a slow and stolid temperament Examples: "She said 'Good morning, Miss,' in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing." — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1847 "You are aware of the finality of fate, and tend to have a phlegmatic and sometimes unhappy compromise with your life, even when you long for a definitive resolution." — Molly Shea, The New York Post, 31 Aug. 2016 Did you know? According to the ancient Greeks, human personalities were controlled by four bodily fluids or semifluids called humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Each humor was associated with one of the four basic elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Phlegm was paired with water—the cold, moist element—and it was believed to impart the cool, calm, unemotional personality we now call the "phlegmatic type." That's a bit odd, given that the term derives from the Greek phlegma, which literally means "flame," perhaps a reflection of the inflammation that colds and flus often bring. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 11, 2016 is: scion • \SYE-un\ • noun 1 : a detached living portion of a plant (as a bud or shoot) joined to a stock in grafting and usually supplying solely aerial parts to a graft 2 : descendant, child; especially : a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or influential family 3 : heir Examples: "The duke was the billionaire owner of swaths of central London, a friend of Britain's royal family and the scion of an aristocratic family stretching back to the Norman Conquest." — The Boston Herald, 14 Aug. 2016 "The vibe of the place is a mixture of old-school cool and Brit eccentric. There are poems etched onto the wall by the artist Hugo Guinness, … a scion of the famous Anglo-Irish brewing family." — Christa D'Souza, W, September 2016 Did you know? Scion derives from the Middle English sioun and Old French cion and is related to the Old English cīth and the Old High German kīdi (meaning "sprout" or "shoot"). When it first sprouted in English in the 14th century, scion meant "a shoot or twig." That sense withered in horticultural contexts, but the word branched out, adding the grafting-related meaning we know today. A figurative sense also blossomed referring to one's descendants, with particular reference to those who are descendants of notable families. 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 10, 2016 is: roister • \ROY-ster\ • verb : to engage in noisy revelry : carouse Examples: Hugh didn't get much sleep last night because his neighbors were roistering until the wee hours of the morning. "North Highlands, apparently, is also what they call a part of Scotland where the prince's grandmum (the Queen Mother) kept a wee castle where the little royals used to roister." — Carlos Alcala, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 27 Oct. 2005 Did you know? As British writer Hugo Williams asserted in The Times Literary Supplement (November 15, 1991), roistering tends to be "funnier, sillier and less harmful than standard hooliganism, being based on nonsense rather than violence." Boisterous roisterers might be chagrined to learn that the word roister derives from a Middle French word that means "lout" or "boor," rustre. Ultimately, however, it is from the fairly neutral Latin word rusticus, meaning "rural." In the 16th century, the original English verb was simply roist, and one who roisted was a roister. Later, we changed the verb to roister and the corresponding noun to roisterer. 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 9, 2016 is: odious • \OH-dee-us\ • adjective : arousing or deserving hatred or repugnance : hateful Examples: Volunteers gathered on Saturday morning to scrub away the odious graffiti spray-painted on the school. "I can't help being reminded of the progress we've made as a nation, as well as the odious past of slavery, the many men and women who have lost their lives in wars…." — Candi Castleberry Singleton, quoted in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5 Sept. 2016 Did you know? Odious has been with us since the days of Middle English. We borrowed it from Anglo-French, which in turn had taken it from Latin odiosus. The Latin adjective came from the noun odium, meaning "hatred." Odium is also an ancestor of the English verb annoy (another word that came to Middle English via Anglo-French). And, at the beginning of the 17th century, odium entered English in its unaltered form, giving us a noun meaning "hatred" or "disgrace" (as in "ideas that have incurred much odium"). 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 8, 2016 is: truncate • \TRUNG-kayt\ • verb : to shorten by or as if by cutting off Examples: "Apparently, a federal law … requires printed credit card receipts truncate not only the credit card number, but also the expiration date." — Jack Greiner, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 Aug. 2016 "Google's own URL shortener service … instantly truncates the URL you're visiting and copies the new address to the clipboard for use anywhere." — Eric Griffith, PCMag.com, 23 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Truncate descends from the Latin verb truncare, meaning "to shorten," which in turn can be traced back to the Latin word for the trunk of a tree, which is truncus. Incidentally, if you've guessed that truncus is also the ancestor of the English word trunk, you are correct. Truncus also gave us truncheon, which is the name for a police officer's billy club, and the obscure word obtruncate, meaning "to cut the head or top from." 