Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 17, 2016 is: parlay • \PAHR-lay\ • verb 1 : to bet in a parlay 2 a : to exploit successfully b : to increase or otherwise transform into something of much greater value Examples: "Leong said she parlayed a measly $5 winning ticket into her big bonanza. First she exchanged the $5 winning ticket for another that won $10, and with that she bought a $10 ticket that won $100. She decided to try her luck two more times and used the winnings to buy two $20 tickets, one of which hit the mother lode." — Megan Cerullo & Nancy Dillon, The New York Daily News, 8 June 2016 "Johnson parlayed the experience she gained while writing her own fashion and lifestyle blog into her first job at New York social media marketing agency Attention." — Samantha Masunaga, The Waterbury (Connecticut) Republican-American, 13 June 2016 Did you know? If you're the gambling type, you may already know that parlay can also be used as a noun describing a series of bets in which a person places a bet, then puts the original stake of money and all of its winnings on new wagers. But you might not know that parlay represents a modified spelling of the French name for such bets: paroli. You might also be unaware that the original French word is still occasionally used in English with the same meaning as the noun parlay. Be careful not to mix up parlay with the similar word parley, meaning "to discuss terms with an enemy." Although the spellings are very close, parley comes from the Latin word for "speech." 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 July 16, 2016 is: caesura • \sih-ZYUR-uh\ • noun 1 : a break in the flow of sound usually in the middle of a line of verse 2 : break, interruption 3 : a pause marking a rhythmic point of division in a melody Examples: "The Anglo-Saxon idiom of Beowulf sounds particularly alien to modern ears: four stresses per line, separated in the middle by a strong pause, or caesura, with the third stress in each line alliterating with one or both of the first two." — Paul Gray, Time, 20 Mar. 2000 "Whenever anyone asks what I studied in school, the caesura of a deep breath inserts itself before the next line—the time it takes to summon the strength it takes to summon the word: 'poetry.'" — Michael Andor Brodeur, The Boston Globe, 14 June 2016 Did you know? Caesuras (or caesurae) are those slight pauses one makes as one reads verse. While it may seem that their most obvious role is to emphasize the metrical construction of the verse, more often we need these little stops (which may be, but are not necessarily, set off by punctuation) to introduce the cadence and phrasing of natural speech into the metrical scheme. The word caesura, borrowed from Late Latin, is ultimately from Latin caedere meaning "to cut." Nearly as old as the 450-year-old poetry senses is the general meaning of "a break or interruption." 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 July 15, 2016 is: ostracize • \AH-struh-syze\ • verb 1 : to exile by ostracism 2 : to exclude from a group by common consent Examples: Athletes who cheat risk being ostracized by their peers and colleagues—in addition to suffering professional ruin. "Hateful speech is employed to offend, marginalize and ostracize. It's replaced reasonable persuasion by those too lazy or ignorant to be thoughtful." — Tom Fulks, The San Luis Obispo (California) Tribune, 26 Dec. 2015 Did you know? In ancient Greece, prominent citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice called ostracism. Voters would elect to banish another citizen by writing that citizen's name down on a potsherd. Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state (usually for ten years). The English verb ostracize can mean "to exile by the ancient method of ostracism," but these days it usually refers to the general exclusion of one person from a group at the agreement of its members. Ostracism and ostracize derive from the Greek ostrakizein ("to banish by voting with potsherds"). Its ancestor, the Greek ostrakon ("shell" or "potsherd"), also helped to give English the word oyster. 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 July 14, 2016 is: éclat • \ay-KLAH\ • noun 1 : ostentatious display : publicity 2 : dazzling effect : brilliance 3 a : brilliant or conspicuous success b : praise, applause Examples: "The … protagonist is a familiar archetype, that washed-up star who can't quite reclaim the éclat of decades past." — Kevin Zawacki, Paste, 25 Aug. 2014 "A woman, a hostess, could play an important subterfuge.… She could serve dinner with éclat, put people at ease, and spice the conversation with the wit that obscured the politics in political discussions." — Louisa Thomas, New York Magazine, 14 Apr. 2016 Did you know? Éclat burst onto the scene in English in the 17th century. The word derives from French, where it can mean "splinter" (the French idiom voler en éclats means "to fly into pieces") as well as "burst" (un éclat de rire means "a burst of laughter"), among other things. The "burst" sense is reflected in the earliest English sense of the word, meaning "ostentatious display or publicity." This sense found its own idiomatic usage in the phrase "to make an éclat," which at one time meant "to create a sensation." By the 1740s, éclat took on the additional meaning of "applause or acclamation," as in "The performer was received with great éclat." 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 July 13, 2016 is: natant • \NAY-tunt\ • adjective : swimming or floating in water Examples: The pond was quiet, though occasionally a fish would rise to make a little splash among the natant lily pads. "The life cycle of spiny lobsters consists of two major phases: a lengthy planktonic larval phase that develops in oceanic water, and a benthic phase that begins when the natant post-larvae … settle onto some benthic habitat." — Patricia Briones-Fourzán and Enrique Lozano-Álvarez, in Lobsters: Biology, Management, Aquaculture and Fisheries, 2013 Did you know? Natant and the smattering of other words birthed in the waters of Latin natare, meaning "to swim," can sound overly formal in many contexts. Rather than use the word natatorium, for example, we're more likely to refer simply to an indoor swimming pool. Similarly, instead of complimenting a friend's skills in natation, you're probably more apt to tell her she's a good swimmer. The common German-derived word swimming suits most of us just fine. Science, though, often prefers Latin, which is why you're most likely to encounter natare words in scientific 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 July 12, 2016 is: gust • \GUST\ • noun : keen delight Examples: "He was pleased to find his own importance, and he tasted the sweets of companionship with more gust than he had yet done." — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Godolphin, 1833 "… the more pampered burgess and guild-brother was eating his morsel with gust, or curiously criticising the quantity of the malt and the skill of the brewer." — Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1820 Did you know? You're no doubt familiar with the simple gust that means "a brief burst of wind." At least a century and a half before that word first appeared in print in the late 16th century, however, a differently derived homograph came on the scene. The windy gust is probably derived from an Old Norse word gustr, whereas our older featured word (which is now considerably rarer than its look-alike) comes to us through Middle English from gustus, the Latin word for "taste." Gustus gave English another word as well. Gusto (which now usually means "zest" but can also mean "an individual or specific taste") comes to us from gustus by way of Italian. 