Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 2, 2015 is: brusque • \BRUSK\ • adjective 1 : markedly short and abrupt 2 : blunt in manner or speech often to the point of ungracious harshness Examples: On her first day of work, Diana's new boss gave her only a brusque greeting before showing her the place where she would be working. "In a brusque statement, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner would only say Schock's resignation Tuesday is 'a sad day for the people of Illinois and the 18th District.'" - Associated Press, March 17, 2015 Did you know? We borrowed brusque from French in the 1600s. The French, in turn, had borrowed it from Italian, where it was spelled brusco and meant "tart." And the Italian term came from bruscus, the Medieval Latin name for butcher's-broom, a shrub whose bristly leaf-like twigs have long been used for making brooms. English speakers initially used brusque to refer to a tartness in wine, but the word soon came to denote a harsh and stiff manner-which is just what you might expect of a word bristling with associations to stiff, scratchy brooms. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 1, 2015 is: skulduggery • \skull-DUG-uh-ree\ • noun : underhanded or unscrupulous behavior; also : a devious device or trick Examples: There was a whiff of skulduggery surrounding the real-estate deal, since the building managed to pass inspection even though everyone knew it wasn't up to code. "Some House Democrats … cast a poor light on the idea of continued backroom negotiations. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), the No. 4 Democratic leader, said the move to extend a possible revote until as late as July 30 was 'shady stuff' and 'underhanded' and held the potential for procedural skulduggery." - Paul Kane and Mike DiBonis, Washington Post, June 16, 2015 Did you know? Skulduggery, which can also be spelled skullduggery, was first documented in the mid-19th century with the spelling scull-duggery. Etymologists aren't sure exactly how the word arrived in English, but despite the macabre imagery conjured by the word's parts, they do not believe it had anything to do with skulls. It is possibly derived from the now-very-rare sculduddery, a term once used to refer to gross or lewd conduct, but unfortunately the origins of that word are also unknown. 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 31, 2015 is: vilify • \VIL-uh-fye\ • verb 1 : to lower in estimation or importance 2 : to utter slanderous and abusive statements against : defame Examples: Janet's angry letter chastised members of the media for vilifying her brother, the disgraced ex-councilman. "But her daughter … denies the allegations against her mother. Instead, she believes the person who made the initial complaints was merely looking to vilify her mother after her own termination." - Evan Peter Smith, Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio), June 30, 2015 Did you know? Vilify came to English by way of the Middle English vilifien and the Late Latin vilificare from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning "cheap" or "vile." It first appeared in English in the 15th century. Also debuting during that time was another verb that derives from vilis and has a similar meaning: vilipend. When they were first used in English, both vilify and vilipend meant to regard someone or something as being of little worth or importance. Vilipend now carries an additional meaning of "to express a low opinion of somebody," while vilify means, more specifically, to express such an opinion publicly in a way that intends to embarrass a person or ruin his or her reputation. 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 30, 2015 is: grandiloquence • \gran-DIH-luh-kwunss\ • noun : a lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manner, or quality especially in language Examples: The grandiloquence of the columnist's writing gave him a reputation as a blowhard, but his opinions were deep and carefully considered. "It seems that the only thing that flows more freely than money in Washington is the grandiloquence of the partisans in each party." - Daily News-Record (Harrisonburg, Virginia), September 29, 2014 Did you know? Grandiloquence, which first appeared in English in the late 16th century, is one of several English words pertaining to speech that derive from the Latin loqui, meaning "to speak." Other offspring of loqui include eloquent ("marked by fluent expression"), loquacious ("full of excessive talk"), and soliloquy ("a long dramatic monologue"). Grandiloquence comes (probably via Middle French) from the Latin adjective grandiloquus, which combines loqui and the adjective grandis ("grand or great"). A word that is very similar in meaning to grandiloquence is magniloquence-and the similarity is not surprising. Magniloquence combines loqui with magnus, another Latin word meaning "great." 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 29, 2015 is: indomitable • \in-DAH-muh-tuh-bul\ • adjective : incapable of being subdued : unconquerable Examples: The memorial celebrates the indomitable spirit of the pioneers who ventured forth in search of a new life. "The stones, removed as part of structural improvements to the bridge, speak to the indomitable nature of 19th-century workers, often immigrants, who somehow-with horses and pulleys- managed to move around that staggering weight." - Sean Kirst, Syracuse.com (New York), June 16, 2015 Did you know? The prefix in- means "not" in numerous English words (think of indecent, indecisive, inconvenient, and infallible). When in- teamed up with the Latin domitare ("to tame"), the result was a word meaning "unable to be tamed." Indomitable was first used in English in the 1600s as a synonym of wild, but over time its sense of untamability turned from a problem to a virtue. By the 1800s, indomitable was being used for people whose courage and persistence helped them to succeed in difficult situations. 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 28, 2015 is: pachyderm • \PAK-ih-derm\ • noun : any of various nonruminant mammals (such as an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a hippopotamus) of a former group (Pachydermata) that have hooves or nails resembling hooves and usually thick skin; especially : elephant Examples: "The archetypal Seuss hero … was Horton, a conscientious pachyderm who was duped by a lazy bird into sitting on her egg." - Eric Pace, New York Times, September 26, 1991 "Each month, as Nandi bounds closer to her first birthday on Aug. 20, we will keep you in the know on what’s new with this precious pachyderm’s progress." - Johanna Willett, Arizona Daily Star, June 18, 2015 Did you know? Pachydermos in Greek means literally "having thick skin" (figuratively, it means "dull" or "stupid"). It's from pachys, meaning "thick," and derma, meaning "skin." In the late 1700s the French naturalist Georges Cuvier adapted the Greek term as pachyderme and used it for any one of a whole assemblage of hoofed animals having thickish skin: elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, tapirs, horses, pigs, and more. English speakers learned the word from French in the early 1800s. The adjective pachydermatous means "of or relating to the pachyderms" or "thickened" (referring to skin). Not too surprisingly, it also means "callous" or "insensitive" (somewhat unfairly to elephants, which are actually known to be rather sensitive). 