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 7, 2016 is: macadam • \muh-KAD-um\ • noun : a roadway or pavement of small closely packed broken stone Examples: The sloping, curved street saw light traffic and had a smooth macadam surface that made it popular with skateboarders. "Littered on the beach are nearly a dozen big slabs of macadam and even larger chunks of concrete that have slid down the cliff." — Chris Burrell, The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), 20 Aug. 2016 Did you know? In 1783, inventor John Loudon McAdam returned to his native Scotland after amassing a fortune in New York City. He became the road trustee for his district and quickly set his inventiveness to remedying the terrible condition of local roads. After numerous experiments, he created a new road surfacing material made of bits of stone that became compressed into a solid mass as traffic passed over them. His invention revolutionized road construction and transportation, and engineers and the public alike honored him by using his name (respelled macadam) as a generic term for the material or pavement made from it. He is further immortalized in the verb macadamize, which names the process of installing macadam on a road. 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 6, 2016 is: vulnerary • \VUL-nuh-rair-ee\ • adjective : used for or useful in healing wounds Examples: "Rebecca examined the wound, and having applied to it such vulnerary remedies as her art prescribed, informed her father that if fever could be averted … there was nothing to fear for his guest's life, and that he might with safety travel to York with them on the ensuing day." — Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1820 "St. John’s wort can also help those with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) due to lower sunlight exposure in the winter months. Its anti-inflammatory, vulnerary, astringent, and antimicrobial actions make it a powerful healer for wounds, bruises, burns, sprains, and muscle pain." — Jane Metzger, Mother Earth News, 13 July 2015 Did you know? In Latin, vulnus means "wound." You might think, then, that the English adjective vulnerary would mean "wounding" or "causing a wound"—and, indeed, vulnerary has been used that way, along with two obsolete adjectives, vulnerative and vulnific. But for the lasting and current use of vulnerary, we took our cue from the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, he used the Latin adjective vulnerarius to describe a plaster, or dressing, for healing wounds. And that's fine—the suffix -ary merely indicates that there is a connection, which, in this case, is to wounds. (As you may have already suspected, vulnerable is related; it comes from the Latin verb vulnerare, which means "to wound.") 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 5, 2016 is: invective • \in-VEK-tiv\ • noun 1 : an abusive expression or speech 2 : insulting or abusive language : vituperation Examples: "The ongoing collapse of responsible broadcast and cable journalism and the explosive role that social media has assumed in this campaign have made for a nasty brew of invective, slurs and accusations…." — Susan J. Douglas, In These Times, July 2016 "At a moment when American political discourse has descended to almost unimaginable levels of … invective, we need our teachers to model a better way to discuss our differences." — Jonathan Zimmerman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 14 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Invective originated in the 15th century as an adjective meaning "of, relating to, or characterized by insult or abuse." In the early 16th century, it appeared in print as a noun meaning "an example of abusive speech." Eventually, the noun developed a second sense applying to abusive language as a whole. Invective comes to us from the Middle French word invectif, which in turn derives from Latin invectivus, meaning "reproachful, abusive." (Invectivus comes from Latin invectus, past participle of the verb invehere, one form of which means "to assail with words.") Invective is similar to abuse, but it tends to suggest not only anger and vehemence but verbal and rhetorical skill. It sometimes implies public denunciation, as in "blistering political invective." 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 4, 2016 is: banausic • \buh-NAW-sik\ • adjective : relating to or concerned with earning a living — used pejoratively; also : utilitarian, practical Examples: "At the far end was a wooden board on which were hung saws, chisels, knives and other banausic instruments of the trade." — Sebastian Faulk, Human Traces, 2005 "That story is followed by a brilliant allegory of reality TV and the cult of personality, Rumours About Me, in which a simple company man sees his banausic daily life … broadcast by the media until he is transformed into 'a nobody who was known by everybody.'" — Christine Thomas, The Miami Herald, 2 Nov. 2008 Did you know? The ancient Greeks held intellectual pursuits in the highest esteem, and they considered ideal a leisurely life of contemplation. A large population of slaves enabled many Greek citizens to adopt that preferred lifestyle. Those who had others to do the heavy lifting for them tended to regard professional labor with contempt. Their prejudice against the need to toil to earn a living is reflected in the Greek adjective banausikos (the root of banausic), which not only means "of an artisan" (from the word for "artisan," banausos) but "nonintellectual" 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 October 3, 2016 is: guerdon • \GUR-dun\ • noun : reward, recompense Examples: "The big hurdle … was early promotion to captain. … This early promotion, this small dry irrevocable statistic in the record, was his guerdon for a quarter of a century of getting things done." — Herman Wouk, The Winds of War, 1971 "The guerdon in attending a repertory company's concert is being able to savor the variety of work on display." — Juan Michael Porter II, Broadway World, 7 June 2016 Did you know? Guerdon dates back to the 14th century, when Geoffrey Chaucer used it in The Romaunt of the Rose (ca. 1366): "He quitte him wel his guerdon there." It derives from Anglo-French and is thought to be related to the Old High German widarlōn, meaning "reward." Shakespeare used guerdon a couple of times in his plays. In Love's Labour's Lost, for example, Berowne, attendant to King Ferdinand, sends the clown Costard to deliver a letter to Rosaline, attendant to the princess of France, handing him a shilling with the line, "There's thy guerdon; go." Guerdon is a rare word today, but contemporary writers do use it on occasion for poetic effect. 