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 July 11, 2016 is: liminal • \LIM-uh-nul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to a sensory threshold 2 : barely perceptible 3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional Examples: "Kipling is drawn to images of his characters sitting in perilous places, because he aims to communicate a liminal anxiety about identity and imperial history." — Tom Paulin, The Times Literary Supplement, 8 Mar. 2002 "Solnit suggests that separating the feeling of becoming lost from a feeling of fear leads to a certain kind of spiritual growth. In that liminal space, between what we know and what we can't imagine, we are remade." — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 24 May 2016 Did you know? The noun limen refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced, and liminal is the adjective used to describe things associated with that point, or threshold, as it is also called. Likewise, the closely related word subliminal means "below a threshold"; it can describe something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a threshold of consciousness. Because the sensory threshold is a transitional point where sensations are just beginning to be perceptible, liminal acquired two extended meanings. It can mean "barely perceptible" and is now often used to mean "transitional" or "intermediate," as in "the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness." 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 July 10, 2016 is: iconoclast • \eye-KAH-nuh-klast\ • noun 1 : a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration 2 : a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions Examples: "Hollywood loves trotting out some irascible iconoclast who denies love's potency, only to have them felled by their own emotion like a sapling in a hurricane." — Piers Marchant, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 20 May 2016 "But the two men are … both unrepentant iconoclasts and gleeful disrupters of art world conventions. Warhol scandalized with his soup cans in 1962; three decades later, Mr. Ai defiled neolithic Chinese pottery with tutti-frutti-colored paint…." — Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times, 4 June 2016 Did you know? Iconoclast is a word that often shows up on vocabulary lists and College Board tests. How will you remember the meaning of this vocabulary-boosting term? If you already know the word icon, you're halfway there. An icon is a picture that represents something. The most common icons today are those little images on our computers and smartphones that represent a program or function, but in the still-recent past, the most common icons were religious images. Icon comes from the Greek eikōn, which is from eikenai, meaning "to resemble." Iconoclast comes to us by way of Medieval Latin from Middle Greek eikonoklastēs, which joins eikōn with a form of the word klan, meaning "to break." Iconoclast literally means "image destroyer." 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 July 9, 2016 is: jovial • \JOH-vee-ul\ • adjective 1 : (capitalized Jovial) of or relating to Jove 2 : markedly good-humored especially as evidenced by jollity and conviviality Examples: He was fondly remembered for his jovial temperament and generosity. "Inside, the crowd was boisterous and jovial, the young and fashionable sharing space with old regulars, all of them out despite the cold…." — Michael Snyder, Saveur, 13 June 2016 Did you know? Jupiter, also called Jove, was the chief Roman god and was considered a majestic, authoritative type—just the kind of god to name a massive planet like Jupiter for. Our word jovial comes by way of Middle French from the Late Latin adjective jovialis, meaning "of or relating to Jove." When English speakers first picked up jovial in the late 16th century, it was a term of astrology used to describe those born under the influence of Jupiter, which, as a natal planet, was believed to impart joy and happiness. They soon began applying jovial to folks who shared the good-natured character of Jupiter, regardless of their birth date. 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 July 8, 2016 is: lout • \LOUT\ • noun : an awkward brutish person Examples: To get away from the obnoxious louts making noise in the restaurant, Jared and Fiona asked the waiter if they could be moved to another table. "Leaf blowers kick a lot of dust up. Often, after I've just washed my car I will drive past some lout who is blowing crud directly at my passenger door." — Paul Mulshine, The Newark Star Ledger, 2 June 2016 Did you know? Lout belongs to the large group of words we use to indicate an undesirable person, a boor, a bumpkin, a dolt, a clod. We've used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. As early as the 800s, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning "to bow in respect." No one is quite sure how the verb sense developed into a noun meaning "a brutish person." Perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over time to the idea that the person was personally low and awkward 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 July 7, 2016 is: hoity-toity • \hoy-tee-TOY-tee\ • adjective 1 : thoughtlessly silly or frivolous : flighty 2 : marked by an air of assumed importance : highfalutin Examples: "… she was by no means hoity-toity, but a thinking, reasoning being of the profoundest intellectual, or, rather, the highest artistic tendencies." — Theodore Dreiser, The Titan, 1914 "Usually Tanglewood's summer lineup is too hoity-toity for the great unwashed to care, but Beach Boys' legend and cofounder Brian Wilson performing the entire album 'Pet Sounds' is enough to give any summer concertgoer a good vibration." — Craig S. Semon, The Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts), 3 June 2016 Did you know? Today we most often use hoity-toity as an adjective, but before it was an adjective it was a noun meaning "thoughtless giddy behavior." The noun, which first appeared in print in 1668, was probably created as a singsongy rhyme based on the dialectal English word hoit, meaning "to play the fool." The adjective hoity-toity can stay close to its roots and mean "foolish" ("… as though it were very hoity-toity of me not to know that royal personage." — W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge), but in current use it more often means "pretentious." 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 July 6, 2016 is: negotiate • \nih-GOH-shee-ayt\ • verb 1 : to confer with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter; also : to arrange for or bring about by such conferences 2 : to transfer to another by delivery or endorsement in return for equivalent value 3 : to get through, around, or over successfully Examples: Our driver had lived on the island all her life, and was adept at negotiating the narrow, winding roads along the island's coast. "In recent years, however, using the courts to negotiate 'fair value' has become a full-time industry for investment funds and lawyers looking for a quick score." — Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times, 7 June 2016 Did you know? For the first 250 years of its life, negotiate had meanings that hewed pretty closely to its Latin root, negotiari, meaning "to carry on business." Around the middle of the 19th century, though, it developed the meaning "to successfully travel along or over." Although this sense was criticized in the New York Sun in 1906 as a "barbarism creeping into the language," and Henry Fowler's 1926 A Dictionary of Modern English Usage declared that any writer who used it was "literally a barbarian," it has thrived and is now fully established. 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 July 5, 2016 is: felicitous • \fih-LISS-uh-tus\ • adjective 1 : very well suited or expressed : apt 2 : pleasant, delightful Examples: The warm air and clear, dark skies made for felicitous conditions for the fireworks show. "Experience has been instructive to Moulder, who has learned that churches have been particularly felicitous spaces. Granted, the general public may associate the music with nightclubs and sensuality, but jazz has deep roots in the church that flowered in the form of works such as John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme'…." — Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune, 3 Mar. 2016 Did you know? The adjective felicitous has been a part of our language since the late 18th century, but felicity, the noun meaning "great happiness," and later, "aptness," was around even in Middle English (as felicite, a borrowing from Anglo-French). Both words ultimately derive from the Latin adjective felix, meaning "fruitful" or "happy." The connection between happy and felicitous continues today in that both words can mean "notably fitting, effective, or well adapted." Happy typically suggests what is effectively or successfully appropriate (as in "a happy choice of words"), and felicitous often implies an aptness that is opportune, telling, or graceful (as in "a felicitous phrase"). 