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 27, 2015 is: yaw • \YAW\ • verb 1 a : (of a ship) to deviate erratically from a course (as when struck by a heavy sea); especially : to move from side to side b : (of an airplane, spacecraft, or projectile) to turn by angular motion about the vertical axis 2 : alternate Examples: The ship yawed hard to starboard when the rogue wave hit it broadside. "In 2002, contractors … explored the wreck using a remotely-operated submarine. They found ropes and lights from previous visits, and worked out how the big plane skipped and yawed across the water before sinking to the bottom." - Steve Weintz, Medium.com, February 1, 2015 Did you know? In the heyday of large sailing ships, numerous nautical words appeared on the horizon, many of which have origins that have never been traced. Yaw is one such word. It began showing up in print in the 16th century, first as a noun (meaning "movement off course" or "side to side movement") and then as a verb. For more than 350 years it remained a sailing word, with occasional side trips to the figurative sense "to alternate." Then dawned the era of airplane flight in the early 20th century, and "yawing" was no longer confined to the sea. Nowadays, people who love boats still use yaw much as the sailors of old did, but pilots and astronauts also refer to the "yawing" of their crafts. 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 26, 2015 is: abulia • \ay-BOO-lee-uh\ • noun : abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions Examples: "Abulia is a motivational deficit that is associated with apathy, loss of will, and lack of initiating behaviors." - Handbook of the Neuroscience of Language, 2008 "The remoteness of the country house made him feel isolated and displaced-feelings that worsened his abulia and melancholy-so he decided to move back closer to town, where he felt more at home." - Adam Sobsey, Independent Weekly (Durham, North Carolina), March 7, 2007 Did you know? "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind," Mark Twain once wrote. "It takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up." The indecision Twain laments is fairly common; only when inability to make decisions reaches an abnormal level does it have an uncommon name: abulia. The English term we use today comes from a New Latin word that combines the prefix a-, meaning "without," with the Greek word boulē, meaning "will." Abulia can refer to the kind of generalized indecision that makes it impossible to choose what flavor ice cream you want, though it was created to name a severe medical disorder that can render a person nearly inert. 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 25, 2015 is: dubious • \DOO-bee-us\ • adjective 1 a : of doubtful promise or outcome b : questionable or suspect as to true nature or quality 2 : unsettled in opinion : doubtful Examples: Jesse made the dubious claim that he could eat a whole watermelon in one sitting; then we sat in awe and watched him do it. "'Can you work with what I have?' he asked, sounding dubious. 'Absolutely!' I said, though I was dubious, too. I'd always staged houses with my own furnishings.'" - Marni Jameson, San Jose Mercury News (California), June 11, 2015 Did you know? Dubious derives from the Latin verb dubare, meaning "to hesitate in choice of opinions or courses," and it is related to the Latin word for "two": duo. Dubious can be used to indicate uncertainty about the result of an action or the truth of a statement as well as about the uncertainty of a person and his or her character. In either case, it usually implies a feeling of doubt from suspicion, mistrust, or hesitation. 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 24, 2015 is: umbra • \UM-bruh\ • noun 1 : a shaded area 2 a : a conical shadow excluding all light from a given source; specifically : the conical part of the shadow of a celestial body excluding all light from the primary source b : the central dark part of a sunspot Examples: During the eclipse, the moon was in the umbra of the earth's shadow for about 90 minutes. "When the moon passes into the penumbra, it darkens the surface of the moon, making it look as if a 'bite' has been taken from the lunar surface. 'Totality' occurs when the moon is completely submerged in the umbra, and takes on a deep red hue." - Maria Rovito, The Snapper: Millersville University, April 9, 2015 Did you know? The Latin word umbra ("shade, shadow") has given English a range of words in addition to umbra itself. An umbrella can provide us with shade from the sun. So can an umbrageous tree-in this case, umbrageous means "affording shade." The connection to shade or shadow in other umbra words is less obvious. When we say someone takes umbrage, we mean they take offense, but in times past people used the word as a synonym of shade or shadow. Those two senses of umbrage influenced umbrageous, which can mean "inclined to take offense easily" as well as "affording shade." 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 23, 2015 is: meticulous • \muh-TIK-yuh-lus\ • adjective : marked by extreme or excessive care in the consideration or treatment of details Examples: The composer's meticulous, almost obsessive, attention to detail is evident in even the smallest musical flourishes that the average listener will likely never notice. "The Australian-American [Justine] Larbalestier's scholarly background is on full display in her latest novel, with its meticulous attention to detail and strong emphasis on overlooked voices from history." - Jennifer Hubert Swan, New York Times, May 31, 2015 Did you know? It may surprise you to learn that meticulous is derived from the Latin word for "fearful"-meticulosus-and ultimately comes from the Latin noun metus, meaning "fear." Although meticulous currently has no "fearful" meanings, it was originally used as a synonym of frightened and timid. This sense had fallen into disuse by 1700, and in the 19th century meticulous acquired a new sense of "overly and timidly careful" (probably influenced by the French word méticuleux). This in turn led to the current meaning of "painstakingly careful," with no connotations of fear at all. The newest use was controversial among some usage commentators at first, but it has since become by far the most common meaning and is no longer considered an error. 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 22, 2015 is: octothorpe • \AHK-tuh-thorp\ • noun : the symbol # Examples: "To demonstrate and test the varying thicknesses that a pen is capable of imparting, Ivy League students often begin by writing an octothorpe-known to some plebians as a 'hashtag.'" - Evan Siegel, Columbia Spectator (Columbia University), December 6, 2014 "Whatever it ought to be called, Messina chose to use this symbol for collating Twitter searches in 2007 because he wanted a sign that could be input from a low-tech cellphone. He had two options: octothorpe or asterisk. He chose the former." - Roman Mars, Slate.com, December 17, 2014 Did you know? A versatile symbol with many names (among them hash mark, number sign, and pound sign), the octothorpe has become popularized as the go-to symbol for marking trending topics on Twitter and other social media. It is believed to have been adopted by the telecommunications industry with the advent of touch-tone dialing in the 1960s. Stories abound about how the odd symbol got its name. The octo- part almost certainly refers to the eight points on the symbol, but the -thorpe remains a mystery. One story links it to a telephone company employee who happened to burp while talking about the symbol with co-workers. Another relates it to the athlete Jim Thorpe and the campaign to restore posthumously his Olympic medals, which were taken away after it was discovered that he played baseball professionally previous to the 1912 Games. A third claims it derives from an Old English word for "village." 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 21, 2015 is: truculent • \TRUCK-yuh-lunt\ • adjective 1 : feeling or displaying ferocity : cruel, savage 2 : deadly, destructive 3 : scathingly harsh : vitriolic 4 : aggressively self-assertive : belligerent Examples: Warren's truculent demeanor made him unpleasant to work with, particularly as deadlines approached. "When I interviewed her at the end of last year, she struck me as an unusually truculent person, one who certainly couldn't be pushed about, by me or anyone." - Rachel Cooke, The Observer (London), May 31, 2015 Did you know? Truculent derives from truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning "savage." It has been used in English since the 16th century to describe people or things that are cruel and ferocious, such as tyrannical leaders, and has also come to mean "deadly or destructive" (as in "a truculent disease"). In current use, however, it has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now frequently serves to describe speech or writing that is notably harsh (as in "truculent criticism") or a person who is notably self-assertive and surly (such as "a truculent schoolboy"). Some usage commentators have criticized these extended uses because they do not match the savagery of the word's original sense, but they are well-established and perfectly standard. 