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, 2016 is: deliquesce • \del-ih-KWESS\ • verb 1 : to dissolve or melt away 2 : to become soft or liquid with age or maturity—used of some fungal structures (as the gills of a mushroom) Examples: "'Number Nine,' a 16-minute bonbon of a ballet …, keeps its yellow-clad ensemble and four principal couples wheeling through kaleidoscopic patterns that surprise as they smoothly crystallize and deliquesce, sometimes matching the musical rhythms, sometimes working against them." — Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2012 "But wait. If you have the brisket, will there be room for the beef rib? There'd better be, because it is a triumph. The salt-and-pepper-coated smoked meat and fat deliquesce into a sort of beef confit." — Mark Vamos, The Dallas Morning News, 25 Dec. 2015 Did you know? Deliquesce derives from the prefix de- ("from, down, away") and a form of the Latin verb liquēre, meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When deliquesce is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures." 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, 2016 is: empyreal • \em-pye-REE-ul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to the heavens or firmament : celestial 2 : sublime Examples: Night after night, the comet shone brightly against the empyreal tapestry of the sky. "A jar made in Iraq, Syria or Iran, its shape is nothing special, but its color—an empyreal sapphire blue, a version of which will later adorn the domes of Safavid mosques—is out of this world." — Holland Cotter, The New York Times, 24 Dec. 2004 Did you know? Empyreal can be traced back to the Greek word for "fiery," empyros, which was formed from the prefix em- ("in," "within," or "inside") and -pyros, from pyr, the Greek word for "fire." When empyreal entered the English language—via the Late Latin empyreus or empyrius—in the 15th century, it specifically referred to things related to the empyrean, the highest heaven or outermost heavenly sphere of ancient and medieval cosmology, which was often thought to contain or be composed of the element of fire. In the works of Christian writers—such as Dante's Divine Comedy and John Milton's Paradise Lost—this outermost heavenly sphere was associated with the Christian paradise. Empyreal is now also used more broadly in the senses of "celestial" and "sublime." 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, 2016 is: woebegone • \WOH-bih-gahn\ • adjective 1 : strongly afflicted with woe : woeful 2 a : exhibiting great woe, sorrow, or misery b : being in a sorry state Examples: "I simply wanted to be left alone to cry. I wanted the opposite of conversation, because for this brief, woebegone interlude, what was there to say?" — Wesley Morris, The New York Times, 2 Aug. 2016 "On a 68-degree afternoon, the Giants (71-59) took out their frustrations on the Braves' woebegone pitching staff in record-setting fashion. Denard Span added a solo homer and Eduardo Núñez also went deep, giving the Giants their first four-homer game at AT&T Park in six years." — Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News (San Jose, California), 28 Aug. 2016 Did you know? At first glance, woebegone looks like a word that has its meaning backwards; after all, if begone means "to go away," shouldn't woebegone mean "devoid of woe," or "happy"? Not exactly. The word derives from the Middle English phrase wo begon. The wo in this phrase simply means "woe," but begon (deriving from Old English began) is a past participle meaning "beset." Someone who is woebegone, therefore, is beset with woe. Since the early 19th century, the word has also been used to describe things that appear to express sadness, as in "a woebegone face." 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, 2016 is: cabal • \kuh-BAHL\ • noun 1 : the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also : a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues 2 : club, group Examples: "A 'cabal' of wealthy conservatives has begun using New York State's campaign finance laws to sway local elections…." — Michael Gormley, Newsday (New York), 24 Aug. 2016 "Looking back, it didn't take a vast conspiracy to replace truth with lies: only a greedy, shameless ghostwriter; another lazy biographer; and a couple of filmmakers who embraced shoddy reporting for its sensationalizing value. That small, self-serving cabal managed to misinform generations of Americans with malicious myths that misshaped history." — Dana D. Kelley, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 Aug. 2016 Did you know? In A Child's History of England, Charles Dickens associates the word cabal with a group of five ministers in the government of England's King Charles II. The initial letters of the names or titles of those men (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale) spell cabal, and Dickens dubbed them the "Cabal Ministry." These five men were widely regarded as invidious, secretive plotters and their activities may have encouraged English speakers to associate cabal with high-level government intrigue. But their names are not the source of the word cabal, which was in use decades before Charles II ascended the throne. The term can be traced back through French to cabbala, the Medieval Latin name for the Kabbalah, a traditional system of esoteric Jewish mysticism. 