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 July 4, 2016 is: Yankee • \YANG-kee\ • noun 1 a : a native or inhabitant of New England b : a native or inhabitant of the northern United States 2 : a native or inhabitant of the United States Examples: "I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut…. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees…." — Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889 "Laura Secord wasn't really Canadian. Secord was born south of the border in Massachusetts, making her a Yankee by birth." — James Culic, Niagara This Week, 23 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Many etymologies have been proposed for Yankee, but its origin is still uncertain. What we do know is that in its earliest recorded use Yankee was a pejorative term for American colonials used by the British military. The first evidence we have is in a letter written in 1758 by British General James Wolfe, who had a very low opinion of the New England troops assigned to him. We also have a report of British troops using the term to abuse citizens of Boston. In 1775, however, after the battles of Lexington and Concord had shown the colonials that they could stand up to British regulars, Yankee became suddenly respectable and the colonials adopted the British pejorative in defiance. Ever since then, a derisive and a respectable use of Yankee have existed side by side. 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 July 3, 2016 is: ossify • \AH-suh-fye\ • verb 1 : to become or change into bone or bony tissue 2 : to become or make hardened or set in one's ways Examples: When a baby is born, many of the bones in its body have yet to ossify. "Bargaining systems that address legitimate problems today may ossify into cumbersome bureaucracies over time." — Dante Ramos, The Boston Globe, 27 Mar. 2016 Did you know? The skeletons of mammals originate as soft cartilage that gradually transforms into hard bone (in humans, the process begins in the womb and continues until late adolescence). English speakers have referred to this bone-building process as ossification since the late 17th century, and the verb ossify appeared at roughly the same time. English speakers had begun to use both ossification and ossify for more figurative types of hardening (such as that of the heart, mind, or soul) by the 19th century. Both words descend from the Latin root os, meaning "bone." Os is also an English word that appears in scientific contexts as a synonym of bone, and the Latin term is an ancestor of the word osseous, which means "consisting of or resembling bone." 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 July 2, 2016 is: defalcation • \dee-fal-KAY-shun\ • noun 1 : the act or an instance of embezzling 2 : a failure to meet a promise or an expectation Examples: "Early in my career, I uncovered a defalcation that resulted from one individual having too much control over the cash handling process." — James Williams, quoted in The Washington Business Journal, 30 Jan. 2015 "The sum of $39,400 was borrowed on this line of credit, some of which was repaid using District funds. The defendants then conspired to conceal the borrowing to protect their employment and to conceal their own defalcations and thefts of District funds." — The Nevada Daily Mail, 25 May 2016 Did you know? "The tea table shall be set forth every morning with its customary bill of fare, and without any manner of defalcation." No reference to embezzlement there! This line, from a 1712 issue of Spectator magazine, is an example of the earliest, and now archaic, sense of defalcation, which is simply defined as "curtailment." Defalcation is ultimately from the Latin word falx, meaning "sickle," and it has been a part of English since the 1400s. It was used early on of monetary cutbacks (as in "a defalcation in their wages"), and by the 1600s it was used of most any sort of financial reversal (as in "a defalcation of public revenues"). Not till the mid-1800s, however, did defalcation refer to breaches of trust that cause a financial loss, or, specifically, to embezzlement. 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 July 1, 2016 is: qua • \KWAH\ • preposition : in the capacity or character of : as Examples: "Coben's novels have made him rich, but that's not what's important to him. It's sales qua sales—his statistical record—that motivates Coben, rather than the money his sales bring in." — Eric Konigsberg, The Atlantic, July/August 2007 "Sure, there have been other big pop music phenomena over the years … but the Beatles qua phenomenon was due to a confluence of forces that defined a historical moment." — Candy Leonard, The Huffington Post, 18 Dec. 2014 Did you know? Which way? Who? No, we're not paraphrasing lines from the old Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on First?" We're referring to the etymology of qua, a term that comes to us from Latin. It can be translated as "which way" or "as," and it is a derivative of the Latin qui, meaning "who." Qua has been serving English in the capacity of a preposition since the 17th century. It's a learned but handy little word that led one 20th-century usage writer to comment: "Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically." 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 June 30, 2016 is: nadir • \NAY-deer\ • noun 1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer 2 : the lowest point Examples: Only once the novel's protagonist reaches her nadir does she arouse the reader's empathy, and we root for her to climb back to respectability. "The nadir came in the MLS Cup Final, when a gaffe in front of his net led to a Portland goal just 27 seconds after the opening whistle." — Shawn Mitchell, The Columbus Dispatch, 4 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Nadir is part of the galaxy of scientific words that have come to us from Arabic, a language that has made important contributions in the vocabulary of mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. Nadir derives from an Arabic word meaning "opposite"—the opposite, that is, of the zenith, or the highest point of the celestial sphere, the one vertically above the observer. (The word zenith itself is a modification of another Arabic word that means "the way over one's head.") The English poet John Donne is first on record as having used nadir in the figurative sense of "lowest point" in a sermon he wrote in 1627. 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 June 29, 2016 is: attenuate • \uh-TEN-yuh-wayt\ • verb 1 : to make thin or slender 2 : to make thin in consistency : rarefy 3 : to lessen the amount, force, magnitude, or value of : weaken 4 : to reduce the severity, virulence, or vitality of Examples: "… it's been well established that daily exercise such as walking for 30 minutes yields substantial health benefits and that regular physical activity attenuates the health risks associated with overweight and obesity." — Yuri Elkaim, The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, 4 June 2016 "Confined to a contemporary art emporium, however, an artist such as Ms. Abdalian is often forced either to fill up the chamber so much that it feels like granny’s attic, or to attenuate the offering so that the viewer gets a pretty good idea of what the artist is usually up to, aesthetically and philosophically, elsewhere." — Peter Plagens, The Wall Street Journal, 6 May 2016 Did you know? Attenuate ultimately comes from a combination of the Latin prefix ad-, meaning "to" or "toward," and tenuis, meaning "thin." It has been on the medical scene since the 16th century, when a health treatise recommended eating dried figs to attenuate bodily fluids. That treatment might be outmoded nowadays, but attenuate is still used in medicine to refer to procedures that weaken a pathogen or reduce the severity of a disease. Most often, though, attenuate implies that something has been reduced or weakened by physical or chemical means. You can attenuate wire by drawing it through successively smaller holes, or attenuate gold by hammering it into thin sheets. You can even attenuate the momentum of a play by including too many costume changes. 