Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 8, 2016 is: batten • \BAT-un\ • verb 1 a : to grow or make fat b : to feed gluttonously 2 : to grow prosperous especially at the expense of another — usually used with on Examples: There have always been unscrupulous individuals who batten on the misfortunes of others. "At the same time, others who had battened on the business of originating mortgages—thousands of small-time mortgage brokers—went out of business." — Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, 2010 Did you know? The origin of today's word is believed to be the Old Norse verb batna, meaning "to improve." Batna is akin to Old Norse betr and Old English betera, from which we get the modern English word better. Batten entered the English language in the 1500s, with the meaning "to improve," and was especially used in the sense of improving or thriving by feeding. It is not related to the verb batten (3batten) found in expressions such as "batten down the hatches." This latter batten comes from the noun batten, which denotes, among other things, an iron bar used to secure the covering of a hatchway on a ship. This batten has Latinate rather than Germanic origins and can be traced back through Anglo-French batre to the Latin verb battuere ("to beat"). 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 April 7, 2016 is: ruthless • \ROOTH-lus\ • adjective : having no pity : merciless, cruel Examples: The country was ruled by a ruthless dictator who could inflict punishment at will on any person who defied his orders. "While Wyatt's business tactics were said to be ruthless, they sure were smart." — James Reginato, Vanity Fair, February 2016 Did you know? Ruthless can be defined as "without ruth" or "having no ruth." So what, then, is ruth? The noun ruth, which is now considerably less common than ruthless, means "compassion for the misery of another," "sorrow for one's own faults," or "remorse." And, just as it is possible for one to be without ruth, it is also possible to be full of ruth. The antonym of ruthless is ruthful, meaning "full of ruth" or "tender." Ruthful can also mean "full of sorrow" or "causing sorrow." Ruth can be traced back to the Middle English noun ruthe, itself from ruen, meaning "to rue" or "to feel regret, remorse, or sorrow." 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 April 6, 2016 is: mithridate • \MITH-ruh-dayt\ • noun : an antidote against poison; especially : a confection held to be effective against poison Examples: "What he wanted, in effect, was a universal antidote, which medical science has for years referred to as a mithridate." — Harold L. Klawans, Newton's Madness, 1990 "Is enough known about the mechanisms of poisoning to construct effective antidotes, or even a universal antidote (a true mithridate), a panacea to all toxic ills?" — Rosemary H. Waring et al., Molecules of Death, 2007 Did you know? Mithridates the Great was the tyrannical king of Pontus (an ancient kingdom in Northeast Asia Minor) from 120 to 63 B.C.E. He was killed by a Gallic mercenary whose services he himself engaged after failing to poison himself following an insurrection by his troops. Supposedly, his suicide was unsuccessful because he had made himself immune to poison by taking small doses of it since childhood in an attempt to avoid the fate of assassination by poison. The story of Mithridates' tolerance is behind the English word mithridate, which dates to the early 16th century, as well as the word mithridatism, defined as "tolerance to a poison acquired by taking gradually increased doses of it." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 5, 2016 is: declension • \dih-KLEN-shun\ • noun 1 : the inflectional forms of a noun, pronoun, or adjective 2 : a falling off or away : deterioration 3 : descent, slope Examples: The most common declension in modern English is the set of plural nouns marked as plural with a simple "-s." "You jump in and begin seeing and hearing simple words in the foreign language and start translating, learning nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech without memorizing declensions and without tears." — Reid Kanaley, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2 May 2013 Did you know? Declension came into English (via Middle French) in the first half of the 15th century, originating in the Latin verb declinare, meaning "to inflect" or "to turn aside." The word seems to have whiled away its time in the narrow field of grammar until Shakespeare put a new sense of the word in his play Richard III in 1593: "A beauty-waning and distressed widow / … Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree / To base declension and loath'd bigamy." This "deterioration" sense led within a few decades to the newest sense of the word still in common use, "descent" or "slope." The 19th century saw still another new sense of the word—meaning "a courteous refusal"—but that sense has remained quite 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 April 4, 2016 is: mash • \MASH\ • noun : an intense and usually passing infatuation; also : the object of infatuation Examples: You'd think Henry had a mash on Sylvia from the way he lights up whenever she walks into the room. "We would use the expression, 'The lady has a mash on you,' and then we would poke our chests 'way out as if we were pretty important." — Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, 1954 Did you know? Those shot by Cupid's arrow know that love can spur a desire to hold one's beloved tightly and never let go. Perhaps that embracing feeling of love is why mash, originally a word for an act of squeezing and crushing, became a term for an intense infatuation, or the object of it, in 1870. The more popular crush showed its loving side in 1884, and main squeeze had begun crossing the lips of sweethearts by 1926. Mash itself is not widely used today, but the compound mash note, referring to a love letter, has enjoyed many happy years since its union in 1890. 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 April 3, 2016 is: zenith • \ZEE-nith\ • noun 1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the nadir and vertically above the observer 2 : the highest point reached in the heavens by a celestial body 3 : culminating point : acme Examples: "'As a film actor,' muses [Helen] Mirren, 'I didn't really reach my zenith until comparatively recently.' That zenith was probably the 2006 release of The Queen, with Mirren portraying Queen Elizabeth's response to the death of Princess Diana…." — Neala Johnson, The Courier Mail (Australia), 19 July 2014 "Dr. Seuss rocks. I thought reading the collected works of Shakespeare was the zenith of my intellectual development. Ha. As every parent knows, nothing compares to the collected works of Theodor Geisel." — Rob Jenkins, Gwinnett Daily Post (Lawrenceville, Georgia), 14 June 2014 Did you know? When you reach the zenith, you're at the top, the pinnacle, the summit, the peak. Zenith developed from Arabic terms meaning "the way over one's head," and then traveled through Old Spanish, Medieval Latin, and Middle French before arriving in English. As long ago as the 1300s, English speakers used zenith to name the highest point in the celestial heavens, directly overhead. By the 1600s, zenith was being used for other high points as well. The celestial term is often contrasted with nadir, or the point that is vertically downward from the observer (imagine a line going through the earth from the observer's feet and out the other side into the sky). Figuratively, nadir simply means "the lowest point." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 2, 2016 is: abrasive • \uh-BRAY-siv\ • adjective 1 : tending to wear away by rubbing 2 : causing irritation Examples: Coworkers tolerated Jane's abrasive personality because she was brilliant, but many privately wished she could learn to be a bit more polite. "He comes across as direct, confident but not cocky or abrasive." — Steve Flowers, The Jacksonville (Alabama) News, 23 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Once upon a time, English had two different but similarly derived words meaning "to wear down": abrade and abrase. However, in this fairy tale, only one of the two had a happy ending; while abrade remains a familiar word to modern English speakers, abrase has become quite rare. And yet, abrase lives on in its descendant abrasive, which was formed by combining the verb with the -ive suffix. Both of the verbs, and by extension abrasive, can be traced back to the Latin verb abradere, meaning "to scrape off." Abradere in turn is a combination of ab- and radere, meaning "to scrape." 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 April 1, 2016 is: vagary • \VAY-guh-ree\ • noun : an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion Examples: The vagaries of fashion make it difficult to predict what styles will be popular a year or two from now. "Being an attentive parent of a small family invariably means that you know, in minute detail, every quirk and vagary of your child's life." — Michael Grose, The Huffington Post, Australia, 15 Feb. 2016 Did you know? In the 16th century, if you "made a vagary" you took a wandering journey, or you figuratively wandered from a correct path by committing some minor offense. If you spoke or wrote vagaries, you wandered from a main subject. These senses hadn't strayed far from their origin, as vagary is probably based on Latin vagari, meaning "to wander." Indeed, in the 16th and 17th centuries there was even an English verb vagary that meant "to wander." Nowadays, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form, and vagaries have more to do with unpredictability than with wandering. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 31, 2016 is: parry • \PAIR-ee\ • verb 1 : to ward off a weapon or blow 2 : to evade especially by an adroit answer Examples: The fencer skillfully parried her opponent's thrusts. "The AMP [Accelerated Mobile Pages] technology … indirectly parries one of the main threats facing digital ad companies—the growing use of ad-blocking software in response to slow, buggy, and hard-to-use Web pages—by stopping ads from slowing down access to articles." — Jack Clark and Gerry Smith, The Boston Globe, 25 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Parry (which is used in fencing, among other applications) probably comes from parez, a form of the French verb parer, meaning "to guard or ward off." Its history can be compared with that of two other English words: parapet and parasol. Those two terms go back to an Italian word (parare) that means "to shield or guard." (A parapet shields soldiers and a parasol wards off the sun.) All three—parry, parapet, and parasol—can ultimately be traced to the Latin parare, meaning "to prepare." And they're not alone. Other descendants of the Latin term include apparatus, disparate, emperor, and even prepare. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 30, 2016 is: sidereal • \sye-DEER-ee-ul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to stars or constellations 2 : measured by the apparent motion of the stars Examples: David's parents were so pleased by his newfound interest in sidereal phenomena that they bought him an expensive telescope for his birthday. "Today, these various astronomical functions can mainly be found in very complicated watches…. These exceptional timekeepers are masterpieces of knowledge, technique and know-how, presenting a range of complex functions: display of sidereal time, equation of time, hours of sunrise and sunset, star charts, angular movement of the moon, phases of the moon...." — Grégory Gardinetti, CNN.com, 6 Jan. 2016 Did you know? In Latin, the word for a star or constellation is sidus. Latin speakers used that word to form desiderare ("from a heavenly body") and considerare ("to think about a heavenly body"), which were adopted into English as desire and consider. Sidereal, another sidus creation, was first documented in English in 1642. Thirty-four years later, an astronomer coined the phrase "sidereal year" for the time in which the earth completes one revolution in its orbit around the sun, measured with respect to the fixed stars. Not surprisingly, other sidereal measurements of time followed, including the sidereal month, the sidereal day, the sidereal hour, and even the sidereal minute. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 29, 2016 is: quorum • \KWOR-um\ • noun 1 : a select group 2 : the number (such as a majority) of officers or members of a body that when duly assembled is legally competent to transact business Examples: The organization's charter states that a quorum of at least seven board members must be present before any voting can take place. "The City Council meeting that was supposed to continue from Tuesday night didn't happen after only one member showed up, leaving the council without a quorum." — Garrett Brnger, KSAT.com (San Antonio, Texas), 17 Feb. 2016 Did you know? In Latin, quorum means "of whom" and is itself the genitive plural of qui, meaning "who." At one time, Latin quorum was used in the wording of the commissions issued to justices of the peace in England. In English, quorum initially referred to the number of justices of the peace who had to be present to constitute a legally sufficient bench. That sense is now rare, but it's not surprising that quorum has come to mean both "a select group" and "the minimum people required in order to conduct business." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 28, 2016 is: auspicious • \aw-SPISH-us\ • adjective 1 : showing or suggesting that future success is likely : propitious 2 : attended by good fortune : prosperous Examples: Being nominated for four awards, including Best Picture, the movie proved to be an auspicious start to his directing career. "In Chinese lobster is called 'long xia,' or dragon prawn, which has an auspicious ring to it." — The Economist, 13 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Auspicious comes from Latin auspex, which literally means "bird seer" (from the words avis, meaning "bird," and specere, meaning "to look at"). In ancient Rome, these "bird seers" were priests, or augurs, who studied the flight and feeding patterns of birds, then delivered prophecies based on their observations. The right combination of bird behavior indicated favorable conditions, but the wrong patterns spelled trouble. The English noun auspice, which originally referred to this practice of observing birds to discover omens, also comes from Latin auspex. Today, the plural form auspices is often used with the meaning "kindly patronage and guidance." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 27, 2016 is: winnow • \WIN-oh\ • verb 1 : to remove (as chaff) by a current of air; also : to free (as grain) from waste in this manner 2 : to remove, separate, or select as if by winnowing 3 : to narrow or reduce 4 : to blow on or fan Examples: The search committee is finding it extremely difficult to winnow the list of job applicants down to five; many of them are highly qualified and very desirable. "The Washington Post's 10th annual Beer Madness—a bracketed taste-off that will winnow 32 craft brews down to a single champion—is approaching…." — The Washington Post, 10 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Beginning as windwian in Old English, winnow first referred to the removal of chaff from grain by a current of air. This use was soon extended to describe the removal of anything undesirable or unwanted (a current example of this sense would be "winnowing out outdated information"). People then began using the word for the selection of the most desirable elements (as in "winnowing out the true statements from the lies"). The association of winnow with the movement of air led to the meaning "to beat with or as if with wings," but that use is rare enough that it is found only in Merriam-Webster Unabridged. The word's last meaning ("to blow on or fan") blew in at the turn of the 19th century. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 26, 2016 is: mirage • \muh-RAHZH\ • noun 1 : an illusion sometimes seen at sea, in the desert, or over hot pavement that looks like a pool of water or a mirror in which distant objects are seen inverted 2 : something illusory and unattainable like a mirage Examples: The members of the caravan thought they spied water ahead, but it turned out to be a mirage. "Apparently, my [computer science] major lets me magically solve people's technical problems, even if I haven't been explicitly trained how to do so. It seems like the field is shrouded in esotericism. That impression, however, is really just a mirage." — Keshav Tadimeti, The Daily Bruin (University of California, Los Angeles), 8 Feb. 2016 Did you know? A mirage is a sort of optical illusion, a reflection of light that can trick the mind into interpreting the sight as an apparently solid thing. It makes sense, therefore, that the word mirage has its roots in the concept of vision. Mirage was borrowed into English at the dawn of the 19th century from the French verb mirer ("to look at"), which also gave us the word mirror. Mirer in turn derives from Latin mirari ("to wonder at"). Mirari is also the ancestor of the English words admire, miracle, and marvel, as well as the rare adjective mirific (meaning "marvelous"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 25, 2016 is: undulant • \UN-juh-lunt\ • adjective 1 : rising and falling in waves 2 : having a wavy form, outline, or surface Examples: The narrow greens, pesky hazards, and undulant fairways make the golf course one of the most challenging places to play in the area. "As the plane taxied and turned, I saw the runway rolled out before us, an undulant grey tarmac wave, swooping into and out of a substantial dip. It had been folly to come to Guernsey, I thought—and now I would pay for it with my life." — Will Self, The New Statesman, 30 Sept. 2015 Did you know? Unda, Latin for "wave," ripples through the history of words such as abound, inundate, redound, surround, and, of course, undulant, which first showed up in print in English around 1822. (The adjective undulate, a synonym of undulant, is almost 200 years older but rarely used today. The far more common verb undulate has several meanings including "to form or move in waves.") The meaning of undulant is broad enough to describe both a dancer's hips and a disease marked by a fever that continually waxes and wanes. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 24, 2016 is: consummate • \KAHN-suh-mut\ • adjective 1 : complete in every detail : perfect 2 : extremely skilled and accomplished 3 : of the highest degree Examples: Always the consummate professional, Erika has testimonials from dozens of satisfied clients on her website. "[Daniel] Bryan, 34, loved professional wrestling, and Miami is where the consummate wrestler became a top notch WWE superstar." — Jim Varsallone, The Miami Herald, 9 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Consummate, which derives from the Latin verb consummare (meaning "to sum up" or "to finish"), has been used as an adjective in English since the 15th century. Some usage commentators feel the word is overused and others think it should be limited to the "perfect" sense (as in "a consummate little model of a clipper ship"), but neither of those positions is more than an opinion. All of the senses of the word are well-established and have served careful writers well for many, many years. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2016 is: propensity • \pruh-PENN-suh-tee\ • noun : an often intense natural inclination or preference Examples: His propensity to speak his mind makes some of his colleagues wary. "In fact, Welch's propensity for forming partnerships along with her enthusiasm for the alliance's mission is what caught the attention of the search committee, says Anthony Crutcher, immediate past president of the alliance board." — Susan Pierce, The Chattanooga Times Free-Press, 22 Feb. 2016 Did you know? When it comes to synonyms of propensity, the letter "p" predominates. Proclivity, preference, penchant, and predilection all share with propensity the essential meaning of "a strong instinct or liking." Not every word that is similar in meaning to propensity begins with "p," however. Propensity comes from Latin propensus, the past participle of propendēre, a verb meaning "to incline" or "to hang forward or down." Thus leaning and inclination are as good synonyms of propensity as any of those "p"-words. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 22, 2016 is: hie • \HYE\ • verb 1 : to go quickly : hasten 2 : to cause (oneself) to go quickly Examples: "Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence's cell; / There stays a husband to make you a wife." — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 1597 "The Tulsa State Fair is an annual, autumnal assault on the senses—a cornucopia of cacophony, a symphony of scents, a fulsomeness of flashing lights, a horde of humanity hieing themselves hither and yon along … the Expo Square fairgrounds." — James D. Watts Jr., The Tulsa (Oklahoma) World, 30 Sept. 2015 Did you know? Hie has been part of English since the 12th century, and it stems from the even hoarier hīgian, an Old English word meaning "to strive" or "to hasten." Hie enjoyed a high popularity period from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and you're sure to encounter it in the literature of those times—writers from Shakespeare to Twain penned it into their prose. But don't get the idea that hie is just a word of the past; it regularly pops up in current publications as well—often, though not always, in contexts in which the author is wanting to approximate an old-timey way of communicating. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 21, 2016 is: farraginous • \fuh-RAJ-uh-nus\ • adjective : consisting of a confused mixture : formed of various materials in no fixed order or arrangement Examples: The large box at the hotel's lost and found desk contained a farraginous assortment of hats, umbrellas, cell phones, and other personal items. "The next noise was the resonant but farraginous sound of twisted metal; a nightmarish squeal followed by eerie silence, as if the night held its breath with me." — Patti Callahan Henry, Coming up for Air, 2011 Did you know? Farraginous is the adjective connected with farrago. In Latin, the stem farragin- and the noun farrago both mean "mixture" and, more specifically, "a mixture of grains for cattle feed." They derive from far, the Latin name for spelt, a type of grain. In the 1600s, English speakers began using farrago as a noun meaning "hodgepodge" and farraginous as an adjective meaning "consisting of a mixture." The creation of the adjective was simply a matter of adding the adjectival suffix -ous to farragin- (although at least one writer had previously experimented with farraginary, employing a different adjectival suffix). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 20, 2016 is: nidifugous • \nye-DIFF-yuh-gus\ • adjective : leaving the nest soon after hatching Examples: "Little is known about the mortality of nidifugous shorebird chicks." — Hans Schekkerman et al., The Journal of Ornithology, January 2009 "These sites are very vulnerable to predators and this may be one reason why almost all freshwater birds have nidifugous young." — Christopher Perrins, New Generation Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, 1987 Did you know? Nidifugous hatched from the Latin words nidus, meaning "nest," and fugere, meaning "to flee." Its contrasting word nidicolous, meaning "reared for a time in a nest," combines nidus with the English combining form -colous ("living or growing in or on"). Another relevant term is precocial. A precocial bird is capable of a high degree of independent activity as soon as it emerges from the egg. While all nidifugous birds are also necessarily precocial, some nidicolous birds are also precocial—that is, they are capable of leaving the nest soon after hatching, but instead they stick around. Other nidicolous birds are altricial, which is to say they are hatched in a very immature and helpless condition and require care for some time. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 19, 2016 is: kismet • \KIZZ-met\ • noun : fate Examples: It may have been kismet that brought the business duo together, but it was a case of smart research and development on his part and innovative advertising on hers that really launched the product. "The fact that Davis Love III was named U.S. Ryder Cup captain the same day his son, Dru, … won his first college title was too much kismet to ignore." — Ryan Herrington, Golf World, 2 Mar. 2015 Did you know? Is it your fate to tie macramé while drinking coffee and eating sherbet in a minaret? That would be an unusual destiny, but if it turns out to be your kismet, you will owe much to Turkish and Arabic. We borrowed kismet from Turkish in the 1800s, but it ultimately derives from the Arabic qisma, meaning "portion" or "lot." Several other terms in our bizarre opening question (namely, macramé, coffee, sherbet, and minaret) have roots in those languages too. In the case of macramé and minaret, there is a little French influence as well. Coffee and macramé also have Italian relations, and sherbet has an ancestor in a Persian name for a type of cold 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 March 18, 2016 is: epistemic • \ep-uh-STEE-mik\ • adjective : of or relating to knowledge or knowing : cognitive Examples: Professor Rich is convinced that the quest for epistemic certainty is a foolhardy one. "The ­Internet-enabled news-cum-entertainment industry stokes political resentments even as it creates epistemic anarchy." — Adrian Wooldridge, The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2016 Did you know? Epistemic has shifted from the arcane worlds of philosophy, linguistics, and rhetoric to the practical realms of business and marketing; for example, a 2007 Letter to Shareholders from the asset management firm Legg Mason referred to investors who "have a high epistemic threshold and do exhaustive analysis to create near certainty, or at least very high conviction, about their investments." Wherever it is used, epistemic traces back to the knowledge of the Greeks. It comes from epistēmē, Greek for "knowledge." That Greek word is from the verb epistanai, meaning "to know or understand," a word formed from the prefix epi- (meaning "upon" or "attached to") and histanai (meaning "to cause to stand"). The study of the nature and grounds of knowledge is called epistemology, and one who engages in such study is an epistemologist. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 17, 2016 is: morass • \muh-RASS\ • noun 1 : marsh, swamp 2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture Examples: "Once the sales are complete, the work won't be over. Delivering the items means navigating a morass of regulations from shippers, insurance companies and foreign governments." — Thad Moore, The Tampa Bay Times, 16 Feb. 2016 "The morass Joy finds herself in nearly 20 years later—single mother raising three children, working at an airport, with a deadbeat ex-husband … living in the basement, … is a far cry from the boundless dreams she entertained growing up." — Jonah Allon, The Tufts (University) Daily, 19 Jan. 2016 Did you know? We won't swamp you with details: morass comes from the Dutch word moeras, which itself derives from an Old French word, maresc, meaning "marsh." Morass has been part of English for centuries, and in its earliest uses it was a synonym of swamp or marsh. (That was the sense Robert Louis Stevenson used when he described Long John Silver emerging from "a low white vapour that had crawled during the night out of the morass" in Treasure Island.) Imagine walking through a thick, muddy swamp—it's easy to compare such slogging to trying to disentangle yourself from a sticky situation. By the mid-19th century, morass had gained a figurative sense, and could refer to any predicament that was as murky, confusing, or difficult to navigate as a literal swamp or quagmire. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2016 is: obnubilate • \ahb-NOO-buh-layt\ • verb : becloud, obscure Examples: The writer's essay includes some valid points, but they are obnubilated by his convoluted prose style. "Early street lighting had the disconcerting effect of obnubilating as well as illuminating urban space." — Matthew Beaumont, Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, 2015 Did you know? The meaning of obnubilate becomes clearer when you know that its ancestors are the Latin terms ob- (meaning "in the way") and nubes ("cloud"). It's a high-flown sounding word, which may be why it often turns up in texts by and about politicians. This has been true for a long time. In fact, when the U.S. Constitution was up for ratification, 18th-century Pennsylvania statesman James Wilson used obnubilate to calm fears that the president would have too much power: "Our first executive magistrate is not obnubilated behind the mysterious obscurity of counsellors…. He is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 15, 2016 is: golem • \GOH-lum\ • noun 1 : an artificial being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life 2 : someone or something resembling a golem: such as a : automaton b : blockhead Examples: "Honestly I don't remember all that much about how the golem looked; it had big feet, each with five clay toes…." — Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends, 2008 "But the reality is that [Ronda] Rousey is human, not an infallible, laser-eyed fighting golem made for good television." — Dan Bisno, The Oberlin Review, 20 Nov. 2015 Did you know? The Hebrew ancestor of the word golem meant "shapeless mass," and the original golems started as lumps of clay that were formed into figures and brought to life by means of a charm or a combination of letters forming a sacred word. In the Middle Ages, golems were thought to be the perfect servants; their only fault was that they were sometimes too literal or mechanical in fulfilling their masters' orders. In the 16th century, the golem was thought of as a protector of the Jews in times of persecution. But by the late 1800s, golem had acquired a less friendly second sense, referring to a man-made monster that inspired many of the back-from-the-dead creations of classic horror fiction. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 14, 2016 is: verbatim • \ver-BAY-tim\ • adverb : in the exact words : word for word Examples: The coach was quoted verbatim in the article announcing that she would retire at the end of the season. "The year is 1993. Carlito's Way is our favorite movie. We watched it at least 10 times. We knew the lines of our favorite scenes verbatim. Moya would play Gail, and I Carlito." — Dr. Kirk Anthony James, The Huffington Post, 2 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Latin has a phrase for "exactly as written": verbatim ac litteratim, which literally means "word for word and letter for letter." Like the verbatim in that Latin phrase, the English verbatim means "word for word." As you may have noticed, there's a verb in verbatim—and that's no mere coincidence. Both verb and verbatim are derived from the Latin word for "word," which is verbum. Other common English words that share this root include adverb, proverb, and verbose. Even the word word itself is related. Verbatim can also be an adjective meaning "being in or following the exact words" (as in "a verbatim report") and a rarer noun referring to an account, translation, or report that follows the original word for word. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 13, 2016 is: deter • \di-TER\ • verb 1 : to turn aside, discourage, or prevent from acting 2 : inhibit Examples: The heavy fines are meant to deter people from illegally dumping old computers and electronic devices. "The weather was chilly and the course was hilly, but it didn't deter 150 enthusiastic runners from competing in a race that helped raise thousands of dollars to support the Brantwood Children's Home Saturday morning." — Alvin Benn, The Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, 14 Feb. 2016 Did you know? The word deter is rooted in fear. It was borrowed into English around the mid-16th century from the Latin verb deterrēre, which in turn was formed by combining de-, meaning "from" or "away," with terrēre, meaning "to frighten." Terrēre is also the source of terror, terrible, and even terrific, which originally meant "very bad" or "frightful." These days, you may be deterred by something that frightens you or by something that simply causes you to think about the difficult or unpleasant consequences of continuing. The word can also mean "to inhibit," as in "painting to deter rust." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2016 is: theriac • \THEER-ee-ak\ • noun 1 : a mixture of many drugs and honey formerly held to be an antidote to poison 2 : a remedy for all ills : cure-all, panacea Examples: "Town authorities tried to monitor the manufacture and supply of theriac to ensure that the citizens were not hoodwinked...." — Philip Ball, The Devil's Doctor, 2006 "Together, the physicians produced a costly theriac based on an old recipe attributed to Andromachus, the personal physician to Nero." — John Jaie Palmero, The Journey Alone, 2013 Did you know? There really is no such thing as a single remedy for all that ails us. But that hasn't kept English speakers from creating not just a single word, but several words, that mean "cure-all": catholicon, elixir, nostrum, panacea, and today's word, theriac. When we first used theriac, it meant "an antidote for poison"—for any and all poisons, that is. That's how our Roman and Greek forebears used their theriaca and thēriakē, which derive ultimately from thēr, the Greek word for "wild animal." The first theriac was supposedly created by the first-century Greek physician Andromachus, whose concoction consisted of some 70 drugs pulverized with honey. Medieval physicians created even more elaborate theriacs to dose a plague-dreading populace, for whom the possibility of a cure-all didn't seem too wild a notion at all. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2016 is: levigate • \LEV-uh-gayt\ • verb 1 : polish, smooth 2 a : to grind to a fine smooth powder while in moist condition b : to separate (fine powder) from coarser material by suspending in a liquid Examples: The apothecary levigated zinc oxide and calcium carbonate with linseed oil. "There were water wheels for breaking down porcelain stone, stone stamping poles, stone mortars and different ponds for washing, draining, levigating, kneading, drying, and storing clay." — Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, volume 5, 2004 Did you know? Levigate comes from Latin levigatus, the past participle of the verb levigare ("to make smooth"). Levigare is derived in part from levis, the Latin word for "smooth." Alleviate and levity can also be traced back to a Latin levis, and the levi- root in both words might suggest a close relationship with levigate. This is not the case, however. The Latin levis that gives us alleviate and levity does not mean "smooth," but "light" (in the sense of having little weight). One possible relative of levigate in English is oblivion, which comes from the Latin oblivisci ("to forget"), a word which may be a combination of ob- ("in the way") and the levis that means "smooth." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 10, 2016 is: palatable • \PAL-uh-tuh-bul\ • adjective 1 : agreeable to the palate or taste 2 : agreeable or acceptable to the mind Examples: Derrick is afraid of flying so traveling by train is the best and most palatable alternative. "Cooking with a special someone fosters a kinship, a connection, an appreciation that infuses the relationship with a sense of harmony that's as palatable as the aromas that linger on in memory long after the meal has been consumed." — Silvia Bianco, quoted in The Darien (Connecticut) Times, 4 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Palatable comes from palate, a Latin-derived word for the roof of the mouth. The palate was once thought of as the seat of the sense of taste, so the word eventually came to mean "sense of taste," or broadly, "liking." Palatable has been used in English to refer to palate-pleasing foods since 1619, but it isn't our only—or our oldest—adjective for agreeable tastes. Savory dates from the 14th century. Toothsome has been around since 1551. Tasty was first used in the early 17th century. And appetizing has been gracing culinary reviews since 1653. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 9, 2016 is: rankle • \RANK-ul\ • verb 1 : to cause anger, irritation, or deep bitterness in 2 : to feel anger and irritation Examples: The ongoing roadwork has begun to rankle local owners who worry that the closed-off streets are hurting their businesses. "That goal should sit well with many neighborhood residents—but it might rankle some landlords." — Avery Wilks and Sarah Ellis, The State (Columbia, South Carolina), 26 Sept. 2015 Did you know? The history of today's word is something of a sore subject. When rankle was first used in English, it meant "to fester," and that meaning is linked to the word's Old French ancestor—the noun raoncle or draoncle, which meant "festering sore." Etymologists think this Old French word was derived from the Latin dracunculus, a diminutive form of draco, which means "serpent" and which is the source of the English word dragon. The transition from serpents to sores apparently occurred because people thought certain ulcers or tumors looked like small serpents. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 8, 2016 is: inflammable • \in-FLAM-uh-bul\ • adjective 1 : capable of being easily ignited and of burning : flammable 2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible Examples: After the baserunner was called out on a close play, the crowd watched as the inflammable manager tore out of the dugout to argue with the umpire. "Building acts were introduced that regulated inflammable materials on the facades of structures and determined the width of streets." — Robert Bevan, The Evening Standard (London), 19 January 2016 Did you know? Combustible and incombustible are opposites, but flammable and inflammable are synonyms. How can that be? The in- of incombustible is a common prefix meaning "not," but the in- of inflammable is a different prefix. Inflammable, which dates back to 1605, descends from Latin inflammare ("to inflame"), itself from in- (here meaning "in" or "into") plus flammare ("to flame"). Flammable also comes from flammare but didn't enter English until 1813. In the early 20th century, firefighters worried that people might think inflammable meant "not able to catch fire," so they adopted flammable and nonflammable as official safety labels and encouraged their use to prevent confusion. In general use, flammable is now the preferred term for describing things that can catch fire, but inflammable is still occasionally used with that meaning as well. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 7, 2016 is: babel • \BAY-bul\ • noun 1 : (sometimes capitalized Babel) a confusion of sounds or voices 2 : (sometimes capitalized Babel) a scene of noise or confusion Examples: Amidst the babel in the auditorium, Kathy thought she could hear someone calling her name. "A steady stream of travelers dragging wheeled suitcases and speaking a Babel of tongues is helping revive downtown Jamaica, a vibrant hub of Queens that weathered several gloomy decades of decay and crime." — Joseph Berger, The New York Times, 30 Dec. 2011 Did you know? The story of the Tower of Babel comes from the Bible, specifically, Genesis 11:4-9. It describes an attempt by Noah's descendants to build a giant tower that would reach to heaven. God interrupted the project, however, by causing the builders to begin speaking different languages. Construction of the tower ceased, and the people were dispersed over the Earth. The account of the Tower of Babel, which may have been inspired by an actual tower in Babylonia, is generally read as an attempt to explain the diversity of languages. The story has also given English a word for any situation that calls to mind the noisy chaos that would surely have ensued as the workers first tried to communicate using different languages. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 6, 2016 is: restaurateur • \res-tuh-ruh-TER\ • noun : the operator or proprietor of a restaurant Examples: Fred began his career in the food-service industry as a humble busboy, but today he is a successful restaurateur who recently opened his third eating establishment. "In a booming dining city such as Portland, where new restaurants open monthly, restaurateurs need more than a hot chef to keep their rooms full." — Kathleen Pierce, The Bangor (Maine) Daily News, 2 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Restaurateur and restaurant were borrowed directly from related French words, and both ultimately derive from the Latin word restaurare ("to restore"). Restaurateur is the older of the two; our earliest evidence dates it to 1793. Restaurant is only slightly newer; it dates to 1806. Of the two words, restaurant is of course significantly more common—a fact that may have influenced the development of the variant spelling restauranteur for restaurateur. Restauranteur first appeared a mere 44 years after restaurateur, but it is considered by many to be an error. It is, however, a standard variant, albeit one that continues to be used less frequently than restaurateur. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 5, 2016 is: jettison • \JET-uh-sun\ • verb 1 : to throw (goods) overboard to lighten a ship or aircraft in distress 2 : discard Examples: As the boat began to take on water, the pirates argued over whether they should jettison some of the heavy, stolen loot. "… [Wayne Pathman, chair of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce] says banks have not yet jettisoned the 30-year mortgage, but 'it's out there,' and he expects them to 'start looking at how they give mortgages and protect their collateral' as sea levels rise." — Nina Burleigh, Newsweek, 28 Jan. 2016 Did you know? Jettison comes from the Anglo-French noun geteson, meaning "action of throwing," and is ultimately from the Latin verb jactare, meaning "to throw." The noun jettison ("a voluntary sacrifice of cargo to lighten a ship's load in time of distress") entered English in the 15th century; the verb has been with us since the 19th century. The noun is also the source of the word jetsam ("jettisoned goods"), which is often paired with flotsam ("floating wreckage"). These days you don't have to be on a sinking ship to jettison something. In addition to literally "throwing overboard," jettison means simply "to get rid of." You might jettison some old magazines that are cluttering your house, or you might make a plan but jettison it at the last minute. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 4, 2016 is: zaftig • \ZAHF-tig\ • adjective : having a full rounded figure : pleasingly plump Examples: "… Marilyn is lucky that … the Hollywood powers at least had the smarts not to put her on a diet. She looked plenty good zaftig." — Bookwormroom.com, 31 May 2012 "But Oprah—now there's a woman who has run the dieting gauntlet over the years. In 1988, she pulled a wagon full of 67 pounds of quivering fat onto the stage to show what she had lost on a liquid diet. Then she ballooned up to 200 pounds after a thyroid malfunction, before running the Marine Corps Marathon at a healthy zaftig size." — Leah McLaren, The Globe and Mail (Canada), 23 Oct. 2015 Did you know? Over the centuries, some women have been approvingly described as full-figured, shapely, womanly, curvy, curvaceous, voluptuous, and statuesque. Such women are, in a word, zaftig. Zaftig has been juicing up our language since the 1930s (the same decade that gave us Yiddish-derived futz, hoo-ha, and schmaltz, not to mention lox). It comes from the Yiddish zaftik, which means "juicy" or "succulent" and which in turn derives from zaft, meaning "juice" or "sap." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 3, 2016 is: camaraderie • \kahm-RAH-duh-ree\ • noun : a spirit of friendly good-fellowship Examples: The sense of camaraderie among colleagues in the sales department is the main reason Julie enjoys coming to work each day. "Today, visits combine adventure, relaxation and camaraderie. The latter is hard to come by in winter when snow and cold isolate people in this already desolate part of the state." — Paul Post, The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2016 Did you know? Camaraderie made its first appearance in English in the middle of the 19th century. It comes from camarade, the French word whose Middle French ancestor was also the source for our word comrade. In Middle French, camarade was used to mean "roommate," "companion," or "a group sleeping in one room." It derived by way of Old Spanish from the Late Latin camera, or camara, meaning "chamber." We also have the word comradery, which means the same thing as camaraderie but did not take the same etymological route as its synonym. That word, formed by attaching the -ry suffix (as found in wizardry and citizenry) to comrade, didn't appear in English until almost 40 years after camaraderie. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 2, 2016 is: somnolent • \SAHM-nuh-lunt\ • adjective 1 : of a kind likely to induce sleep 2 a : inclined to or heavy with sleep : drowsy b : sleepy Examples: "George, a somnolent ginger [cat] curled in an orange felt bed, was sleeping through the overtures of Molly Flanagan…." — Penelope Green, The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2015 "Traditionally, Bordeaux had turned its back on its tourists. Sooty and somnolent, it was an insular place where the streets were clogged with traffic and shutters snapped closed on weekends." — Suzanne Mustacich, Wine Spectator, 31 Mar. 2012 Did you know? Somnolent first appeared in the late 15th century in the redundant phrase "somnolent sleep." It came into English by way of Anglo-French from the Latin word somnolentus, which itself comes from somnus, meaning "sleep." Another offspring of somnus is somnambulism, a synonym of sleepwalking. Insomnia is also a member of this sleepy word family, though it might be considered the black sheep, since it means, of course, "the inability to sleep." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 1, 2016 is: a cappella • \ah-kuh-PEL-uh\ • adverb or adjective : without instrumental accompaniment Examples: The audience quieted when the singer walked out and began singing a cappella. "… one woman came all the way from Portugal to sing an a cappella version of 'Space Oddity'…. She repeated before and after her solo how much she appreciated Bowie's sense of humor." — Joy C. Mitchell, billboard.com, 17 Jan. 2016 Did you know? A cappella arrived in English from Italian sometime around the late-18th century. In Italian, a cappella means "in chapel or choir style." Cappella is the Italian word for "chapel"; the English word chapel is ultimately (if independently) derived from the Medieval Latin word cappella, which is the source of the Italian cappella as well. Scholars once thought all "chapel style" music written before the 1600s was performed a cappella, but modern research has revealed that instruments might have doubled or substituted for some voices back then. Today a cappella describes a purely vocal performance. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 29, 2016 is: glean • \GLEEN\ • verb 1 : to gather grain or other produce left by reapers 2 a : to gather (as information) bit by bit b : to pick over in search of relevant material 3 : to find out Examples: Investigators have been able to glean some useful information from the seized documents. "He won four gold medals in London on his talent and the experience he gleaned from three previous Olympics." — Suzanne Halliburton, The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, 15 Jan. 2016 Did you know? Glean comes from Middle English glenen, which traces to Anglo-French glener, meaning "to glean." The French borrowed their word from Late Latin glennare, which also means "to glean" and is itself of Celtic origin. Both the grain-gathering sense and the collecting-bit-by-bit senses of our glean date back at least to the 14th century. Over the years, and especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, glean has also come to be used frequently with the meaning "to find out, learn, ascertain." This sense has been criticized by folks who think glean should always imply the drudgery involved in the literal grain-gathering sense, but it is well established and perfectly valid. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 28, 2016 is: lexical • \LEK-sih-kul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to words or the vocabulary of a language as distinguished from its grammar and construction 2 : of or relating to a lexicon or to lexicography Examples: For her paper on youth slang, Elyse studied the lexical habits of her generation versus those of her parents and grandparents. "It should come as no great surprise that writers are behind many of our lexical innovations. But the fact is, we have no idea who to credit for most of our lexicon." — Andy Bodle, The Guardian, 4 Feb. 2016 Did you know? The word lexicon can be used as a synonym of dictionary, and the word lexicography refers to the practice of dictionary making. Both of these words, as well as lexical, derive from the Greek word lexis, meaning "word" or "speech." A fourth descendant of lexis is lexiphanic, an archaic adjective describing one who uses pretentious words for effect. Lexis should not be confused with the Latin lex, or "law," which is used in legal phrases such as lex non scripta, meaning "unwritten law." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 27, 2016 is: oaf • \OHF\ • noun 1 : a stupid person 2 : a big clumsy slow-witted person Examples: In high school Bryan was a big oaf, so we were surprised not only by his refined mien but by his position as CEO of a high-tech company. "Here is a person dedicated to minimizing the ripple she makes as she passes through the world. She took up such little space, made such little impact, that in comparison I felt like an oaf of consumption, a wasteful giant, lumbering heedlessly through life." — Rand Richards Cooper, The Commonweal, 8 Jan. 2016 Did you know? A long time ago in England, it was believed that goblins sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies. This was used as an explanation when parents found themselves with a particularly ugly or deformed child: these parents wanted to believe that their real baby had been stolen by goblins, and the other left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe (meaning "goblin's child"), terms that were later altered to form our present-day oaf. Although the linguistic history is not entirely clear, auf and alfe are likely from the Middle English alven and elven, meaning "elf" or "fairy." Today the word oaf is no longer associated with unattractive babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 26, 2016 is: keelhaul • \KEEL-hawl\ • verb 1 : to haul under the keel of a ship as punishment or torture 2 : to rebuke severely Examples: Several key employees were keelhauled for an error that cost the company millions of dollars. "Managers have been vilified, criticized and all but keelhauled for stocking teams with their own players in the past—or leaving a qualified pick off the team." — Tom Gage, The Detroit News, 2 July 2007 Did you know? In the mid-1600s, British monarchs were intent on using their powerful navy to expand their empire. Insubordination was not tolerated, and mutinous sailors were disciplined severely to discourage others from similar rebellion. Keelhauling was one of the worst penalties that could befall a renegade mariner. Although they definitely practiced the gruesome punishment, the British did not invent it—the Dutch did. Keelhaul is a translation of the Dutch word kielhalen, which means "to haul under the keel of a ship." Even after the practice was banned on European naval vessels in the mid-1800s, the word keelhaul remained in English as a term for a severe scolding. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 25, 2016 is: quantal • \KWAHN-tul\ • adjective 1 : of, relating to, or having only two experimental alternatives (such as dead or alive, all or none) 2 : of or relating to a quantum or to quanta (as of energy or a neurotransmitter) Examples: "Many bioassays are based on quantal responses: Challenge assays record whether the subjects are dead or alive (or moribund or not moribund) at the end of the assay; seed-germination assays record whether seeds germinate by the end of the assay." — Ann Yellowlees et al., BioScience, June 2013 "Suppose you shake a crib with a sleeping baby. If you shake it hard, the baby always wakes up. However, if you shake it gently, the baby might wake up. The waking up itself is a quantal event—the baby is either awake or asleep—but the probability of this happening depends on how hard you rock." — Sönke Johnsen, The Optics of Life: A Biologist's Guide to Light in Nature, 2012 Did you know? In Latin, quantum is the neuter form of quantus, meaning "how much?" Both of these forms played a role in the development of quantal. The first sense of quantal, used in scientific experimentation to refer to cases in which only one of two possible results occurs, derived from quanti, the plural of quantus. (Quantus is also an ancestor of our noun quantity.) The second sense of quantal is more directly related to Latin quantum and the English noun quantum, which refers to the smallest possible unit of a form of energy (such as light). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 24, 2016 is: zwieback • \SWEE-back\ • noun : a usually sweetened bread enriched with eggs that is baked and then sliced and toasted until dry and crisp Examples: The crust of the pie is made of crumbled zwieback. "Don't look for zwieback in the cracker and cookie aisle. Instead, head to the baby food section." — Pam Anderson, Cook Smart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day, 2002 Did you know? In ages past, keeping food fresh for any length of time required a lot of ingenuity, especially when one needed to carry comestibles on a long journey. One of the solutions people came up with for keeping bread edible for traveling was to bake it twice, thereby drying it and slowing the spoiling process. The etymology of zwieback reflects this baker's trick; it was borrowed from a German word that literally means "twice baked." Nowadays, zwieback is not just used as a foodstuff—the texture of the dried bread makes zwieback a suitable teething device for infants. Incidentally, other twice-baked goods whose origins reflect that fact include biscuit and biscotti, both of which come from phrases meaning "twice-cooked bread." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 23, 2016 is: hale • \HAIL\ • adjective : free from defect, disease, or infirmity : sound; also : retaining exceptional health and vigor Examples: "He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, but hale and sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man." — Edith Wharton, "Kerfol," 1916 "These twins were New Year's babies in 1926. Today the two men are hale and healthy and love to banter with each other about old times and their lives." — Marilyn Salzl Brinkman, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, 18 Dec. 2015 Did you know? When you need a word to describe someone or something in good health, you might pick hale or a synonym such as healthy, sound, or robust. Of those terms, healthy is the most general, implying full strength and vigor or simply freedom from signs of disease. Sound generally emphasizes the complete absence of defects of mind or body. Robust implies the opposite of all that is delicate or sickly and usually suggests muscular strength as well as the ability to work or play long and hard. Hale applies especially to robustness in later life. The phrase "hale and hearty" is often used to describe an older person who retains the physical qualities of youth. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 22, 2016 is: bumptious • \BUMP-shus\ • adjective : presumptuously, obtusely, and often noisily self-assertive : obtrusive Examples: The talk show often features interesting guests, but the bumptious host's tendency to turn the interview back to himself can get annoying. "He had a sense of himself that was strong; that’s why he was successful as an actor. But he was never bumptious or presumptive, he was gentle." — Brian Cox, quoted in The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2016 Did you know? Etymologists believe that bumptious was probably coined, perhaps playfully, from the noun bump plus -tious. (Think of the obtrusive way an overly assertive person might "bump" through a crowd.) When bumptious was first used around 1800, it meant "conceited." Charles Dickens used it that way in David Copperfield: "His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed … that it was a wig … and that he needn't be so 'bounceable'—somebody else said 'bumptious'—about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 21, 2016 is: vignette • \vin-YET\ • noun 1 : a running ornament or design (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter 2 a : a picture (such as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paper b : the pictorial part of a postage stamp 3 a : a short descriptive literary sketch b : a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie) Examples: The film is a series of vignettes about people and their dogs. "For years, Rory had been posting vignettes of his travels and care-free activities of himself, friends and family online to social media venues." — Stuart Cassidy, The Perry County News (Tell City, Indiana), 14 Jan. 2016 Did you know? Vignette comes from Middle French vignete, the diminutive form of the noun vigne, meaning "vine." In English, the word was first used in the mid-18th century for a design or illustration that ran along the blank border of a page, or one that marked the beginning or end of a chapter. Such designs got their name because they often looked like little vines. It wasn't until the late 19th century that usage of vignette had shifted to cover a brief literary sketch or narrative, as we commonly see it used today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 20, 2016 is: weird • \WEERD\ • adjective 1 : of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural : magical 2 : of strange or extraordinary character : odd, fantastic Examples: "Again was I suddenly recalled to my immediate surroundings by a repetition of the weird moan from the depths of the cave." — Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars, 1917 "And yes, I know it's all in my head. But my head is a weird, wonderful place that does a lot of things I wish it wouldn't." — Erin Stewart, The Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City), 20 Jan. 2016 Did you know? You may know today's word as a generalized term describing something unusual, but weird also has older meanings that are more specific. Weird derives from the Old English noun wyrd, essentially meaning "fate." By the 8th century, the plural wyrde had begun to appear in texts as a gloss for Parcae, the Latin name for the Fates—three goddesses who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Scots authors employed werd or weird in the phrase "weird sisters" to refer to the Fates. William Shakespeare adopted this usage in Macbeth, in which the "weird sisters" are depicted as three witches. Subsequent adjectival use of weird grew out of a reinterpretation of the weird used by Shakespeare. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 19, 2016 is: astrolabe • \A-struh-layb\ • noun : a compact instrument used to observe and calculate the position of celestial bodies before the invention of the sextant Examples: "His astrolabe of silver was the gift of the Emperor of Germany…." — Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward, 1823 "The astrolabe, whose invention is often attributed to the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, places the Earth at the center of the universe, with all celestial bodies orbiting around it." — Grégory Gardinetti, CNN.com, 6 Jan. 2016 Did you know? "Thyn Astrolabie hath a ring to putten on the thombe of thi right hond in taking the height of thinges." Thus begins a description of the astrolabe in A Treatise on the Astrolabe, a medieval user's guide penned by an amateur astronomer by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer is best known for his Middle English poetic masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, but when his nose wasn't buried in his writing, Chaucer was stargazing, and some of his passion for the heavens rubbed off on his son Lewis, who had displayed a special "abilite to lerne sciences touching nombres and proporciouns." Chaucer dedicated his treatise to the 10-year-old boy, setting his instructions not in the usual Latin, but in "naked wordes in Englissh" so that little Lewis could understand. When he got older, Lewis may have learned that the word astrolabe traces to the Greek name for the instrument. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.