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, 2016 is: vamoose • \vuh-MOOSS\ • verb : to depart quickly Examples: With the sheriff and his posse hot on their tails, the bank robbers knew they had better vamoose. "Five minutes later the police arrived, and of course there was no sign of illegal activity. The crooks monitored the police radio and knew when to vamoose." — The Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, 14 July 2016 Did you know? In the 1820s and '30s, the American Southwest was rough-and-tumble territory—the true Wild West. English-speaking cowboys, Texas Rangers, and gold prospectors regularly rubbed elbows with Spanish-speaking vaqueros in the local saloons, and a certain amount of linguistic intermixing was inevitable. One Spanish term that caught on with English speakers was vamos, which means "let's go." Cowpokes and dudes alike adopted the word, at first using a range of spellings and pronunciations that varied considerably in their proximity to the original Spanish form. But when the dust settled, the version most American English speakers were using was vamoose. 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, 2016 is: peculiar • \pih-KYOOL-yer\ • adjective 1 : characteristic of only one person, group, or thing : distinctive 2 : special, particular 3 : odd, curious 4 : eccentric Examples: "'I'm not like you. … I'm common, just like my grandfather.' Emma shook her head. 'Is that really what you think?' 'If I could do something spectacular like you, don't you think I would've noticed by now? … There's nothing peculiar about me. I'm the most average person you'll ever meet.'" — Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, 2011 "It's not hard to spot players of the most popular smartphone game of all time. They have a peculiar way of carrying their devices in front of them with one hand, says John Hanke, the technology whiz behind Pokémon Go…." — Ryan Mac, Forbes, 23 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Peculiar comes from Latin peculiaris, an adjective meaning "privately owned" or "special" that is derived from the word for "property," peculium. Those words are cognate with pecu, a word for "cattle" that is also etymologically linked to a few English words related to money. Among these are pecuniary ("of or relating to money"), peculate ("to embezzle"), and impecunious ("having very little or no money"). Peculiar borrowed the Latin meanings of peculiaris, but it eventually came to refer to qualities possessed only by a particular individual, group, or thing. That sense is commonly followed by the preposition to, as in "a custom peculiar to America." In time, peculiar was being used specifically for unusual qualities, as well as the individuals that possessed them, which led to the word's "odd," "curious," and "eccentric" senses. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 26, 2016 is: tantivy • \tan-TIV-ee\ • adverb : at a gallop Examples: The horse rushed tantivy over the dirt roads that wound through the fields and pastures. "Thus it came about that Denby and his man, riding tantivy to the rescue, met the raiders two miles down the trail…." — Francis Lynde, The Helpers, 1899 Did you know? Tantivy is an adverb as well as a noun that refers to a rapid gallop. Although its precise origin isn't known, one theory has it that tantivy represents the sound of a galloping horse’s hooves. The noun does double duty as a word meaning "the blare of a trumpet or horn." This is probably due to confusion with tantara, a word for the sound of a trumpet that came about as an imitation of that sound. Both tantivy and tantara were used during foxhunts; in the heat of the chase, people may have jumbled the two. 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, 2016 is: iota • \eye-OH-tuh\ • noun 1 : the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet 2 : an infinitesimal amount : jot Examples: "The rooms were impeccably decorated, with not an iota of clutter." — Judy DiForte, AnnArbor.com, 21 Mar. 2011 "The 'my way or the highway' representatives couldn't care one iota about those who do not share their specific values and goals." — Diane W. Mufson, The Herald-Dispatch (Huntington, West Virginia), 21 July 2016 Did you know? The words iota and jot share a lot more than just a common meaning—both ultimately derive from the same word. When Latin scholars transcribed the Greek name of the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet, they spelled it as either iota or jota (the letters i and j were simply variants of each other), and these spellings eventually passed into English as iota and jot. Since the Greek letter iota is the smallest letter of its alphabet, both words eventually came to be used in reference to very small things. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 24, 2016 is: reconcile • \REK-un-syle\ • verb 1 a : to restore to friendship or harmony b : to settle or resolve (differences) 2 : to make consistent or congruous 3 : to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant 4 : to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy Examples: "The trailer shows his earliest struggles to reconcile his religious convictions with his duty to his country, as he gently explains to his Army higher-ups that he can't, and won't, touch a gun." — RollingStone.com, 28 July 2016 "The Korean War veteran—who once made a trip to Pyongyang, North Korea, with a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea to reconcile with his old adversaries—is now penning fundraising emails for Democrats trying to win the U.S. Senate." — Javier Panzar, The Los Angeles Times, 20 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Adapt, adjust, accommodate, conform, and reconcile all mean to bring one thing into agreement with another. Adapt implies a modification according to changing circumstances ("they adapted to the warmer climate"). Adjust suggests bringing something into a close and exact correspondence or harmony ("we adjusted the budget to allow for inflation"). Accommodate may suggest yielding or compromising to form an agreement ("he accommodated his political beliefs in order to win"). Conform suggests coming into accordance with a pattern, example, or principle ("she refused to conform to society's values"). Reconcile implies the demonstration of the underlying compatibility of things that seem to be incompatible ("I tried to reconcile what he said with what I knew"). 