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 20, 2015 is: longanimity • \long-guh-NIM-uh-tee\ • noun : a disposition to bear injuries patiently : forbearance Examples: The fans showed longanimity by coming back year after year to cheer on the perpetually losing team. "Our family successes will vary from year to year, as will those of the garden. The constant is this: After the soil is tended, the garden-and the family-eventually takes root and flourishes. Meanwhile, I am showing as much longanimity as possible in anticipating those tomatoes." - Sheila Jones, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, July 27, 2013 Did you know? Longanimity is a word with a long history. It came to English in the 15th century from the Late Latin adjective longanimis, meaning "patient" or "long-suffering." Longanimis, in turn, derives from the Latin combination of longus ("long") and animus ("soul"). Longus is related to the ancestors of our word long and is itself an ancestor to several other English words, including longevity ("long life"), elongate ("to make longer"), and prolong ("to lengthen in time"). Now used somewhat infrequently in English, longanimity stresses the character of one who, like the figure of Job in the Bible, endures prolonged suffering with extreme patience. 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 19, 2015 is: rue • \ROO\ • verb : to feel regret, remorse, or penitence for Examples: I rue the day I agreed to serve on this committee. "While times do change, they don't always change for the best; Sheldon rues that Sundays are no longer a church-dominated day in many Christian denominations." - Carolyn Bostick, Observer-Dispatch (Utica, New York), April 18, 2015 Did you know? If you remember your high school French, or if you've ever strolled down the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, you may have the notion that the English word rue is somehow connected to the French word for "street." In actuality, the French and English words are not related at all. The English rue is originally from the Old English word hrēow, meaning "sorrow." Used as both a noun (meaning "regret, sorrow") and, more frequently, a verb, rue is very old, dating back to before the 12th 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 July 18, 2015 is: neophyte • \NEE-uh-fyte\ • noun 1 : a new convert : proselyte 2 : novice 3 : tyro, beginner Examples: As a neophyte to chess, Brock was still learning the rules and basic strategies of the game. "Abby Wambach taught a soccer neophyte named David Letterman (whatever happened to him?) the intricacies of the sport by booting balls into moving New York taxis." - Martin Rogers, USAToday.com, June 14, 2015 Did you know? Neophyte is hardly a new addition to the English language (it's been part of the English vocabulary since the 1400s), but it wasn't in general use before the 19th century. When it was used in a 16th-century translation of the Bible, some folks derided it as pretentious and Latinate. One critic lumped it with other "ridiculous inkhorn terms" and another went as far as to write, "Neophyte, to a bare Englishman is nothing at all." The criticisms of neophyte weren't entirely justified, given the word's long history in English, but it is true that neophyte has classical roots. It traces back through Late Latin to the Greek word neophytos, meaning "newly planted" or "newly converted." 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 17, 2015 is: superannuated • \soo-per-AN-yuh-way-tud\ • adjective 1 : outmoded, old-fashioned 2 a : incapacitated or disqualified for active duty by advanced age b : older than the typical member of a specified group Examples: The article focused on senior citizens who retire from the workplace and return to school to become superannuated graduate students. "A handful of superannuated navy ships let rip with their ear-splitting horns, cheering the speedboats on, while military officers gathered on the pier to snap cellphone shots of the flashing hulls…." - Jamie Dettmer, The Daily Beast, June 8, 2015 Did you know? Superannuated was first put to use in English in the 1600s, having been borrowed from Medieval Latin superannuatus, past participle of superannuari ("to be too old")-from Latin super- ("over" or "above") and annus ("year"). Shortly thereafter, we made our own verb, superannuate, from the adjective. Superannuate means "to dismiss or retire from service with a pension" as well as "to declare obsolete," meanings that are still in active service. Superannuated can mean "outmoded or old-fashioned," as in "superannuated slang" or the "superannuated navy ships" of our second example, or it can simply mean "older than usual," as in our first example sentence. 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, 2015 is: weasel word • \WEE-zul-WERD\ • noun : a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position Examples: Many people suspected that the politician's weasel words concealed a deeper agenda. "Lesson: When your team messes up, take responsibility, fully and openly. No exculpatory clauses or weasel words." - Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe, March 4, 2015 Did you know? Some people believe that weasels can suck the insides out of an egg without damaging the shell, so that an egg thus weasel-treated would look fine on the outside but would actually be empty and useless. It was this supposed behavior on the part of the weasel that led people to start using weasel word to refer to any term intended to give the impression that everything is fine when the speaker is really trying to avoid answering a question, telling the truth, or taking the blame for something. 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, 2015 is: innocuous • \ih-NAH-kyuh-wus\ • adjective 1 : producing no injury : harmless 2 : not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility : inoffensive, insipid Examples: Laura was relieved to discover that the wild plants her dog had eaten were innocuous. "We're constantly being tracked through social media and our Internet browsing habits for such innocuous details as age, marital status, where we live, recent life events, education level and dog ownership, so companies can pitch their wares to us." - Elizabeth Simpson, Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), June 21, 2015 Did you know? Innocuous has harmful roots-it comes to us from the Latin adjective innocuus, which was formed by combining the negative prefix in- with a form of the verb nocēre, meaning "to harm" or "to hurt." In addition, nocēre is related to the truly "harmful" words noxious, nocent, and even nocuous. Innocent is from nocēre as well, but like innocuous it has the in- prefix negating the hurtful possibilities. Innocuous first appeared in print in 1631 with the clearly Latin-derived meaning "harmless or causing no injury" (as in "an innocuous gas"). The second sense is a metaphorical extension of the idea of injury used to indicate that someone or something does not cause hurt feelings, or even strong feelings ("an innocuous book" or "innocuous issues," for example). 