Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 13, 2015 is: rambunctious • \ram-BUNK-shuss\ • adjective : marked by uncontrollable exuberance : unruly Examples: When Kelly gets a bit too rambunctious, her parents sit her down for a time-out. "The prolific tiger and her latest batch of rambunctious cubs were part of the zoo's Mother’s Day special Saturday, when human mothers were invited to 'bring your cubs to meet ours' and were admitted for half price." - Rob Carson, News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), May 9, 2015 Did you know? Rambunctious first appeared in print in 1830, at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optimism and exuberance. Rip-roaring, scalawag, scrumptious, hornswoggle, and skedaddle are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British rumbustious because it sounded, well, British? That could be. Rumbustious, which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after our signing of the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on robustious, a much older adjective that meant both "robust" and "boisterous." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 12, 2015 is: jeopardy • \JEP-er-dee\ • noun 1 : exposure to death, loss, or injury : danger 2 : the danger that an accused person is subjected to when on trial for a criminal offense Examples: Rather than risk placing his passengers in jeopardy, the pilot waited for the storm to pass before taking off. "Unless they have already accumulated substantial wealth, retirees typically are anxious to know how much they can afford to spend without putting the latter end of their retirement years in financial jeopardy." - John Napolitano, Accounting Today, May 1, 2015 Did you know? Centuries ago, the Old French term jeuparti didn't mean "danger" but rather "an alternative" or, literally, "a divided game." That French expression was used for anything that represented an alternative viewpoint or gave two opposing viewpoints. Jeuparti passed into Anglo-French as juparti, and from there it was borrowed into Middle English and respelled jeopardie. At first, the English word was used to refer to the risks associated with alternative moves in the game of chess. Almost immediately, however, the term came to be used more generally in the "risk" or "danger" sense that it has 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 June 11, 2015 is: inculcate • \in-KUL-kayt\ • verb : to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions Examples: Mark and Victoria tried to inculcate in their children the values of hard work, self-reliance, and respect for other people. "When Duke went to seven Final Fours over a nine-year span from 1986 through 1994, the Blue Devils were invariably led by juniors and seniors inculcated in how Krzyzewski wanted the game played." - Barry Jacobs, Charlotte (North Carolina) News & Observer, April 10, 2015 Did you know? Inculcate derives from the past participle of the Latin verb inculcare, meaning "to tread on." In Latin, inculcare possesses both literal and figurative meanings, referring to either the act of walking over something or to that of impressing something upon the mind, often by way of steady repetition. It is the figurative sense that survives with inculcate, which was first used in English in the 16th century. Inculcare was formed in Latin by combining the prefix in- with calcare, meaning "to trample," and ultimately derives from the noun calx, meaning "heel." In normal usage inculcate is typically followed by the prepositions in or into, with the object of the preposition being the person or thing receiving the instruction. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 10, 2015 is: bellwether • \BEL-WEH-ther\ • noun : one that takes the lead or initiative : leader; also : an indicator of trends Examples: The company has long been viewed as a bellwether for the tech market, so analysts are watching it closely. "Plus, on an increasingly divided council, and in a new district elections system inviting wholesale change, Godden's race could be a bellwether for how incumbents are faring this election year." - Heidi Groover, The Stranger, May 13, 2015 Did you know? We usually think of sheep more as followers than leaders, but in a flock one sheep must lead the way. Long ago, it was common practice for shepherds to hang a bell around the neck of one sheep in their flock, thereby designating it the lead sheep. This animal was called the bellwether, a word formed by a combination of the Middle English words belle (meaning "bell") and wether (a noun that refers to a male sheep that has been castrated). It eventually followed that bellwether would come to refer to someone who takes initiative or who actively establishes a trend that is taken up by others. This usage first appeared in English in the 13th 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 9, 2015 is: obtain • \ub-TAYN\ • verb 1 : to gain or attain usually by planned action or effort 2 : to be generally recognized or established : prevail Examples: The experiment was designed to obtain more accurate data about weather patterns. "Business