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, 2016 is: mettle • \MET-ul\ • noun 1 a : vigor and strength of spirit or temperament b : staying quality : stamina 2 : quality of temperament or disposition Examples: "People aren't trying to hide their prosthetics like they once did. There is a sense of community, being proud of who you are and showing off your mettle." — Rebekah Spielman, quoted in The San Diego Union Tribune, 21 Aug. 2016 "In the dozen years since Fantasia Barrino claimed victory on 'American Idol,' the singer has more than proved her mettle. She has sold millions of records, released a New York Times best-selling memoir, won a Grammy, anchored a hit reality series and become a Broadway star." — Gerrick D. Kennedy, The Los Angeles Times, 17 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Originally, mettle was simply a variant spelling of the word metal (which dates to at least the 13th century), and it was used in all of the same senses as its metallic relative. Over time, however, mettle came to be used mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character. It eventually became a distinct English word in its own right, losing its literal sense altogether. Metal remained a term primarily used for those hard, shiny substances such as steel or iron, but it also acquired a figurative use. Today, both words can mean "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament," but only metal is used of metallic substances. 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, 2016 is: palpable • \PAL-puh-bul\ • adjective 1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible 2 : easily perceptible : noticeable 3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest Examples: The tension in the courtroom was palpable as the jury foreman stood to announce the verdict. "The beautifully shot, meditative film takes on a palpable sense of urgency after Maria makes a fateful move, leaving both the young woman and her family in a quandary that forces them to deal with the outside world, including a harrowing trip to a hospital where no one understands their language." — David Lewis, The San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Aug. 2016 Did you know? The word palpable has been used in English since the 14th century. It derives from the Latin word palpare, meaning "to stroke" or "to caress"—the same root that gives us the word palpitation. The Latin verb is also a linguistic ancestor of the verb feel. Palpable can be used to describe things that can be felt through the skin, such as a person's pulse, but even more frequently it is used in reference to things that cannot be touched but are still so easy to perceive that it is as though they could be touched—such as "a palpable tension in the 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 September 21, 2016 is: consigliere • \kohn-sil-YEH-reh\ • noun : counselor, adviser Examples: "Luisi’s goal was to create his own family in Boston, with Guarente as his underboss and Gentile as his consigliere." — Stephen Kurkjian and Shelley Murphy, The Boston Globe, 26 July 2016 "In any event, it appears that Shari has turned her attention to removing the other impediments to absolute control. She booted Dauman from the Viacom board but kept his consigliere Tom Dooley, Viacom’s chief operating officer, in place." — William D. Cohan, Vanity Fair, 20 June 2016 Did you know? If you're a fan of The Godfather series of movies, the character Tom Hagen may have already come to mind. Hagen, the Corleones' family lawyer, is famously dismissed by the Don's successor and son Michael Corleone because he is not a "wartime consigliere." The word consigliere comes from Italian and has been a part our language since the 17th century; it was originally used of someone who served on a council in Italy. Currently, it is most commonly used to designate advisers to the Mafia—a use that first appeared in English in a document from a 1963 session of the U.S. Senate. It is also often used generally of a political or financial adviser, or any other trusted adviser for that matter. 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, 2016 is: nefarious • \nih-FAIR-ee-us\ • adjective : flagrantly wicked or impious : evil Examples: "The company will not call you to ask for your Social Security or account number, but nefarious scammers might." — Ellen Marks, The Albuquerque Journal, 31 July 2016 "Mention the word 'drugs,' and most people think of nefarious, evil substances bought in the dead of night from shadowy figures who carry guns and feed off of the weaknesses of addicts who seek out their poison with shaking, trembling hands." — Steve Wildsmith, The Daily Times (Maryville, Tennessee), 25 July 2016 Did you know? Vicious and villainous are two wicked synonyms of nefarious, and, like nefarious, both mean "highly reprehensible or offensive in character, nature, or conduct." But these synonyms are not used in exactly the same way in all situations. Vicious may imply moral depravity or it may connote malignancy, cruelty, or destructive violence. Villainous applies to any evil, depraved, or vile conduct or characteristic, while nefarious (which derives from the Latin noun nefas, meaning "crime") suggests flagrant breaching of time-honored laws and traditions of conduct. 