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 June 28, 2016 is: licit • \LISS-it\ • adjective : conforming to the requirements of the law : not forbidden by law : permissible Examples: The program subsidizes farmers growing licit crops, such as rubber, cassava, and cocoa. "The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) explained, opioids are a class of drugs that include the illicit drug heroin and the licit prescription pain relievers oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl and others." — The Recorder: Central Connecticut University, 5 May 2016 Did you know? Licit is far less common than its antonym illicit, but you probably won't be surprised to learn that the former is the older of the two. Not by much, though: the first known use of licit in print is from 1483, whereas illicit shows up in print for the first time in 1506. For some reason illicit took off while licit just plodded along. When licit appears these days, it often modifies drugs or crops. Meanwhile, illicit shows up before words like thrill and passion (as well as gambling, relationship, activities, and, of course, drugs and crops.) The Latin word licitus, meaning "lawful," is the root of the pair; licitus itself is from licēre, meaning "to be permitted." 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 June 27, 2016 is: crackerjack • \CRACK-er-jack\ • adjective : of striking ability or excellence Examples: She is a crackerjack athlete who excels in soccer and softball. "Like a well-made suspense film, Mr. Scovel's jokes have twists you don't see coming and the thrilling tension of a crackerjack plot where you have no idea what will happen next." — Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, 12 May 2016 Did you know? The late 19th-century pairing of crack and jack to form crackerjack topped off a long history for those words. Cracker is an elongation of crack, an adjective meaning "expert" or "superior" that dates from the 18th century. Prior to that, crack was a noun meaning "something superior" and a verb meaning "to boast." (The verb use evolved from the expression "to crack a boast," which came from the sense of crack meaning "to make a loud sharp sound.") Jack has been used for "man" since the mid-1500s, as in "jack-of-all-trades." Crackerjack entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. You may also know Cracker Jack as a snack of candied popcorn and peanuts. That trademarked name dates from the 1890s. 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 June 26, 2016 is: jactitation • \jak-tuh-TAY-shun\ • noun : a tossing to and fro or jerking and twitching of the body Examples: "The effect of the first dose was most fortunate. In about ten minutes after it was swallowed, the jactitation ceased." — Edward H. Clarke, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 16 June 1870 "It is clear that Mrs Y.'s tics are far more complex in form than mere Parkinsonian jerks, jactitations, or precipitations...." — Oliver Sacks, Awakenings, 1973 Did you know? In the 17th century, lawyers began tossing around the word jactitation, which can be traced back to the Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw." Originally, jactitation was used as a word for a false claim or assertion being publicly thrown about to the detriment of another person. Run-of-the-mill slander and false claims of being married to someone were two common types of jactitation brought to court. Before long, jactitation had jumped over to the medical profession, where it continues to serve as a word for restless, jerky, or twitchy body movements. In 1761, British writer Laurence Sterne threw jactitation into his novel Tristram Shandy as a substitute for discussion, but that meaning never caught on. 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 June 25, 2016 is: extirpate • \EK-ster-payt\ • verb 1 a : to destroy completely : wipe out b : to pull up by the root 2 : to cut out by surgery Examples: "The spread of piracy has been treated more as a nuisance to be endured rather than as a deadly cancer that must be extirpated for the sake of both Somalia and the rule of law." — Tara Helfman and Dan O'Shea, Commentary, February 2011 "Over the past decades, the reptiles have reclaimed much of the native range from which they'd been extirpated." — Shannon Tompkins, The Houston Chronicle, 12 May 2016 Did you know? If we do a little digging, we discover that extirpate finds its roots in, well, roots (and stumps). Early English uses of the word in the 16th century carried the meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by the root." Extirpate grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix ex- and the Latin noun stirps, meaning "trunk" or "root." The word stirp itself remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line descending from a common ancestor." 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 June 24, 2016 is: hermetic • \her-MET-ik\ • adjective 1 : relating to or characterized by occultism or abstruseness : recondite 2 a : airtight b : impervious to external influence c : recluse, solitary Examples: The infomercial claimed that the new containers used modern technology to guarantee a hermetic seal that would keep food fresh for months. "Later, as Western Europe welcomed foreign guest workers, Central Europe remained in the hermetic enclosure of Soviet rule." — Sara Miller Llana, The Christian Science Monitor, 10 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Hermetic derives from Greek via the Medieval Latin word hermeticus. When it first entered English in the early 17th century, hermetic was associated with writings attributed to Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom. Thoth, whom the Greeks called Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-great Hermes"), was believed to be the author of a number of mystical, philosophical, and alchemistic works. The obscure subject matter of these works may have made them difficult to wade through, for soon English speakers were also applying hermetic to things that were beyond ordinary human comprehension. Additionally, Hermes Trismegistus was said to have invented a magic seal that could keep vessels airtight. Hermetic thus came to mean "airtight," both literally and figuratively. These days, it can also sometimes mean "solitary." 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 June 23, 2016 is: genius • \JEEN-yus\ • noun 1 : a single strongly marked capacity or aptitude 2 : extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity 3 : a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority; especially : a person with a very high IQ Examples: "An airplane mechanic in World War II, my father had a genius for anything mechanical. He would overhaul an engine at the drop of a hat." — Jack McCall, The Hartsville (Tennessee) Vidette, 28 Apr. 2016 "By the time Purple Rain was released, Prince's overt sexiness, inventive style, technical brilliance, and musical genius had established an irrefutable fact: He was the new James Brown." — Simon Doonan, Slate.com, 26 Apr. 2016 Did you know? The belief system of the ancient Romans included spirits that were somewhere in between gods and humans and were thought to accompany each person through life as a protector. The Latin name for this spirit was genius, which came from the verb gignere, meaning "to beget." This sense of "attendant spirit" was first borrowed into English in the 14th century. Part of such a spirit's role was to protect a person's moral character, and from that idea an extended sense developed in the 16th century meaning "an identifying character." In time, that meaning was extended to cover a special ability for doing something, and eventually genius acquired senses referring particularly to "very great intelligence" and "people of great intelligence." 