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, 2015 is: duffer • \DUFF-er\ • noun 1 a : a peddler especially of cheap flashy articles b : something counterfeit or worthless 2 : an incompetent, ineffectual, or clumsy person; especially : a mediocre golfer Examples: Most of the people playing in the charity tournament were duffers, but it was all for a good cause. "The snow is melting, and the grass from the area's golf courses are beginning to look like an oasis, beckoning veterans and duffers alike." - Matt Becker, Observer-Dispatch (Utica, New York), April 12, 2015 Did you know? Duffers have never really been straight shooters-on or off the golf course. The original duffers of the mid-18th century were shysters of the first order, merchants who palmed off trashy goods as if they were highly valuable (they often implied to unwary buyers that the goods had been smuggled and were very rare). Over time, the meaning of duffer was extended from a no-good peddler to anyone who was "no good," not just because the individual had low morals, but because he or she was incompetent or stupid. The term has been applied to hopelessly bad golfers since the late 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 July 13, 2015 is: estival • \ESS-tuh-vul\ • adjective : of or relating to the summer Examples: The children were reveling in their weeks of summer vacation, filling their school-free estival afternoons with swimming and playing. "Guests heeded the dress suggestion and came in the estival attire requested on the Betty Hunley-created invitation: 'white linen, seersucker or summer chic.'" - Nell Nolan, Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), July 31, 2010 Did you know? Estival and festival look so much alike that you might think they're very closely related, but that isn't the case. Estival traces back to aestas, which is the Latin word for "summer" (and which also gave us estivate, a verb for spending the summer in a torpid state-a sort of hot-weather equivalent of hibernation). Festival also comes from Latin, but it has a different and unrelated root. It derives from festivus, a term that means "festive" or "merry." Festivus is also the ancestor of festive and festivity as well as the much rarer festivous (which also means "festive") and infestive, meaning "not merry, mirthless." 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, 2015 is: majuscule • \MAJ-uh-skyool\ • noun : a large letter (such as a capital) Examples: I can always recognize my brother's handwriting at a quick glance based on how elaborately the majuscules are formed and how they dwarf the other letters. "But it's hard to begrudge Souza his glittering life, in large part because no one seems more innocently awed by it all than the man himself. (Consider the euphoric hashtags, such as … #sobeautiful, and the all-caps captions that he favors; in Souza's world, nearly everything merits majuscules.)" - Robert Haskell, Condé Nast Traveler, March 2015 Did you know? Majuscule looks like the complement to minuscule, and the resemblance is no coincidence. Minuscule appeared in the early 18th century as a word for a lowercase letter, then later as the word for certain ancient and medieval writing styles which had "small forms." Minuscule then acquired a more general adjectival use for anything very small. Majuscule is the counterpart to minuscule when it comes to letters, but it never developed a broader sense (despite the fact that its Latin ancestor majusculus has the broad meaning "rather large"). The adjective majuscule also exists (as does majuscular). Not surprisingly, the adjective shares the noun's specificity, referring only to large letters or to a style using such letters. 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, 2015 is: foist • \FOIST\ • verb 1 a : to introduce or insert surreptitiously or without warrant b : to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit 2 : to pass off as genuine or worthy Examples: It is possible to talk about politics without trying to foist your beliefs upon others. "People willingly download adware, often to get a free program, but it can also be foisted on them through vulnerabilities in their software." - Jeremy Kirk, PCWorld, June 10, 2015 Did you know? An early sense of the word foist, now obsolete, referred to palming a phony die and secretly introducing it into a game at an opportune time. The action involved in this cheating tactic reflects the etymology of foist. The word is believed to derive from the obsolete Dutch verb vuisten, meaning "to take into one's hand." Vuisten in turn comes from vuyst, the Middle Dutch word for "fist," which itself is distantly related to the Old English ancestor of "fist." By the late 16th century foist was being used in English to mean "to insert surreptitiously," and it quickly acquired the meaning "to force another to accept by stealth or deceit." 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, 2015 is: jaundiced • \JAWN-dist\ • adjective 1 : affected with or as if with a disease characterized by yellow pigmentation of the skin 2 : exhibiting or influenced by envy, distaste, or hostility Examples: "Since I tend to have a jaundiced view toward marriage in general," said George, "I'm not the guy you should be asking for wedding tips." "Accumulated wisdom helps us process facts, but the circumstances of our current world may require the hopeful view of youth rather than the jaundiced perspective of experience." - Mark Tibergien, ThinkAdvisor.com, June 1, 2015 Did you know? The adjective jaundiced, which was introduced into English in the mid-17th century, is the direct result of the older noun jaundice. The physical condition called jaundice involves a yellowish coloring of the skin, tissues, and body fluids caused by the presence of coloring matter from bile. In ages past, people believed that a hostile, irritable temperament indicated an excess of bile in one's body. This belief not only led to the extended use of jaundiced, but it also resulted in a similar use of the adjective bilious, which can mean either "marked by or suffering from liver dysfunction and especially excessive secretion of bile" or "ill-tempered." 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, 2015 is: garderobe • \GAR-drohb\ • noun 1 : a wardrobe or its contents 2 : a private room : bedroom 3 : privy, toilet Examples: On our tour of the castle, the guide made sure to point out the garderobe. "Located in Langley-on-Tyne, Northumberland, the castle has the best-preserved medieval latrines, or garderobes, in Europe. Historians think it was a garrison because it has 12." - Sue Kovach Shuman, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), April 30, 2006 Did you know? Garderobe entered the English language in the 15th century and continues in use to this day, though its frequency has diminished significantly since the 19th century. Originally, its primary duty was to provide English speakers with a word for a room or closet in which to store clothing. Later, by extension, it was used for private bedrooms and bathrooms. Today you are most likely to encounter the word in a description of an old castle, such as in our example sentences. Garder, the French word for "guard" on which garderobe is based, has also served English well by directly contributing to the formation of such words as award, guard, regard, and, yes, wardrobe. 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, 2015 is: temerity • \tuh-MAIR-uh-tee\ • noun 1 : unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition : rashness, recklessness 2 : a rash or reckless act Examples: The line between boldness and temerity is sometimes only evident after the consequences have become clear. "Amaro now has been relegated to saying he's sorry for his comments.… Yeah, I'd say so. You've single-handedly destroyed a baseball franchise that had a five-year stretch of baseball dominance and you have the temerity to criticize fans?" - Nick Kayal, Philly.com, May 18, 2015 Did you know? When it comes to flagrant boldness, temerity, audacity, hardihood, and effrontery have the cheek to get your meaning across. Of those synonyms, temerity (from the Latin temere, meaning "blindly" or "recklessly") suggests boldness arising from contempt of danger, while audacity implies a disregard of the restraints commonly imposed by convention or prudence. Hardihood implies firmness in daring and defiance, and effrontery suggests a shameless disregard of propriety and courtesy. If you're looking for a more informal term for a brash attitude, you might consider nerve, cheek, gall, or chutzpah. 