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, 2016 is: eclogue • \ECK-log\ • noun : a poem in which shepherds converse Examples: Modern critics tend to have little tolerance for the idealized world of the old eclogues, in which poverty is bathed in golden light. "[Matt] Pavelich begins his novel with an excerpt from W. H. Auden's Pulitzer Prize-winning poem, 'Age of Anxiety.' Auden's is a fascinating and hair-raising eclogue that affects the novel throughout its long journey." — The Missoula (Montana) Independent, 27 May 2004 Did you know? Although the eclogue appears in the Idylls of the Greek poet Theocritus, it was the 10 Eclogues (or Bucolics) of the Roman poet Virgil that gave us the word eclogue. (The Latin title Eclogae literally means "selections.") The eclogue was popular in the Renaissance and through the 17th century, when less formal eclogues were written. The poems traditionally depicted rural life as free from the complexity and corruption of more citified realms. The eclogue fell out of favor when the poets of the Romantic period rebelled against the artificiality of the pastoral. In more modern times, though, the term eclogue has been applied to pastoral poems involving the conversations of people other than shepherds, often with heavy doses of irony. 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, 2016 is: loll • \LAHL\ • verb 1 : to hang or let hang loosely : droop 2 : to recline, lean, or move in a lax, lazy, or indolent manner : lounge Examples: "'Ginny, please wake up,' Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny's head lolled hopelessly from side to side." — J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 1999 "We took the subway to the vast English Garden, where we cooled our feet in a stream and lolled around on wide couches at the Seehaus Beer Garden, quaffing from massive steins of German beer while chatting it up with new friends." — Jeanne Potter, The San Luis Obispo (California) Tribune, 12 Oct. 2015 Did you know? Loll has origins similar to those of another soothing verb, lull, which means "to cause to rest or sleep." Both words can be traced back to 14th-century Middle English and probably originated as imitations of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep. Loll has also been used in English as a noun meaning "the act of lolling" or "a relaxed posture," but that use is now considered archaic. In its "recline" or "lean" sense, loll shares synonyms with a number of "l" verbs, including loaf, lounge, and laze. 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, 2016 is: gadarene • \GAD-uh-reen\ • adjective : headlong, precipitate Examples: The chairman was worried that in the company's gadarene rush to go public its original obligation to the customer would be forgotten. "Virginia's innate conservatism has spared it from foolishly joining many a Gadarene rush. But its glacial embrace of change has also kept it from adopting necessary and beneficial reforms, such as charter schools and new revenue for transportation." — The Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, 3 Feb. 2013 Did you know? Gadara, in Biblical times, was a town just southeast of the Sea of Galilee. In the account given in the book of Matthew (8:28), Jesus, on a visit there, exorcised the demons from two possessed people and sent the demons into some nearby swine. The possessed swine ran in a mad dash down a steep bank into the Sea and drowned. Gadarene, an adjective used to describe a headlong rush (and often capitalized in recognition of its origin), made its first known plunge into our lexicon in the 1920s. The swine sometimes make an appearance as well, as when an imprudently hasty act is compared to "the rush of the Gadarene swine." 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, 2016 is: juggernaut • \JUG-er-nawt\ • noun 1 : (chiefly British) a large heavy truck 2 : a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path Examples: Led by their talented shooting guard, the high school's basketball team was a juggernaut, winning the state championship three years in a row. "Under [Helen Gurley] Brown's editorship, Cosmo became a cultural juggernaut. Its articles covered just about every topic its young female readers wanted to read about…." — Kate Tuttle, The Arizona (Tucson) Daily Star, 21 Aug. 2016 Did you know? In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannath, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu. That story was probably an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe anyway. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and by the 19th century, they were using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) or to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities. 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, 2016 is: implacable • \im-PLAK-uh-bul\ • adjective : not placable : not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated Examples: "I am studying physics at a small graduate school because the implacable laws of the universe are of interest to me." — Fiona Maazel, Ploughshares, Summer 2015 "Through his audacity, his vision, and his implacable faith in his future success, Philip Michael Thomas can say that he gave the most accomplished artists in history something to strive for." — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 9 June 2016 Did you know? Implacable is based on the Latin verb placare, meaning "to calm" or "to soothe." It joins the negative im- to the root to describe something that cannot be calmed or soothed or altered. The root placare also gave us placate. You may ask, what about the similar-looking words placid and placebo? These words are related to implacable and placate, but not as closely as you might suspect. They come from the Latin verb placēre, a relative of placare that means "to please." 