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 June 22, 2016 is: feign • \FAYN\ • verb 1 : to give a false appearance of : to induce as a false impression 2 : to assert as if true : pretend Examples: "If a predator approaches the nest, the parent feigns a broken wing, often leading the predator far from the nest before bursting into flight, the injured wing suddenly fully functional." — Jan Bergstrom, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, 7 May 2016 "The local high school … wasn't of particularly high quality, and I was not intellectually stimulated or motivated there. In fact, I became disinterested, started skipping class and feigning illness to avoid going to school." — Brian Calle, The Orange County (California) Register, 8 May 2016 Did you know? Feign is all about faking it, but that hasn't always been so. In one of its earliest senses, feign meant "to fashion, form, or shape." That meaning is true to the term's Latin ancestor: the verb fingere, which also means "to shape." The current senses of feign still retain the essence of the Latin source, since to feign something, such as surprise or an illness, requires one to fashion an impression or shape an image. Several other English words that trace to the same ancestor refer to things that are shaped with either the hands, as in figure and effigy, or the imagination, as in fiction and figment. 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 June 21, 2016 is: inchoate • \in-KOH-ut\ • adjective : being only partly in existence or operation : incipient; especially : imperfectly formed or formulated : formless, incoherent Examples: Five years ago, the restaurant was merely an inchoate notion in Nathan's head; today it is one of the most popular eateries in the city. "The nexus point in any populist upwelling is whether or not it evolves from an inchoate outrage into a legitimate movement." — Gene Altshuler, The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California), 2 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Inchoate derives from inchoare, which means "to start work on" in Latin but translates literally as "to hitch up." Inchoare was formed from the prefix in- and the noun cohum, which refers to the part of a yoke to which the beam of a plow is fitted. The concept of implementing this initial step toward the larger task of plowing a field can help provide a clearer understanding of inchoate, an adjective used to describe the imperfect form of something (such as a plan or idea) in its early stages of development. Perhaps because it looks a little like the word chaos (although the two aren't closely related), inchoate now not only implies the formlessness that often marks beginnings but also the confusion caused by 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 June 20, 2016 is: heliolatry • \hee-lee-AH-luh-tree\ • noun : sun worship Examples: Archeologists believe that the members of the ancient civilization practiced heliolatry because each temple faced east, toward the rising sun. "An observer would assume that all of us—humans and shorebirds alike—are guilty of heliolatry…. We had endured a series of dark, gloomy, winter days, during which the sun had been continually hidden behind dense, rain clouds. Now that the sun has emerged from its cloudy cave, the beach is bathed in brilliant sunshine." — George Thatcher, The Biloxi (Mississippi) Sun Herald, 22 Jan. 2013 Did you know? The first half of heliolatry derives from hēlios, the Greek word for "sun." In Greek mythology, Hēlios was the god of the sun, imagined as "driving" the sun as a chariot across the sky. From hēlios we also get the word helium, referring to the very light gas that is used in balloons and airships, and heliocentric, meaning "having or relating to the sun as center," as in "a heliocentric orbit." The suffix -latry, meaning "worship," derives via Late Latin and French from the Greek latreia, and can be found in such words as bardolatry ("worship of Shakespeare") and zoolatry ("animal worship"). A person who worships the sun is called a heliolater. 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 June 19, 2016 is: dolorous • \DOH-luh-rus\ • adjective : causing, marked by, or expressing misery or grief Examples: With his dolorous songs about hard-bitten people down on their luck, Johnny Cash garnered legions of fans across generations. "I felt myself sinking now and then into a dolorous state in which I allowed myself to succumb to a deep despair about life here…." — Alan Cheuse, Song of Slaves in the Desert, 2011 Did you know? "No medicine may prevail … till the same dolorous tooth be … plucked up by the roots." When dolorous first appeared around 1400, it was linked to physical pain—and appropriately so, since the word is a descendant of the Latin word dolor, meaning "pain" as well as "grief." (Today, dolor is also an English word meaning "sorrow.") When the British surgeon John Banister wrote the above quotation in 1578, dolorous could mean either "causing pain" or "distressful, sorrowful." "The death of the earl [was] dolorous to all Englishmen," the English historian Edward Hall had written a few decades earlier. The "causing pain" sense of dolorous coexisted with the "sorrowful" sense for centuries, but nowadays its use is rare. 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 June 18, 2016 is: kvell • \KVEL\ • verb : to be extraordinarily proud : rejoice Examples: Critics kvelled over the violinist's triumphant return to the stage where she had made her debut many years ago. "My older brother, by two years and nine months, was a loving uncle who absolutely kvelled over his two nephews and was always asking me when I was next bringing them to San Francisco to see him." — Lincoln Mitchell, The New York Observer, 28 Oct. 2014 Did you know? We are pleased to inform you that the word kvell is derived from Yiddish kveln, meaning "to be delighted," which, in turn, comes from the Middle High German word quellen, meaning "to well, gush, or swell." Yiddish has been a wellspring of creativity for English, giving us such delightful words as meister ("one who is knowledgeable about something"), maven ("expert"), and shtick ("one's special activity"), just to name a few. The date for the appearance of kvell in the English language is tricky to pinpoint exactly. The earliest known printed evidence for the word in an English source is found in a 1952 handbook of Jewish words and expressions, but actual usage evidence before that date remains unseen. 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 June 17, 2016 is: benign • \bih-NYNE\ • adjective 1 : of a gentle disposition : gracious 2 a : showing kindness and gentleness b : favorable, wholesome 3 a : of a mild type or character that does not threaten health or life; especially : not becoming cancerous b : having no significant effect : harmless Examples: "No doubt the history of this genial, white-haired American emigre was benign, but, still, I remember wondering about his real story, as distinct from the one he was telling me." — Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune, 29 July 2013 "University of Florida Health researchers say they are making progress in ascertaining whether a kidney tumor is cancerous or benign before a patient is subjected to an invasive needle biopsy or surgery." — TheLedger.com (Polk County, Florida), 5 May 2016 Did you know? Benediction, benefactor, benefit, benevolent, and benign are just some of the English words that derive from the well-tempered Latin root bene, which means "well." Benign came to English via Anglo-French from the Latin benignus, which in turn paired bene with gignere, meaning "to beget." Gignere has produced a few offspring of its own in English. Its descendants include congenital, genius, germ, indigenous, and progenitor, among others. Benign is commonly used in medical contexts to describe conditions, such as noncancerous masses, that present no apparent harm to the patient. It is also found in the phrase benign neglect, which refers to an attitude or policy of ignoring an often delicate or undesirable situation that one has the responsibility to manage. 