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, 2015 is: hoosegow • \HOOSS-gow\ • noun : jail Examples: The perpetrator was sentenced to three months in the hoosegow. "Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds has issued a blunt warning to pet owners: treat your dogs and cats humanely or you might wind up in the hoosegow." - Bill Hendrick, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 16, 2014 Did you know? In Spanish, juzgado means "panel of judges, courtroom." The word is based on the Spanish past participle of juzgar, meaning "to judge," which itself was influenced by Latin judicare-a combination of jus, "right, law," and dicere, "to decide, say." When English speakers of the American West borrowed juzgado in the early 1900s, they recorded it the way they heard it: hoosegow. They also associated the word specifically with the jail that was usually in the same building as a courthouse. Today, hoosegow has become slang for any place of confinement for lawbreakers. 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, 2015 is: categorical • \kat-uh-GOR-ih-kul\ • adjective 1 : absolute, unqualified 2 : of, relating to, or constituting a category Examples: "For his part, Morell, who became deputy CIA director in 2010 and twice served as acting director before retiring in 2013, was categorical in his denial." - Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy DC, May 13, 2015 "Following the AT&T Byron Nelson (tournament), Spieth ranked as the No. 12 celebrity people aspire to be in the future. His other categorical rankings-from endorsement to influence to trend-setter to trustworthiness-all saw similar results." - Candace Carlisle, Dallas Business Journal, June 10, 2015 Did you know? The ancestor of categorical and category has been important in logic and philosophy since the days of Aristotle. Both English words derive from Greek katēgoria, which Aristotle used to name the 10 fundamental classes (also called "predications" or "assertions") of terms, things, or ideas into which he felt human knowledge could be organized. Ironically, although those categories and things categorical are supposed to be absolute and fundamental, philosophers have long argued about the number and type of categories that exist and their role in understanding the world. High-level philosophical disputes aside, the word categorical continues to refer to an absolute assertion, one that involves no conditions or hypotheses (for example, the statement "all humans are mortal"). 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, 2015 is: bunkum • \BUNG-kum\ • noun : insincere or foolish talk : nonsense Examples: I hesitated to voice my opinions, fearful that my companions would deride my views as bunkum. "The now-discredited study got headlines because it offered hope. It seemed to prove that our sense of empathy … could overcome prejudice and bridge seemingly irreconcilable differences. It was heartwarming, and it was utter bunkum." - Charles Seife, Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2015 Did you know? Some words in our language have more colorful histories than others, but in the case of bunkum, you could almost say it was an act of Congress that brought the word into being. Back in 1820 Felix Walker, who represented Buncombe County, North Carolina, in the U.S. House of Representatives, was determined that his voice be heard on his constituents' behalf, even though the matter up for debate was irrelevant to Walker's district and he had little to contribute. To the exasperation of his colleagues, Walker insisted on delivering a long and wearisome "speech for Buncombe." His persistent-if insignificant-harangue made buncombe (later respelled bunkum) a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense. 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, 2015 is: stringent • \STRIN-junt\ • adjective 1 : tight, constricted 2 : marked by rigor, strictness, or severity 3 : marked by money scarcity and credit strictness Examples: Brandon and Sarah had to adjust to living on a stringent budget during the four months when Brandon was looking for a job. "In an effort to address the perils of climate change, the county supervisors voted 3-2 to adopt the most stringent greenhouse-gas-emission restrictions of any county in California…." - Nick Welsh, Santa Barbara (California) Independent, May 21, 2015 Did you know? Words that are synonymous with stringent include rigid, which implies uncompromising inflexibility ("rigid rules of conduct"), and rigorous, which suggests hardship and difficulty ("the rigorous training of firefighters"). Also closely related is strict, which emphasizes undeviating conformity to rules, standards, or requirements ("strict enforcement of the law"). Stringent usually involves severe, tight restrictions or limitations ("the college has stringent admissions rules"). That's logical. After all, rigorous and rigid are both derived from rigēre, the Latin word meaning "to be stiff," and stringent and strict developed from the Latin verb stringere, meaning "to bind tight." 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, 2015 is: interpellate • \in-ter-PELL-ayt\ • verb : to question (someone, such as a foreign minister) formally concerning an official action or policy or personal conduct Examples: At the international tribunal, U.N. officials interpellated the premier about his country's acquisition of illegal weapons. "The group noted that Mr. Lotilla was being interpellated at the time by Rep. Elpidio F. Barzaga, Jr., a member of the majority bloc who supported the fare hike." - Melissa Luz T. Lopez and Vince Alvic Alexis F. Nonato, Business World, January 23, 2015 Did you know? Interpellate is a word you might encounter in the international news section of a newspaper or magazine. It refers to a form of political challenging used in the congress or parliament of many nations throughout the world, in some cases provided for in the country's constitution. Formal interpellation isn't practiced in the U.S. Congress, but in places where it is practiced, it can be the first step in ousting an appointed official or bringing to task an elected one. The word was borrowed from the Latin term interpellatus, past participle of interpellare, which means "to interrupt or disturb a person speaking." The "interrupt" sense, once used in English, is now obsolete, and interpellate should not be confused with interpolate, which means "to insert words into a text or conversation." 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, 2015 is: apprehension • \ap-rih-HEN-shun\ • noun 1 a : the act or power of perceiving or comprehending b : the result of apprehending mentally : conception 2 : seizure by legal process : arrest 3 : suspicion or fear especially of future evil : foreboding Examples: "Oddly combined with her sharp apprehension … was the primitive simplicity of her attitude…." - Edith Wharton, The Reef, 1912 "Rife with memories of lessons learned and laughter shared and full of hopeful apprehension facing uncertain futures in a big, brave new world, 241 seniors graduated from Princeton Senior High School Friday evening." - Tammie Toler, Princeton (West Virginia) Times, June 5, 2015 Did you know? The Latin verb prehendere really grabs our attention. It means "to grasp" or "to seize," and it is an ancestor of various English words. It teamed up with the prefix ad- (which takes the form ap- before p and means "to," "toward," or "near") to form apprehendere, the Latin predecessor of our words apprehension, apprehend, and apprehensive. When prehendere joined the prefix com- ("with," "together," "jointly"), Latin got comprehendere, and English eventually got comprehend, comprehension, and comprehensive. Prehendere also gave us the words comprise, prehensile ("adapted for seizing or grasping"), prison, reprehend, and reprise, among others. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 1, 2015 is: precarious • \prih-KAIR-ee-us\ • adjective 1 : dependent on uncertain premises : dubious 2 a : dependent on chance circumstances, unknown conditions, or uncertain developments b : dangerously lacking in security or steadiness Examples: The books were stacked high in a precarious tower that was liable to topple at any moment. "[Margaret] Atwood, whose futuristic fictions include 'The Handmaid's Tale,' 'Oryx and Crake' and 'MaddAddam,' knows that the entire premise of trees growing to be harvested for paper for print books many decades hence is a bit precarious. 'I am sending a manuscript into time,' she wrote in a prepared statement. 'Will any human beings be waiting there to receive it?'" - Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2015 Did you know? "This little happiness is so very precarious, that it wholly depends on the will of others." Joseph Addison, in a 1711 issue of Spectator magazine, couldn't have described the oldest sense of precarious more precisely-the original meaning of the word was "depending on the will or pleasure of another." Prayers and entreaties directed at that "other" might or might not help, but what precariousness really hangs on, in the end, is prex, the Latin word for prayer. From prex came the Latin word precarius, meaning "obtained by entreaty," from whence came our own adjective precarious. Anglo-French priere, also from precarius, gave us prayer. 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, 2015 is: disinformation • \dis-in-fer-MAY-shun\ • noun : false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth Examples: The writer's latest book examines the effects of propaganda and disinformation during the Cold War. "But more than anything else, we believe the level of fury and disinformation in this debate does a disservice to every student, teacher and taxpayer." - editorial, Newsday (New York), April 19, 2015 Did you know? In 1939, a writer describing Nazi intelligence activities noted, "The mood of national suspicion prevalent during the last decade ... is well illustrated by General Krivitsky's account of the German 'Disinformation Service,' engaged in manufacturing fake military plans for the express purpose of having them stolen by foreign governments." Although the Nazis were accused of using disinformation back in the 1930s, the noun and the practice are most often associated with the Soviet KGB. Many people think disinformation is a literal translation of the Russian dezinformatsiya, which means "misinformation," a term the KGB allegedly used in the 1950s to name a department created to dispense propaganda. 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, 2015 is: expeditious • \ek-spuh-DISH-us\ • adjective : marked by or acting with prompt efficiency Examples: Geraldine was impressed by the company's expeditious response, which arrived in the mail only one week after she had submitted her query. "[Councilman Frank Colonna] also noted that the recently formed Economic Development Commission is actively working to make the city more business friendly, and he hopes issues such as this can be dealt with in a more expeditious way." - Ashleigh Ruhl, Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA), May 9, 2015 Did you know? Like expeditious, all of the following words contain ped. Can you guess which ones get those three letters from the same Latin root as expeditious? encyclopedia, expedition, stampede, torpedo, orthopedic, & impede The Latin source of expeditious is the verb expedire, which means "to extricate," "to prepare," or "to be useful." The ped is from pes, meaning "foot." (The ex- means "out of," and the literal sense of expedire is "to free the feet.") The ped in impede also comes from pes. But the ped in encyclopedia and orthopedic is from the Greek pais, meaning "child"; stampede is from the Spanish estampar, meaning "to stamp"; and torpedo is from the Latin torpēre, meaning "to be sluggish." What about expedition? Meaning both "a journey" and "promptness," it is from expedire and, in turn, pes. 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, 2015 is: cybrarian • \sye-BRAIR-ee-un\ • noun : a person whose job is to find, collect, and manage information that is available on the World Wide Web Examples: The university's cybrarians maintain libraries of Web sites pertaining to specific fields of study. "Mike Tromblee is on a mission. The new Redwood Area School District cybrarian and media center specialist wants to take technology education to the next level in the classroom." - Troy Krause, Redwood Falls (Maine) Gazette, August 30, 2010 Did you know? We've been using librarian for the people who manage libraries since at least the beginning of the 18th century, and the word was used for scribes and copyists even earlier than that. Cybrarian, on the other hand, is much newer; its earliest documented use is from 1991. Librarian combines library (itself from liber, the Latin word for book) and the noun suffix -an, meaning "one specializing in." When people wanted a word for a person who performed duties similar to those of a librarian by using information from the Internet, they went a step further and combined cyber-, meaning "of, relating to, or involving computers or a computer network," with librarian to produce the new cybrarian. 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, 2015 is: mesmerize • \MEZ-muh-ryze\ • verb 1 : to subject to mesmerism; also : hypnotize 2 : spellbind Examples: Moviegoers will find themselves mesmerized by the visual intricacy and frenetic pacing of the animated sequence that opens the movie. "In 2008, Democrats had a 47-year-old candidate who mesmerized the party and ran away with the votes of Americans aged 18 to 29." - Byron York, Daily Review (Morgan City, Louisiana), April 30, 2015 Did you know? Experts can't agree on whether Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was a quack or a genius, but all concede that the late 18th-century physician's name is the source of the word mesmerize. In his day, Mesmer was the toast of Paris, where he enjoyed the support of notables including Queen Marie Antoinette. He treated patients with a force he termed [animal magnetism](/dictionary/animal magnetism). Many believe that what he actually used was what we now call hypnotism. Mesmer's name was first applied to a technique for inducing hypnosis by one of his students in 1784. 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, 2015 is: waddy • \WAH-dee\ • noun : cowboy Examples: "One of the waddies, a young, long-faced kid in an oversized black hat, held Renegade's reins up close to the bridle and was running a soothing hand down the skewbald's stout neck." - Peter Brandvold, .45 Caliber Firebrand, 2009 "There is always an Old West gunfight re-enactment to watch, a nightly rodeo to attend, and waddies on horseback to witness strolling into downtown, tying their steed to a hitching post at the historic Irma Hotel-named after Buffalo Bill's daughter-and enjoying an after-work beverage and dinner." - Michael Johnson, Alamogordo (New Mexico) Daily News, May 26, 2012 Did you know? It's easier to rope a wild mustang than to round up the origin of waddy. Some folks claim it comes from wadding (the material used in stuffing or padding) because waddies were once extra hands hired to fill in when extra cowhands were needed. But other evidence suggests that waddy originally referred to a cattle rustler, a usage that wouldn't support the wadding theory. There is also an Australian waddy meaning "stick" or "club," but definitive evidence of a connection between the Australian and American words remains elusive. All researchers can say with certainty is that waddy has been used to refer to a cowboy since at least the late 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 June 25, 2015 is: futile • \FYOO-tul\ • adjective 1 : serving no useful purpose : completely ineffective 2 : occupied with trifles : frivolous Examples: Unfortunately, all efforts to repair the damage ultimately proved futile. "Kumiko's journey is a tragic one. It is made clear from the beginning that her quest is futile." - Josh Weitzel, Columbia Chronicle (Columbia College Chicago), April 13, 2015 Did you know? Futile floated into the English language in the mid-16th century from Middle French, where it took shape from the Latin adjective futilis, meaning "that easily pours out" or "leaky." That leak of information lets you in on how futile developed its "ineffective" and "frivolous" meanings: things that are leaky are of no use. In 1827, English author Robert Southey found use for the word by blending it into utilitarian to form futilitarian, a word that is used today for anyone who believes that human striving is futile. 