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, 2016 is: hare • \HAIR\ • verb : to go swiftly : tear Examples: Andrew hared along the country road on his motorbike. "Pilgrims to the holy site now have to pay for the privilege of leaving their cars at the bottom, taking off their shoes and socks and haring up the mountain." — Nuala McCann, The Irish News, 22 May 2010 Did you know? No doubt you've heard Aesop's fable about the speedy hare and the plodding tortoise. The hare may have lost that race due to a tactical error (stopping to take a nap before reaching the finish line), but the long-eared mammal's overall reputation for swiftness remains intact. It's no surprise, then, that hare is used as a verb meaning "to move quickly." The noun hare (which refers, in its most specific zoological sense, to a member of the genus Lepus, whose young are usually able to hop a few minutes after birth) is a very old word. It first appeared as hara in a Latin-Old English glossary around the year 700. The verb was in use by the end of the 19th century, and people have been "haring off" and "haring about" ever since. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 13, 2016 is: kibosh • \KYE-bahsh\ • noun : something that serves as a check or stop Examples: Heavy rains put the kibosh on many of the activities scheduled for the day. "Yet every time a new idea takes root, old-guard companies that feel threatened, and politicians and regulators who like to control things, put the kibosh on the upstarts. They don't always succeed." — Steven Greenhut, The Orange County Register (California), 3 July 2016 Did you know? For almost two centuries, kibosh has taxed the ingenuity of etymologists. It was prominent enough in lower-class London speech to attract the attention of Charles Dickens, who used it in 1836 in an early sketch, but little else is certain. Claims were once made that it was Yiddish, despite the absence of a plausible Yiddish source. Another hypothesis points to Gaelic caidhp bháis—pronounced similarly to, and meaning, "coif of death"—explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. But evidence for any metaphorical use of this phrase in Irish is lacking, and kibosh is not recorded as spoken in Ireland until decades after Dickens' use. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 12, 2016 is: flippant • \FLIP-unt\ • adjective : lacking proper respect or seriousness Examples: The singer's fans were not amused by his flippant remark in response to the tragedy. "Earlier this year, [Hope] Solo said she might not take part in the Olympics because of the [Zika] virus. She ultimately decided that she would, but more recently she put up a couple of Twitter posts that seemed to take a flippant attitude toward the problem. One post showed a picture of Solo in what looked like a beekeeper’s mask. Another showed an assortment of repellents spread out on a bed." — Jay Schreiber, The New York Times, 3 Aug. 2016 Did you know? Flippant did something of a flip-flop shortly after it appeared in English in the late 16th century. The word was probably created from the verb flip, which in turn may have originated as an imitation of the sound of something flipping. The earliest senses of the adjective were "nimble" and "limber." One could be flippant not only on one's feet, but also in speech—that is, someone flippant might have a capacity for easy, flowing speech. Such flippancy was considered a good thing at first. But people who speak freely and easily can sometimes seem too talkative, and even impertinent. By the end of the 18th century, the positive sense of flippant had slipped from use, and the "disrespectful" sense had taken its 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 September 11, 2016 is: myrmidon • \MER-muh-dahn\ • noun : a loyal follower; especially : a subordinate who executes orders unquestioningly or unscrupulously Examples: "… when [Howard] Cosell came to TV he was utterly in contrast to the toothy myrmidons who reigned at the microphone and who spoke no evil save for the mayhem they regularly perpetrated upon the English language." — Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 8 Aug. 1983 "Britain's National Health Service is a socialized system, and Marsh chafes at new rigid rules imposed by its administrators. He … is shadowed on ward rounds by a bureaucrat who takes notes on his dress and behavior. The reign of the emperor is ending, but Marsh refuses to comply and serve as a myrmidon." — Jerome Groopman, The New York Times, 24 May 2015 Did you know? The Myrmidons, legendary inhabitants of Thessaly in Greece, were known for their fierce devotion to Achilles, the king who led them in the Trojan War. Myrmex means "ant" in Greek, an image that evokes small and insignificant workers mindlessly fulfilling their duties. Whether the original Myrmidons were given their name for that reason is open to question. The "ant" association is strong, however. Some say the name is from a legendary ancestor who once had the form of an ant; others say the Myrmidons were actually transformed from ants. In any case, since the 1400s, we've employed myrmidon in its not-always-complimentary, ant-evoking, figurative 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 10, 2016 is: devolve • \dih-VAHLV\ • verb 1 a : to pass by transmission or succession b : to fall or be passed usually as a responsibility or obligation 2 : to come by or as if by flowing down 3 : to degenerate through a gradual change or evolution Examples: Over time, the weekly book club meeting devolved into mean-spirited gossip sessions. "… with whiplash speed, this heart-warming tale has devolved into an internet-fueled soap opera." — Craig Schneider, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 31 July 2016 Did you know? Devolve evolved from Latin volvere, a word that means "to roll." The prefix de- means "down." (Other words that revolve around volvere are the five other words containing -vol- found in this paragraph.) Knowing which preposition to use with devolve can seem a bit involved, but it's really not all that convoluted. Responsibility or rights devolve "on," "upon," or "to" someone. When something comes into a present state by flowing down from a source, either literally or figuratively, we say "devolve from," as in "customs that devolve from old beliefs." And when the devolving is a downward evolution to a lower state we say "devolves into" (or sometimes "devolves to"), as in "order devolves into chaos." 