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 June 16, 2016 is: MacGuffin • \muh-GUFF-in\ • noun : an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance Examples: The missing document is the MacGuffin that brings the two main characters together, but the real story centers on their tumultuous relationship. "The story opens … at the funeral of elderly Oleander Gardener…. The childless Oleander has several nieces and nephews…. Questions of inheritance and a mysterious seed pod that each of her heirs receives constitute the framework of a tenuous plot, but these are primarily MacGuffins." — The Publisher's Weekly Review, 14 Mar. 2016 Did you know? The first person to use MacGuffin as a word for a plot device was Alfred Hitchcock. He borrowed it from an old shaggy-dog story in which some passengers on a train interrogate a fellow passenger carrying a large, strange-looking package. The fellow says the package contains a "MacGuffin," which, he explains, is used to catch tigers in the Scottish Highlands. When the group protests that there are no tigers in the Highlands, the passenger replies, "Well, then, this must not be a MacGuffin." Hitchcock apparently appreciated the way the mysterious package holds the audience's attention and builds suspense. He recognized that an audience anticipating a solution to a mystery will continue to follow the story even if the initial interest-grabber turns out to be irrelevant. 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 June 15, 2016 is: verdure • \VER-jer\ • noun 1 : the greenness of growing vegetation; also : such vegetation itself 2 : a condition of health and vigor Examples: "All right, I have to admit it. It's stunning. Even though the summer drought has leached the verdure from the grand, sweeping lawns." — Zofia Smardz, The Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2007 "The visit began and culminated with Can Tomas, her family house, which crests one of the hills on the island, providing unobstructed views of San Antonio Bay's sunsets and the seething palette of verdure and ocher soil that composes the island's countryside." — Nikil Saval, The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2015 Did you know? English speakers have had the use of the word verdure since the 14th century, when it made its way into Middle English from Anglo-French. Like the more common verdant, the word traces back to Latin virēre, meaning "to be green." Since the early 16th century, verdure has also been used to refer to a kind of tapestry with a design based on plant forms. The verdure that English speakers sometimes encounter on menus is Italian; in that language verdure refers to green vegetables or to vegetables in general (as in "fettuccine con verdure"). 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 June 14, 2016 is: obtuse • \ahb-TOOSS\ • adjective 1 a : not pointed or acute : blunt b : exceeding 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees c : having an obtuse angle 2 a : lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect : insensitive, stupid b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression Examples: "A wrinkled brow or wrinkled nose in response to someone volunteering life-changing news, imbued with hope for change, is the domain of the ignorant, the determinedly obtuse or the bigot." — Nicky Clark, The Independent (London), 8 Mar. 2016 "The angled walls and obtuse openings led to gallery areas beyond and made for a private and original environment that gave booths a more secluded and comfortable feeling." — Greg Smith, Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 18 May 2016 Did you know? Obtuse, which comes to us from the Latin word obtusus, meaning "dull" or "blunt," can describe an angle that is not acute or a person who is mentally "dull" or slow of mind. The word has also developed a somewhat controversial sense of "hard to comprehend," probably as a result of confusion with abstruse. This sense of obtuse is well established, and it is now possible to speak of "obtuse language" and "obtuse explanations," as well as "obtuse angles" and "obtuse readers"; however, it may attract some criticism. If you're hesitant about using new meanings of words, you should probably stick with abstruse when you want a word meaning "difficult to understand." 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 June 13, 2016 is: tocsin • \TOCK-sin\ • noun 1 : an alarm bell or the ringing of it 2 : a warning signal Examples: A coalition of parents was sounding the tocsin for the school music program—if voters didn't approve a tax increase, the program was sure to be axed. "That may sound alarmist, but the tocsin is being rung by some pretty sober people." — Doyle McManus, Advance-News (Ogdensburg, New York), 16 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Although it has occasionally been spelled like its homonym toxin, tocsin has nothing to do with poison. Rather, it is derived from the Middle French toquassen, which in turn comes from the Old Occitan tocasenh, and ultimately from the assumed Vulgar Latin verb toccare ("to ring a bell") and the Latin signum ("mark, sign"), which have given us, respectively, the English words touch and signal. Tocsin long referred to the ringing of church bells to signal events of importance to local villagers, including dangerous events such as attacks. Its use was eventually broadened to cover anything that signals danger or trouble. 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 June 12, 2016 is: quaff • \KWAHF\ • verb : to drink deeply Examples: The kids thoroughly enjoyed running a lemonade stand for the day, and weren't bothered in the least by the paltry profits that always result when the proprietors quaff most of the product. "Contrary to the time-honored campaign tradition of stopping at a local pub to quaff Budweiser with the after-work crowd, this cycle's candidates have gravitated toward local beer makers." — Matthew Osgood, The Atlantic, 8 May 2016 Did you know? Nowadays, quaff has an old-fashioned, literary sound to it. For more contemporary words that suggest drinking a lot of something, especially in big gulps and in large quantity, you might try drain, pound, or slug. If you are a daintier drinker, you might say that you prefer to sip, imbibe or partake in the beverage of your choice. Quaff is by no means the oldest of these terms—earliest evidence of it in use is from the early 1500s, whereas sip dates to the 14th century—but it is the only one with the mysterious "origin unknown" etymology. 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 June 11, 2016 is: renovate • \REN-uh-vayt\ • verb 1 : to restore to a former better state (as by cleaning, repairing, or rebuilding) 2 : to restore to life, vigor, or activity : revive Examples: "… society gains nothing whilst a man, not himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him: he has become tediously good in some particular, but negligent or narrow in the rest…." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, "New England Reformers," 3 Mar. 1844 "Voters in Sag Harbor on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the Sag Harbor School District to purchase and renovate the former Stella Maris school building…." — Christine Sampson, The East Hampton Star, 17 May 2016 Did you know? Renovate, renew, restore, refresh, and rejuvenate all mean to make like new. Renovate (a word ultimately derived from the Latin verb novare, meaning "to make new," itself a descendant of novus, meaning "new") suggests a renewing by cleansing, repairing, or rebuilding. Renew implies a restoration of what had become faded or disintegrated so that it seems like new ("efforts to renew the splendor of the old castle"). Restore suggests a return to an original state after depletion or loss ("restored a piece of furniture"). Refresh implies the supplying of something necessary to restore lost strength, animation, or power ("a refreshing drink"). Rejuvenate suggests the restoration of youthful vigor, powers, or appearance ("she was rejuvenated by her new job"). 