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, 2015 is: anastrophe • \uh-NASS-truh-fee\ • noun : inversion of the usual syntactical order of words for rhetorical effect Examples: My father was fond of word play, especially anastrophe, when he talked to my sister and me about things we would rather not talk about; he would say things like "Tired you are not but to bed you must go." "Should you buy 'Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric'? If you're at all interested in the techniques of writing, yes. At the very least, you'll learn that that last sentence, with its inversion of the usual word order -'yes' at the end instead of the beginning of the sentence-is an instance of anastrophe." - Michael Dirda, Washington Post, May 5, 2011 Did you know? "Powerful you have become Dooku, the dark side I sense in you." Fans of Star Wars will recognize Yoda's line in Attack of the Clones. Others might guess that Yoda is the speaker because of the unconventional syntax that is the hallmark of Yoda's speech. (In typical Yoda fashion, the subject is second instead of first in both clauses-it follows a predicate adjective and the direct object, respectively.) The name for this kind of syntactical inversion is anastrophe, from the Greek verb anastrephein, meaning "to turn back." President John F. Kennedy employed anastrophe for rhetorical effect when he inverted the typical positive-to-negative parallelism in his famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." In poetry, anastrophe is often used to create rhythm, as in these lines from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky": "So rested he by the Tumtum tree, / And stood awhile in thought." 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, 2015 is: belated • \bih-LAY-tud\ • adjective 1 : delayed beyond the usual time 2 : existing or appearing past the normal or proper time Examples: Susan called Jim to let him know that a belated birthday gift from her was on its way. "Friends and neighbors of the state Capitol complex joined Lt. Gov. Angela McLean Friday in a belated Earth Day celebration, planting trees and dedicating a new garden space across from the Capitol." - Independent Record (Montana), May 1, 2015 Did you know? Long ago, there was a verb belate, which meant "to make late." From the beginning, belate tended to mostly turn up in the form of its past participle belated. Eventually, belate itself fell out of use, leaving behind belated as an adjective that preserved the original notion of delay. As you may have guessed, belate and its descendant belated derive from the adjective late; belate was formed by simply combining the prefix be- ("to cause to be") with late. Belated was also once used in the sense "overtaken by night," as in "belated travelers seeking lodging for the night." This sense was in fact the first meaning of the adjective but it too fell out of use. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2015 is: roustabout • \ROWSS-tuh-bowt\ • noun 1 a : deckhand b : a person who loads and unloads ships at a seaport 2 : an unskilled or semiskilled laborer especially in an oil field or refinery 3 : a circus worker who erects and dismantles tents, cares for the grounds, and handles animals and equipment 4 : a person with no permanent home or regular occupation; also : one who stirs up trouble Examples: Nathan worked for years as a roustabout in the oil fields of Alaska until he earned enough money to go to college and become a petroleum engineer. "The Copenhagen-based Berdino family, led by patriarch Benny Berdino, own the Arena Cirkus, a troupe that started out with just one trailer and now stretches to several, with dozens of performers, animals, and roustabouts working on the payroll." - Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter, April 27, 2015 Did you know? Circus roustabouts (who erect and dismantle tents, care for the grounds, and handle animals and equipment) are commonly associated with circus animals, of course, but they also have a connection with game birds, at least in terms of etymology. Roustabout comes from roust, which is an alteration of rouse, a verb from Middle English that originally meant "to shake the feathers" (as in the way a bird might ruffle its feathers or shake its plumage when it is settling down or grooming itself). Rouse, which today is a synonym of awaken, also formerly meant "to cause to break from cover," a sense that may have influenced the modern meaning of roust: "to drive (as from bed) roughly or unceremoniously." 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, 2015 is: ingenuous • \in-JEN-yuh-wus\ • adjective 1 : showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness 2 : lacking craft or subtlety Examples: The salesman had perfected the art of winning over potential buyers by playing the part of a folksy, ingenuous bumpkin who is just looking out for his customers. "Wearing his yellow tights and green tunic with pride, a gangling James Moye portrays Buddy as an endearing, mildly anxious man-child with an ingenuous personality and a wide smile." - Michael Sommers, New York Times, December 14, 2014 Did you know? Today, the words ingenuous and ingenious have distinct meanings and are not used interchangeably, but that wasn't always the case. For many years, the two words were used as synonyms. Ingenious has always had the fundamental meaning of "clever," and ingenuous has been most often used to suggest frankness and openness (owing either to good character or, now more often, innocence), but there was a time when ingenious could also mean "frank" and ingenuous could mean "clever." The publication in 1755 of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, in which these synonymous uses are not recognized, may have had something to do with establishing ingenious and ingenuous as distinct words. In any case, they appear to have ceased being used as synonyms by about 1800. 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, 2015 is: hobbit • \HOB-it\ • noun : a member of a fictitious peaceful and genial race of small humanlike creatures that dwell underground Examples: Anthony attended the science-fiction and fantasy convention dressed as a hobbit. "Jones' 10x20 hobbit-style house comes equipped with the iconic ivy-covered roof and many amenities indoors, including a washer/dryer, full kitchen, shower room and even a flat screen TV." - Keith Lovely, Jr., HLNtv.com, February 9, 2015 Did you know? "What is a hobbit?" wrote J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1937 fantasy novel that introduced Mr. Bilbo Baggins. The author then answered himself: "They are (or were) little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves.... There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along...." Tolkien tells us that hobbits "are inclined to be fat," and that they "dress in bright colours"; they "have good-natured faces, and deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner)." Tolkien, a professional linguist who taught at Oxford, coined the word hobbit (and many other terms-in fact, a whole new language) for The Hobbit and for his enormously popular series The Lord of the Rings. 