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, 2016 is: sylvan • \SILL-vun\ • adjective 1 a : living or located in the woods or forest b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the woods or forest 2 a : made from wood : wooden b : abounding in woods, groves, or trees : wooded Examples: "The climb up the hill … was a short, hot pilgrimage to a sylvan glade, where the reading tents and outlets for drinks, falafels, crêpes and so on were situated." — Hugo Williams, The Times Literary Supplement, 13 Aug. 2004 "With Serenbe’s strong focus on sustainability and organic farming, Claudia and Rod Hoxsey wanted their new cottage there to be a modern version of a classic farmhouse. … The open floor plan embraces its sylvan setting, seen through 16-foot-tall metal windows." — Lisa Mowry, Atlanta Magazine, August 2016 Did you know? In Latin, sylva means "wood" or "forest," and the related Sylvanus is the name of the Roman god of the woods and fields—a god sometimes identified with the Greek god Pan. These words gave rise to English sylvan in the 16th century. The English word was first used as a noun meaning "a mythological deity of the woods," eventually taking on the broader meaning "one who frequents the woods." The adjective sylvan followed soon after the noun and is now the more common word. Some other offspring of sylva (which can also be spelled silva) include silviculture ("a branch of forestry dealing with the development and care of forests"), sylvatic (a synonym of sylvan that can also mean "occurring in or affecting wild animals"), and the first name Sylvia. 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, 2016 is: bevy • \BEV-ee\ • noun 1 : a large group or collection 2 : a group of animals and especially quail Examples: "… Prince William admits his son George is 'far too spoiled' after getting a bevy of gifts for his 3rd birthday." — The Daily News (New York), 25 July 2016 "Many cereals contain whole grains and a bevy of nutritious ingredients, but many are also high in sugar and other refined grains that aren’t nutritionally sound." — The Laramie (Wyoming) Boomerang, 21 July 2016 Did you know? What do you call a group of crows? Or swine? Or leopards? Well-educated members of the medieval gentry seem to have been expected to know the answers: a murder of crows, a sounder of swine, and a leap of leopards. They would also have been expected to know that bevy referred specifically to a group of deer, quail, larks, or young ladies. Scholars aren't certain why bevy was chosen for those groups (though they have theories). What is known for sure is that bevy first appeared in the 15th century and was used as a highly specific collective for many years. Today, however, bevies can include anything from football players to toaster ovens. 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, 2016 is: untoward • \un-TOH-erd\ • adjective 1 : difficult to guide, manage, or work with : unruly, intractable 2 a : marked by trouble or unhappiness : unlucky b : not favorable or propitious : adverse 3 : improper, indecorous Examples: I eyed the stranger suspiciously, but I had to admit that there was nothing untoward about his appearance. "The circulation staff will no longer be able to process credit card payments at the front desk…. There are too many possible legal and financial fraud issues for the library if something untoward were to occur." — The Milford (Massachusetts) Daily News, 5 July 2016 Did you know? More than 700 years ago, English speakers began using the word toward for "forward-moving" youngsters, the kind who showed promise and were open to listening to their elders. After about 150 years, the use was broadened somewhat to mean simply "docile" or "obliging." The opposite of this toward is froward, meaning "perverse" or "ungovernable." Today, froward has fallen out of common use, and the cooperative sense of toward is downright obsolete, but the newcomer to this series—untoward—has kept its toehold. Untoward first showed up as a synonym of unruly in the 1500s, and it is still used, just as it was then, though it has since acquired other meanings 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 September 6, 2016 is: will-o'-the-wisp • \will-uh-thuh-WISP\ • noun 1 : a light that appears at night over marshy ground 2 : a misleading or elusive goal or hope Examples: "Why don't you try to communicate with your boyfriend and see if you can find the root of the dissatisfaction? Perhaps you can repair it before you go and dismantle your life. If the relationship has run its course, you know what you have to do. But do it for yourself, not for a 23-year-old will-o’-the-wisp." — Molly Ringwald, The Guardian, 12 December 2014 "While a company's purpose generally doesn't change, strategies and organizational structures do, which can make chasing 'alignment' between strategy and the organization feel like chasing an elusive will-o'-the-wisp." — Jonathan Trevor and Barry Varcoe, Harvard Business Review (hbr.org), 16 May 2016 Did you know? The will-o'-the-wisp is a flame-like phosphorescence caused by gases from decaying plants in marshy areas. In olden days, it was personified as "Will with the wisp," a sprite who carried a fleeting "wisp" of light. Foolish travelers were said to try to follow the light and were then led astray into the marsh. (An 18th-century fairy tale described Will as one "who bears the wispy fire to trail the swains among the mire.") The light was first known, and still also is, as ignis fatuus, which in Latin means "foolish fire." Eventually, the name will-o’-the-wisp was extended to any impractical or unattainable goal. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.