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 June 10, 2016 is: semelparous • \seh-MEL-puh-rus\ • adjective : reproducing or breeding only once in a lifetime Examples: The article's author is a scientist who spent years studying semelparous butterflies. "[The century plant's] common name derives from its semelparous nature of flowering only once at the end of its long life." — Fred Whitley, The St. Augustine (Florida) Record, 3 Oct. 2014 Did you know? The combining form -parous was first used in English by the 17th-century physician and writer Sir Thomas Browne, who wrote about organisms that were multiparous ("producing more than one at a birth"), oviparous ("producing eggs that develop outside the maternal body"), and viviparous ("producing living young instead of eggs from within the body"). The suffix is based on the Latin verb parere, meaning "to give birth to," which is also a relative of the word that gave us parent. Semelparous, the youngest offspring of -parous, was born in 1954. Its other parent is semel, the Latin word for "once." 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 June 9, 2016 is: passel • \PASS-ul\ • noun : a large number or amount Examples: When problems at the printing plant caused a delay in delivery of the newspaper, Rebecca was tasked with handling the passel of complaints from angry subscribers. "It's no easy feat being the standout here—the marquee names are all delightfully funny, not to mention the passel of character actors playing the blacklisted writers—but Ehrenreich's going to have moviegoers learning how to spell his name." — Alonso Duralde, TheWrap.com, 3 Feb. 2016 Did you know? The loss of the sound of "r" after a vowel and before another consonant in the middle of a word is common in spoken English. This linguistic idiosyncrasy has given our language a few new words, such as cuss from curse, bust from burst, and our featured word passel from parcel. The spelling passel originated in the 15th century, but the word's use as a collective noun for an indefinite number is a 19th-century Americanism. It was common primarily in local-color writing before getting a boost in the 1940s, when it began appearing in popular weekly magazines such as Time, Newsweek, and Saturday Review. 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 June 8, 2016 is: ululate • \ULL-yuh-layt\ • verb : howl, wail Examples: "Millions of pop culture devotees weep and ululate over the death of David Bowie. His passing is noteworthy, given his significant celebrity profile, but I shall miss [journalist] George Jonas' contributions more." — Randall Bell, letter in The National Post (Canada), 13 Jan. 2016 "They talked loud in their language, and together they sounded like mourners ululating." — Sefi Atta, Everything Good Will Come, 2005 (2008) Did you know? "When other birds are still, the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu." When Henry David Thoreau used "u-lu-lu" to imitate the cry of screech owls and mourning women in that particular passage from Walden, he was re-enacting the etymology of ululate (a word he likely knew). Ululate descends from the Latin verb ululare. That Latin root carried the same meaning as our modern English word, and it likely originated in the echoes of the rhythmic wailing sound associated with it. Even today, ululate often refers to ritualistic or expressive wailing performed at times of mourning or celebration or used to show approval. 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 June 7, 2016 is: nescience • \NESH-ee-unss\ • noun : lack of knowledge or awareness : ignorance Examples: "Fallacious statements, which I will be generous and attribute to nescience and not to deliberate equivocation, include the following examples…." — H. B. "Bud" Thompson, The Fresno (California) Bee, 26 Sept. 2009 "Unnecessary obstacles to information—and the possibility of greater restrictions against getting it—promote nescience." — Jackie Torok, The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, North Carolina), 22 Dec. 2015 Did you know? Eighteenth-century British poet, essayist, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson once said, "There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it." He probably knew a thing or two about the history of the word nescience, which evolved from a combination of the Latin prefix ne-, meaning "not," and scire, a verb meaning "to know." And he may also have known that scire is an ancestor of science, a word whose original meaning in English was "knowledge." 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 June 6, 2016 is: welter • \WEL-ter\ • verb 1 a : writhe, toss; also : wallow b : to rise and fall or toss about in or with waves 2 : to become deeply sunk, soaked, or involved 3 : to be in turmoil Examples: "As debris weltered in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, the landfill company River Birch Inc. used helicopter tours to argue against the government's reopening of Old Gentilly Landfill in eastern New Orleans." — Richard Rainey, NOLA.com, 5 June 2011 "He liked social democracy, thought it a good promoter of liberty, urged on its expansion of higher education, but found that this too weltered in bureaucracy in the end." — The Economist, 25 June 2009 Did you know? Welter can be used both as a noun (meaning "turmoil" or "chaos") and a verb. The verb is the older of the two; it has been part of English since at least the 1300s, while the earliest uses of the noun date from the late 1590s. Both noun and verb have roots related to Dutch and Germanic terms meaning "to roll," and both have found a place in historical English literature. The verb helps demonstrate extreme despair in the early Arthurian legend Morte Arthure ("He welterys, he wristeles, he wrynges hys handes!"), and in 1837 Thomas Carlyle used the noun in The French Revolution ("I leave the whole business in a frightful welter: … not one of them understands anything of government"). 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 June 5, 2016 is: lucid • \LOO-sid\ • adjective 1 a : suffused with light : luminous b : translucent 2 : having full use of one's faculties : sane 3 : clear to the understanding : intelligible Examples: "The sound swelled and enveloped us, and indeed it was like laughter, waves upon waves of … lucid laughter…." — Anne Rice, Memnoch the Devil, 1995 "His writing is lucid and perceptive, and his instincts for the arcane and interesting are unerring, making the text scholarly yet still accessible to the lay reader…." — The Publisher's Weekly Review, 14 Mar. 2016 Did you know? It's easy enough to shed some light on the origins of lucid: it derives—via the Latin adjective lucidus, meaning "shining"—from the Latin verb lucēre, meaning "to shine." Lucid has been used by English speakers since at least the late 16th century. Originally, it meant merely "filled with light" or "shining," but it has since developed extended senses describing someone whose mind is clear or something with a clear meaning. Other shining examples of lucēre descendants include translucent, lucent ("glowing"), and the somewhat rarer relucent ("reflecting light" or "shining"). Even the word light itself derives from the same ancient word that led to lucēre. 