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, 2015 is: parse • \PARSS\ • verb 1 a : to resolve (as a sentence) into component parts of speech and describe them grammatically b : to describe grammatically by stating the part of speech and explaining the inflection and syntactical relationships 2 : to examine in a minute way : analyze critically Examples: The lawyer meticulously parsed the wording of the final contract to be sure that her client would get all that he was asking for. "The Federal Reserve releases a statement at the conclusion of each of its policy-setting meetings, outlining the central bank's economic outlook and the actions it plans to take.… Fed watchers closely parse changes between statements to see how the Fed's views are evolving." - Sarah Portlock, Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2015 Did you know? If parse brings up images of elementary school and learning the parts of speech, you've done your homework regarding this word. Parse comes from the first element of the Latin term for "part of speech," pars orationis. It's an old word that has been used in the schoolroom since at least the student days of King Edward VI of England (1537-1553). Edward's tutor, Richard Cox, recorded that at the age of nine the young prince had memorized all four of the Roman author Cato's Moral Distichs and had parsed them as well. But it was not until the late 18th century that parse graduated to its extended, non-grammar-related sense. Remember this extended sense, and you're really at the head of the class. 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, 2015 is: caparison • \kuh-PAIR-uh-sun\ • noun 1 a : an ornamental covering for a horse b : decorative trappings and harness 2 : rich clothing : adornment Examples: A group of horses outfitted in medieval caparison were standing near the area where the festival's jousting would begin. "The female mummy was called the princess because of the richness of her burial trove. Six horses were entombed with her; some of the tasseled caparisons they carried were still in almost perfect condition after more than 2,000 years." - St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch, February 15, 1998 Did you know? Caparison first embellished English in the 1500s, when we borrowed it from the Middle French caparaçon. Early caparisons were likely used to display the heraldic colors of a horseman, and in some cases may also have functioned as protective covering for the horse. In British India, it was elephants, not horses, that were decked out with caparisons-and to this day both animals can still be seen in such attire during parades and circuses. It did not take long for caparison to come to refer to the ornate clothing worn by a man or woman. Caparison also serves English as a verb, a use first recorded in Shakespeare when Richard III commanded, "Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse." 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, 2015 is: esoteric • \es-uh-TAIR-ik\ • adjective 1 a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group; broadly : difficult to understand 2 a : limited to a small circle b : private, confidential 3 : of special, rare, or unusual interest Examples: Some of the terms used in the book were so esoteric that I had to look them up in a special glossary that really should have been appended to the book itself. "The esoteric nature of most theories of art prevent them from being absorbed and understood by the art-going public, who on the whole have little interest in philosophy." - Launt Thompson, Philosophy Now, June/July 2015 Did you know? The opposite of esoteric is exoteric, which means "suitable to be imparted to the public." According to one account, those who were deemed worthy to attend Aristotle's learned discussions were known as his "esoterics," his confidants, while those who merely attended his popular evening lectures were called his "exoterics." Since material that is geared toward a target audience is often not as easily comprehensible to outside observers, esoteric acquired an extended meaning of "difficult to understand." Both esoteric and exoteric started appearing in English in the mid-1600s; esoteric traces back to ancient Greek by way of the Late Latin esotericus. The Greek esōterikos is based on the comparative form of esō, which means "within." 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, 2015 is: libertine • \LIB-er-teen\ • noun 1 : a freethinker especially in religious matters 2 : a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality; specifically : one leading a dissolute life Examples: Don Juan is known as a famous libertine who seduced countless women. "In the movie, she's portrayed as a libertine who had affairs with both men and women, while she was single and while she was married, and she drank copious quantities of Prohibition Era gin." - Adam Buckman, Television News Daily, May 12, 2015 Did you know? "I only ask to be free" says Mr. Skimpole in Charles Dickens's Bleak House, and his words would undoubtedly have appealed to the world's first libertines. The word libertine was first used in early writings of Roman antiquity to identify a slave who had been set free (the Roman term for an emancipated slave was the Latin libertus). By the late 1500s, the "freedman" sense of libertine had been extended to refer to freethinkers (both religious and secular); Shakespeare used it to refer to anyone who follows his or her own inclinations. By 1600, though, the term had come to imply that an individual was a little too unrestrained, especially in moral situations. And yes, the Latin root of libertine is liber, the ultimate source of our word liberty. 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, 2015 is: gossamer • \GAH-suh-mer\ • adjective : extremely light, delicate, or tenuous Examples: Except for a few gossamer clouds, the sky was clear and blue. "On two screens, she watched herself spin in a green field, gossamer wings floating off her body." - Melena Ryzik, New York Times, March 3, 2015 Did you know? In the days of Middle English, a period of mild weather in late autumn or early winter was sometimes called a gossomer, literally "goose summer." People may have chosen that name for a late-season warm spell because October and November were the months when people felt that geese were at their best for eating. Gossomer was also used in Middle English as a word for filmy cobwebs floating through the air in calm, clear weather, apparently because somebody thought the webs looked like the down of a goose. This sense eventually inspired the adjective gossamer, which means "light, delicate, or tenuous"-just like cobwebs or goose down. 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, 2015 is: thesaurus • \thih-SOR-us\ • noun 1 : treasury, storehouse 2 a : a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially : a book of words and their synonyms b : a list of subject headings or descriptors usually with a cross-reference system for use in the organization of a collection of documents for reference and retrieval Examples: Seeking a more appropriate word than "secretive" to describe the uncommunicative subject of her piece, Mabel turned to her thesaurus and found one: "reticent." "Ms. Rigg’s 1983 compilation, 'No Turn Unstoned,' is a thesaurus of the nastiest theater reviews. She went on to adapt it for the stage and performed it at last year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe." - Meghan Rice and Anne Mancuso, New York Times, January 1, 2015 Did you know? In the early 19th century, archaeologists borrowed the Latin word thesaurus to denote an ancient treasury, such as that of a temple. Soon after, the word was metaphorically applied to a book containing a "treasury" of words or information about a particular field. In 1852, the English scholar Peter Mark Roget published his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, in which he listed a treasury of related words organized into numerous categories. This work led to the common acceptance of the term thesaurus for "a book of words and their synonyms." Finally, during the 1950s, thesaurus began being used in the field of word processing to refer to a list of related terms used for indexing and retrieval. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.