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 June 4, 2016 is: ablution • \uh-BLOO-shun\ • noun 1 : the washing of one's body or part of it (as in a religious rite) 2 : the act or action of bathing — used in the plural form Examples: Francis awakened at dawn and performed his ablutions. "While it's true that many folks enjoy the ease of hopping into a shower stall for their morning ablutions, you are still likely to find at least one tub in just about every American home." — Laura First, The Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma), 27 Sept. 2015 Did you know? Ablution derives via Middle French and Middle English from the Latin verb abluere, meaning "to wash away," formed from the prefix ab- ("away, off") and lavere ("to wash"). Early uses of the word occurred in contexts of alchemy and chemistry. The first known use of ablution to refer to washing as a religious rite occurs in Thomas More's The Apologye Made by Hym (1533). Many religions include some kind of washing of the body in their rituals, usually as a form of purification or dedication. The use of the term to refer to the action of washing one's body without any religious significance did not take hold in English until the mid-18th century. In British English, ablutions can also refer to a building housing bathing and toilet facilities on a military base. 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 June 3, 2016 is: jubilate • \JOO-buh-layt\ • verb : to rejoice Examples: The crowd jubilated as the baserunner slid across home plate with the winning run. "When the game was over … there was a lot of jumping up and down and jiggling and hugging and jubilating in the luxury box belonging to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones." — Cindy Boren, The Washington Post, 5 Jan. 2015 Did you know? When things are going your way, you may want to shout for joy. Jubilate testifies to the fact that people have had the urge to give (loud) voice to their happiness for centuries. Although jubilate first appeared in print around the middle of the 17th century, its connection to vocal joy goes back much farther; it is derived from the Latin verb jubilare, which means "to shout for joy." Jubilare has also played a role in the development of a few other closely related joyful English words, including jubilant (the earliest meaning was "making a joyful noise," though it is now most often used to mean simply "exultant") and jubilation ("an act of rejoicing"). 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 June 2, 2016 is: cadence • \KAY-dunss\ • noun 1 a : a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language b : the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity 2 a : a falling inflection of the voice b : a musical chord sequence moving to a harmonic close or rest 3 : the modulated and rhythmic recurrence of a sound especially in nature Examples: Stephanie relaxed at the beach, listening to the cadence of the surf. "The app detects your natural cadence when you walk or run, and cues up a playlist that matches your rhythm." — Alison Sweeney, Redbook, 1 Apr. 2016 Did you know? Falling into the hands of English speakers in the 14th century, cadence derives via Middle English and Old Italian from the Latin verb cadere, meaning "to fall." (Cadere can be found in the history of many common English words, including decay, coincide, and accident.) We most often hear cadence used in contexts pertaining to voice or music—it might refer to the familiar way in which someone speaks, or the rhythms employed by a rap artist, or the rising and falling notes of a bird's call. Cadenza, the Old Italian word that factors into the history of cadence, has its own place in English as well. Cadenza in English usually refers to a brilliant musical flourish played before closing out an aria. 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 June 1, 2016 is: exemplary • \ig-ZEM-pluh-ree\ • adjective 1 : deserving imitation especially because of excellence : commendable 2 : serving as a warning : monitory 3 : serving as an example, instance, or illustration Examples: Members of the community who have demonstrated exemplary public service will be honored at the ceremony. "Since 1962, Big Blue's Fellows program annually honors exemplary technologists, researchers and scientists within the company." — The Poughkeepsie (New York) Journal, 25 Apr. 2016 Did you know? Since the 1500s, exemplary has been used in English for things deserving imitation. The word (and its close relatives example and exemplify) derives from the Latin noun exemplum, which means "example." Usage commentators have sometimes warned against using exemplary as if it were simply a synonym of excellent, but clear-cut instances of such usage are hard to come by. When exemplary describes something excellent, as it often does, it almost always carries the further suggestion that the thing described is worthy of imitation. 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 May 31, 2016 is: tousle • \TOW-zul\ • verb : to make untidy : dishevel, rumple Examples: The cats got into a loud scuffle, tousling the clean sheets that Hugh had just put on the bed. "In person, removed from the dank interiors he typically haunts on 'Game of Thrones,' Mr. Rheon's face is more cherubic than demonic, with a rakish scruff and artfully tousled hair that gets more so as he runs his hands through it in conversation." — Jeremy Egner, The New York Times, 20 Apr. 2016 Did you know? Tousle is a word that has been through what linguists call a "functional shift." That's a fancy way of saying it was originally one part of speech, then gradually came to have an additional function. Tousle started out as a verb back in the 15th century. By the late 19th century, it was also being used as a noun meaning "a tangled mass (as of hair)." Etymologists connect the word to an Old High German word meaning "to pull to pieces." 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 May 30, 2016 is: cavalier • \kav-uh-LEER\ • adjective 1 : debonair 2 : marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters Examples: Miranda has a cavalier attitude when it comes to spending money. "At a certain point, however, he opened up,… though under the condition that there be no recorders or notepads. For a guy who was so careful and deliberate and micro-managed everything about his career, he became surprisingly cavalier about being quoted directly—or accurately." — Gary Graff, Billboard.com, 21 Apr. 2016 Did you know? According to a dictionary prepared by Thomas Blount in 1656, a cavalier was "a knight or gentleman, serving on horseback, a man of arms." That meaning is true to the history of the noun, which traces back to the Late Latin word caballarius, meaning "horseman." By around 1600, it had also come to denote "a roistering, swaggering fellow." In the 1640s, English Puritans applied it disdainfully to their adversaries, the swashbuckling Royalist followers of Charles I, who sported longish hair and swords. Although some thought those cavaliers "several sorts of Malignant Men,… ready to commit all manner of Outrage and Violence," others saw them as quite suave—which may explain why cavalier can be either complimentary or a bit insulting. 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 May 29, 2016 is: ken • \KEN\ • noun 1 a : the range of vision b : sight, view 2 : the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge Examples: The author advised the aspiring writers in the crowd to develop an authoritative voice by sticking to subjects within their ken. "The council appeared to be moving toward putting more money into the concession area so that it could be used to serve more than hot dogs and nachos…. But suddenly, that fell apart for reasons beyond the public's ken." — Perry White, Watertown (New York) Daily Times, 25 Mar. 2016 Did you know? Ken appeared on the English horizon in the 16th century as a term of measurement of the distance bounding the range of ordinary vision at sea—about 20 miles. British author John Lyly used that sense in 1580 when he wrote, "They are safely come within a ken of Dover." Other 16th-century writers used ken to mean "range of vision" ("Out of ken we were ere the Countesse came from the feast." — Thomas Nashe) or "sight" ("'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore." — Shakespeare). Today, however, ken rarely suggests literal sight. Rather, ken nowadays almost always implies a range of perception, understanding, or knowledge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.