owners and musical acts that want to participate in the series can sign up online and skip the trip to City Hall to pay fees andobtainacoustic entertainment licenses…." - Steve Annear, Boston Globe, April 28, 2015 Did you know? Obtain, which was adopted into English in the 15th century, comes to us via Anglo-French from the Latin obtinēre, meaning "to take hold of." Obtinēre was itself formed by the combination of ob-, meaning "in the way," and the verb tenēre, meaning "to hold." In its earliest uses, obtain often implied a conquest or a successful victory in battle, but it is now used for any attainment through planned action or effort. The verb tenēre has incontestably prevailed in the English language, providing us with such common words as abstain, contain, detain, sustain, and, perhaps less obviously, the adjectives tenable and tenacious. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 8, 2015 is: youthquake • \YOOTH-kwayk\ • noun : a shift in cultural norms influenced by the values, tastes, and mores of young people Examples: "One late afternoon in the summer of 2009, I was walking down Wythe Avenue, a thoroughfare in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood still lined with warehouses that were home to vintage clothing and indie-band practice spaces and peppered with a few bars and restaurants. At this point, Williamsburg had earned a reputation as the home of a global youthquake of fashion, music and culture." - Anne Szustek, Business Insider, March 11, 2015 "There have been innumerable situations in which the senior employees of Don’s firm … have seemed … unwilling or unable to truly understand the changes the world was going through.… They tried to harness the energy of the youthquake of the ‘60s here and there, but the true import of all the cultural and social changes of the last decade more or less passed them by." - Maureen Ryan, Huffington Post, April 27, 2015 Did you know? The 1960s were a time of seismic social upheaval brought about by young people bent on shaking up the establishment. From politics to fashion to music, the ways of youth produced far-reaching cultural changes. Linguistically, the sixties saw the addition to English of such words as flower child, peacenik, hippie, love beads, trippy, vibe, freak-out, and love-in. Not surprisingly, they also saw the emergence of youthquake. Although commonly attributed to Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, an earlier use of youthquake in print comes from a 1966 article in McCall's: "the youthquake, as some call it ... has swept both sides of the Atlantic." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 7, 2015 is: clandestine • \klan-DES-tun\ • adjective : marked by, held in, or conducted with secrecy : surreptitious Examples: The commander ordered the clandestine flights over enemy territory to gather more information about the opposing forces. "Frida Kahlo met Jose Bartoli in New York while she was recuperating from spinal surgery stemming from a bus accident in her youth. Their … clandestine correspondence lasted for three years, aided by friends and Kahlo's sister, Cristina, who had introduced the pair." - Gotham News, April 24, 2015 Did you know? In 1658, the English poet John Milton wrote of "clandestine Hostility cover'd over with the name of Peace." Over three and a half centuries later we use clandestine in much the same way. The word is often used as a synonym of secret and covert, and it is commonly applied to actions that involve secrecy maintained for an evil, illicit, or unauthorized purpose. It comes to us by way of Middle French from Latin clandestinus, which is itself from clam, meaning "secretly." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2015 is: noblesse oblige • \noh-BLESS-uh-BLEEZH\ • noun : the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth Examples: "And true to those sentiments of noblesse oblige, in 1957 the Seiberling family turned the property over to a nonprofit trust." - Steve Stephens, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, April 24, 2011 "When Alexis de Tocqueville visited our new nation in the 19th century, he observed that the average American possesses a curious spirit of initiative. When we see a problem or a need, rather than waiting onnoblesse obligefrom an aristocrat to rescue us, we do something about it ourselves." - David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), April 11, 2015 Did you know? In French, noblesse oblige means literally "nobility obligates." French speakers transformed the phrase into a noun, which English speakers picked up in the 19th century. Then, as now, noblesse oblige referred to the unwritten obligation of people from a noble ancestry to act honorably and generously to others. Later, by extension, it also came to refer to the obligation of anyone who is in a better position than others-due, for example, to high office or celebrity-to act respectably and responsibly toward 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 June 5, 2015 is: frugal • \FROO-gul\ • adjective : characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources Examples: In order to save both energy and money, Joni was frugal with air-conditioning, usually opting to turn on a fan instead whenever it got too hot in her apartment. "Budgeting makes most people groan, and it's easy to understand why. The idea of reining it in and becoming frugal feels like the financial equivalent of forsaking steak for rice cakes (no offense to anyone who prefers rice cakes)." - Anna B. Wroblewska, Motley Fool, January 5, 2015 Did you know? Those who are frugal are unwilling to (lavishly) enjoy the fruits of their labors, so it may surprise you to learn that frugal ultimately derives from the Latin frux, meaning "fruit" or "value," and is even a distant cousin of the Latin word for "enjoy" (frui). The connection between fruit/value and restraint was first made in Latin; the Middle French word that English speakers eventually adopted as frugal came from the Latin adjective frugalis, a frux descendant meaning "virtuous" or "frugal." Although English speakers adopted frugal by the early 17th century, they were already lavishly supplied with earlier coinages to denote the idea, including sparing and thrifty. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 4, 2015 is: swan song • \SWAHN-SAWNG\ • noun 1 : a song of great sweetness said to be sung by a dying swan 2 : a farewell appearance or final act or pronouncement Examples: Professor Holland gave the final lecture of his long career, and his swan song was met with a standing ovation from his students. "In hisswan songas Major League Baseball commissioner last year, Bud Selig scheduled Opening Day in Australia. Because, hey, nothing says spring and baseball more than playing the first game of the season at 3 a.m. 7,500 miles away from the nearest U.S. ballpark." - Norman Chad, Chicago Sun-Times, April 11, 2015 Did you know? Swans don't sing. They whistle or trumpet, or in the case of the swan most common in ponds, the mute swan, they only hiss and snort. But according to ancient legend, the swan does sing one beautiful song in its life-just before it dies. References in English to the dying swan's lovely singing go back as far as Chaucer, but the term swan song itself didn't appear in the language until the 1830s, when Thomas Carlyle used it in Sartor Resartus. Carlyle probably based his "swan song" on the German version of the term, which is Schwanengesang or Schwanenlied. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 3, 2015 is: adulate • \AJ-uh-layt\ • verb : to flatter or admire excessively or slavishly Examples: A portrait of the family patriarch, a man adulated by the public while generally feared by his family, hung above the mantle. "Weadulatethe wealthy, the notorious and egocentric and even the crass and depraved and pay little attention to people who are thoughtful, erudite, wise, compassionate and generous." - Dorothy Dimitre, San Mateo (California) Daily Journal, November 7, 2012 Did you know? Man's best friend is often thought of in admiring terms as faithful and true, but there are also people who more clearly perceive the fawning and cringing aspect of doggishness. When the Romans used the Latin verb adulari to mean "to fawn on," they equated it with the behavior of a dog toward its master. The actual root of the word may even be connected to an earlier Indo-European word for "tail" (which, of course, brings tail wagging to mind). In English, we first used the noun adulation, meaning "exhibition of excessive fondness" (similar in meaning but not etymologically related to adoration), then the adjective adulatory (an adulatory speech, for example, is an excessively flattering one), before we came up with the verb in the 18th 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 2, 2015 is: stalwart • \STAWL-wert\ • adjective : marked by outstanding strength and vigor of body, mind, or spirit Examples: Judith has long been a stalwart supporter of the community theater, always volunteering at fundraisers and helping out backstage during productions. "A gaggle of little children chase after the family dog and roll around on the floor. Meanwhile, a stalwart grandmother, now raising a third generation of kids, the worn lines of the years etched in her striking yet stoic face, stands idly to the side." - Joshua Silavent, Gainesville (Georgia) Times, April 26, 2015 Did you know? Sometime in the 15th century, English speakers began to use stalwart in place of the older form stalworth. Although stalworth is now archaic, it laid the groundwork for today's meaning of stalwart. In the 12th century, stalworth began to be used to describe strongly built people or animals (a meaning stalwart took on about two centuries later). It also came to be used as an adjective for people who showed bravery or courage (likewise a meaning passed on to stalwart). So, in a way, stalwart has been serviceable in keeping the spirit of stalworth alive. This character of stalwart is true to its roots. Stalworth came from the Old English word stælwierthe (meaning "serviceable"), which, in turn, is thought to come from terms meaning "foundation" and "worth." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 1, 2015 is: phreaker • \FREE-ker\ • noun : one who gains illegal access to the telephone system Examples: This year's annual conference on culture and technology will focus on the subculture of hackers and phreakers. "Wire fraud spiked, and the FBI cracked down on phreakers and their blue boxes." - Jose Pagliery, CNN.com, March 11, 2015 Did you know? Phreakers are people who specialize in attacks on the telephone system. The word, which became popular in the mid-1980s, is probably a combination of the words phone and freak. (Phreakers are also known as "phreaks" or "phone phreaks.") In the early days, phreakers whistled or used an instrument to mimic the tones the phone system then used to route calls and identify payment, especially as a way to avoid paying for an expensive call. Modern phreaking involves breaking into and manipulating the phone company's computer system, making it a specialized kind of hacking. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 31, 2015 is: perseverate • \per-SEV-uh-rayt\ • verb 1 : to repeat or recur persistently 2 : to go back over previously covered ground Examples: To ensure the accuracy of his or her data, the scientist necessarily perseverates, repeating each experiment many times and comparing the results. "In a world of sport, where weperseverateon numbers and titles to measure success, Duval's self-measurement is refreshing." - Bill Dwyre, Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2012 Did you know? Looking at perseverate and perseveration, you may guess that the latter was formed by adding a suffix to the former, but that is not the case. Perseveration is actually the older term. It has been around since the 1500s, when it was used as a synonym of perseverance (which at one time was pronounced, like perseverate and perseveration, with the stress on sev, instead of on ver). In the early 1900s, psychologists adopted perseveration for the act of repeating a behavior over and over again. (For instance, continually repeating the same syllable or word might be called "verbal perseveration.") Shortly afterward, those scientists wanted a verb for such acts of repetition, so they changed the -tion of perseveration to -ate and perseverate was born. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 30, 2015 is: metadata • \met-uh-DAY-tuh\ • noun : data that provides information about other data Examples: The investigator used metadata from phone company records to identify the culprit behind the harassing calls. "The intended point was that the NSA wasn't collecting the words we said during our phone conversations, only the phone numbers of the two parties, and the date, time, and duration of the call. This seemed to mollify many people, but it shouldn't have. Collecting metadata on people means putting them under surveillance." - Bruce Schneier, Wired, March 25, 2015 Did you know? It's easy to find data on the source of metadata: the word was formed by combining data with meta-, which means "transcending" and is often used to describe a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one. Meta- was first used in that way in metaphysics and has been extended to a number of other disciplines, giving us such words as metapsychology and metamathematics. Metadata takes the "transcending" aspect a step further, applying it to the concept of pure information instead of a discipline. Metadata is a fairly new word (it first appeared in print in 1968), whereas "data" can be traced back to the 17th 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 May 29, 2015 is: bodacious • \boh-DAY-shuss\ • adjective 1 : outright, unmistakable 2 : remarkable, noteworthy 3 : sexy, voluptuous Examples: The comedy writing team has created a sitcom pilot featuring two geeky guys and their bodacious female roommate. "She'd get a big kick out of this moment. Being honored and commemorated by the postal service with her own stamp, for the big, bold,bodaciouslife she dared to live, in a way that dazzled and gave meaning to those of us who knew her and many who didn't." - Oprah Winfrey, Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, April 7, 2015 Did you know? Some of our readers may know bodacious as a word that figured prominently in the lingo of the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Others may recall the term's frequent use in the long-running "Snuffy Smith" comic strip. Neither the creators of the comic strip nor the movie can claim to have coined bodacious, which actually first appeared in print in 1832, but both likely contributed to its popularity. The exact origin of the word is uncertain, but it was most likely influenced by bold and audacious, and it may be linked to boldacious, a term from British dialect. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 28, 2015 is: fictioneer • \fik-shuh-NEER\ • noun : someone who writes fiction especially in quantity and without high standards Examples: Dwight was a fictioneer who specialized in pulp novels, producing over 300 of them in his long career. "Is it right for such irresponsiblefictioneersto be playing around unconscionably with such tragic subject matter?" - Jeff Simon, Buffalo (New York) News, November 18, 2014 Did you know? In Latin, the verb fingere means "to shape, fashion, or feign." Fictioneers surely do shape stories and feign the truth, so you could say that the noun fictioneer is etymologically true to its ancestor. The word fiction had been around for more than 500 years by the time fictioneer appeared in English in 1923, bearing a suffix that harks back to such words as engineer and pamphleteer. The word is used generally to refer to any writer of fiction but often specifically to one who writes with little concern for literary quality. Fictioneer and fiction aren't the only English feigners and shapers born of fingere. The words effigy, feign, and figment are among others that trace back to that Latin verb. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 27, 2015 is: riot act • \RYE-ut-AKT\ • noun : a vigorous reprimand or warning - used in the phrase read the riot act Examples: Celia's parents read her the riot act after she stayed out for almost an hour past her curfew. "[Angela Merkel] read Greece and other affected zone members the riot act: their borrowing and spending was out of control, and they'd have to rein it in, just as Germany had done." - Paul Hockenos, The Nation, March 12, 2015 Did you know? Many people were displeased when George I became king of England in 1714, and his opponents were soon leading rebellions and protests against him. The British government, anxious to stop the protests, passed a law called the "Riot Act." It allowed public officials to break up gatherings of 12 or more people by reading aloud a proclamation, warning those who heard it that they must disperse within the hour or be guilty of a felony punishable by death. By 1819, riot act was also being used more generally for any stern warning or reprimand. Although the law long ago fell into disuse and was finally repealed in 1973, the term that it generated lives on 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 May 26, 2015 is: sacrilegious • \sak-ruh-LIJ-us\ • adjective 1 : committing or characterized by a technical and not necessarily intrinsically outrageous violation (such as improper reception of a sacrament) of what is sacred because consecrated to God 2 : grossly irreverent toward a hallowed person, place, or thing Examples: My great-grandfather was a die-hard New Dealer who considered any criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt to be sacrilegious. "It had drawn conservative and religious protests over taxpayer financing of art that the work's opponents considered sacrilegious." - Victoria Burnett, New York Times, February 25, 2015 Did you know? It may seem that sacrilegious should be spelled as sacreligious, since the word sometimes describes an irreverent treatment of religious objects or places. However, sacrilegious comes to us from sacrilege, which is ultimately derived from a combination of the Latin words sacer ("sacred") and legere ("to gather" or "to steal"). Its antecedent in Latin, sacrilegus, meant "one who steals sacred things." There is no direct relation to religious (which is derived from the Latin word religiosus, itself from religio, meaning "supernatural constraint or religious practice"). The apparent resemblance between sacrilegious and religious is just a coincidence. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 25, 2015 is: callithump • \KAL-uh-thump\ • noun : a noisy boisterous band or parade Examples: Anyone who wants to participate in the town's annual Memorial Day callithump should be at the elementary school by 10 a.m. "Almost wherever you are in the Los Angeles area Sunday, there's a parade coming your way. Yes, it's callithump time in and about the City of Angels, and whether you prefer the traditional, the eclectic or the absurd, you'll have your choice of pageants." - Michael Welzenbach, Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1988 Did you know? Callithump and the related adjective callithumpian are Americanisms, but their roots stretch back to England. In the 19th century, the noun callithumpians was used in the U.S. of boisterous roisterers who had their own makeshift New Year's parade. Their band instruments consisted of crude noisemakers such as pots, tin horns, and cowbells. The antecedent of callithumpians is an 18th-century British dialect term for another noisy group, the "Gallithumpians," who made a rumpus on election days in southern England. Today, the words callithump and callithumpian see occasional use, especially in the names of specific bands and parades. The callithumpian bands and parades of today are more organized than those of the past, but they retain an association with noise and boisterous fun. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 24, 2015 is: erudite • \AIR-uh-dyte\ • adjective : having or showing knowledge that is gained by studying : possessing or displaying extensive knowledge acquired chiefly from books Examples: The university hosted an informative lecture given by an erudite scholar of Cold War history. "But because the stakes here feel so high-that is, because the Internet has not been the great equalizer we'd hoped it'd be but instead reinforces established winner-take-all systems-a serious, erudite appraisal of social media is exactly what we need right now." - John Wilwol, San Francisco Chronicle, April 5, 2015 Did you know? Erudite derives via Middle English erudit from Latin eruditus, the past participle of the verb erudire, meaning "to instruct." A closer look at that verb shows that it is formed by combining the prefix e-, meaning "missing" or "absent," with the adjective rudis, which means "rude" or "ignorant" and is also the source of our word rude. We typically use the word rude to mean "discourteous" or "uncouth," but it can also mean "lacking refinement" or "uncivilized"; someone who is erudite, therefore, has been transformed from a roughened or uninformed state to a polished and knowledgeable one through a devotion to learning. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 23, 2015 is: debouch • \dih-BOUTCH\ • verb 1 : to cause to emerge : discharge 2 : to march out into open ground : emerge, issue Examples: "A mutual foe had appeared. From a passage on the left of the road there had debouched on to the field of action Albert himself and two of his band." - P. G. Wodehouse, The White Feather, 1907 "Jeremy and I had trekked from the river bottom early that morning to a stream called Deer Creek…. Deer Creek incises a mile of spectacular narrows in the 500-million-year-old Tapeats Sandstone before it debouches into the Colorado." - Christopher Ketcham, Earth Island Journal, Spring 2015 Did you know? Debouch emerged in English in the 18th century. It derives from a French verb formed from the prefix dé- ("from") and the noun bouche ("mouth"), which itself derives ultimately from the Latin bucca ("cheek"). (It is not to be confused with debauch, which is from the Old French verb desbauchier, meaning "to scatter, disperse.") Debouch is often used in military contexts to refer to the action of troops proceeding from a closed space to an open one. It is also used frequently to refer to the emergence of anything from a mouth, such as water passing through the mouth of a river into an ocean. The word's ancestors have also given us the adjective buccal ("of or relating to the mouth") and the noun embouchure (the mouthpiece of a musical instrument or the position of the mouth when playing one). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 22, 2015 is: nepotism • \NEP-uh-tiz-um\ • noun : favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship Examples: It was strongly believed that nepotism played a role in helping Jessica get the sales manager position at her cousin's store. "The Times investigation found that at least 7% of county firefighters on the payroll since 2012 were the sons of current or former employees of the department.… Statistical experts consulted by The Times said the percentage of sons and other relatives on the job strongly indicated that nepotism was at play." - Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2015 Did you know? During his papacy from 1471-1484, Sixtus IV granted many special favors to members of his family, in particular his nephews. This practice of papal favoritism was carried on by his successors, and in 1667 it was the subject of Gregorio Leti's book Il Nepotismo di Roma-titled in the English translation, The History of the Popes' Nephews. Shortly after the book's appearance, nepotism began to be used in English for the showing of special favor or unfair preference to any relative by someone in any position of power, be it ecclesiastical or not. (The "nep-" spelling is from nepote, a 17th-century variant of Italian nipote, meaning "nephew.") See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 21, 2015 is: umpteen • \UMP-teen\ • adjective : very many : indefinitely numerous Examples: By midmorning, Ellie had already phoned her sister umpteen times. "It's the home chore that everybody hates most. I see that on the TV how-to shows, read it on umpteen do-it-yourself sites. Nobody likes removing wallpaper." - Allen Norwood, Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, January 22, 2015 Did you know? "I'll go to bed and I'll not get up for umpty-eleven months." You know the feeling. The speaker here is war-weary Bill, a character in Patrick MacGill's early 20th-century novel The Great Push. His umpty originated as military slang around 1905 and stood for an indefinite number, generally largish. (It was probably created by analogy to actual numbers such as twenty.) Soon, there followed umpteen, blending umpty and -teen. Umpteen usually describes an indefinite and large number or amount, while the related umpteenth is used for the latest or last in an indefinitely numerous series. We only occasionally use umpty these days (and even more rarely umptieth), but you're bound to hear or read umpteen and umpteenth any number of times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 20, 2015 is: quisling • \KWIZ-ling\ • noun : one who commits treason : traitor, collaborator Examples: "This is a country that can force you to garden, where the parish or your neighbors can twist your arm, make you delve like Adam on behalf of the common neatness…. Best-kept village competitions turn stockbroker dormitory towns into little Stalingrads, where baskets of lobelia and geranium hang from lampposts in symbolic place of deserters and quislings." - A. A. Gill, The Angry Island, 2008 "Liu's works also serve as commentary on current events. For example, a central character in the trilogy sides with the aliens in their struggle against humanity. She becomes a 'terrestrial quisling' because Maoists persecuted her during the Cultural Revolution." - Anthony Kuhn, KPBS.org, April 9, 2015 Did you know? Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian army officer who in 1933 founded Norway's fascist party. In December 1939, he met with Adolf Hitler and urged him to occupy Norway. Following the German invasion of April 1940, Quisling served as a figurehead in the puppet government set up by the German occupation forces, and his linguistic fate was sealed. Before the end of 1940, quisling was being used generically in English to refer to any traitor. Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and H. G. Wells used it in their wartime writings. Quisling lived to see his name thus immortalized, but not much longer. He was executed for treason soon after the liberation of Norway in 1945. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 19, 2015 is: prudent • \PROO-dunt\ • adjective 1 : marked by wisdom or judiciousness 2 : shrewd in the management of practical affairs 3 : cautious, discreet 4 : thrifty, frugal Examples: The couple's financial advisor helped them devise a prudent investment strategy. "As a group, they tend not to be water wasters. Wasting water costs them money in the form of pumping groundwater needlessly. Farmers are more prudent than that." - Dennis L. Taylor, The Californian (Salinas, California), April 5, 2015 Did you know? Prudent arrived in Middle English around the 14th century and traces back, by way of Middle French, to the Latin verb providēre, meaning "to see ahead, foresee, provide (for)." One who is prudent literally has the foresight to make sound or shrewd decisions. Providēre combines pro-, meaning "before," and vidēre, meaning "to see," and it may look familiar to you; it is also the source of our words provide, provident, provision, and improvise. Vidēre also has many English offspring, including evident, supervise, video, and vision. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 18, 2015 is: whodunit • \hoo-DUN-it\ • noun : a detective story or mystery story Examples: Betsy packed several romance novels and whodunits to read at the beach. "'Miranda Writes,' a new play that combines the elements of a screwball comedy with a whodunit, will take center stage this month at Naperville's North Central College." - Nancy Dunker, Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, Illinois), April 8, 2015 Did you know? In 1930, Donald Gordon, a book reviewer for News of Books, needed to come up with something to say about a rather unremarkable mystery novel called Half-Mast Murder. "A satisfactory whodunit," he wrote. The coinage played fast and loose with spelling and grammar, but whodunit caught on anyway. Other writers tried respelling it who-done-it, and one even insisted on using whodidit, but those sanitized versions lacked the punch of the original and have fallen by the wayside. Whodunit became so popular that by 1939 at least one language pundit had declared it "already heavily overworked" and predicted it would "soon be dumped into the taboo bin." History has proven that prophecy false, and whodunit is still going strong. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 17, 2015 is: terrestrial • \tuh-RESS-tree-ul\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to the earth or its inhabitants 2 : living or growing on land 3 : belonging to a class of planets that are like the earth (as in density and silicate composition) Examples: The newly discovered fossils include some of the earliest known terrestrial arachnids. "The InSight mission, scheduled to launch in March 2016, will record the first ever measurements of the interior of the red planet, giving scientists detail into the evolution of Mars and other terrestrial planets." - Denver Post, November 18, 2014 Did you know? What do terriers, terrariums, and terraces have in common with terrestrial? [Terra firma](/dictionary/terra firma)! All of those words derive from the Latin root terra, which means "earth." Of course, terrestrial can refer to anything on or from the Earth, and extraterrestrial describes things (or science fiction creatures) that come from space. And early usage of terrestrial, dating from the 15th century, indeed referred to creatures and other things that pertain to this world, as opposed to the heavens. By the 17th century, however, the word was also being used to describe things found strictly on land, as opposed to those found in the sea or air. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 16, 2015 is: hinterland • \HIN-ter-land\ • noun 1 : a region lying inland from a coast 2 a : a region remote from cities b : a region lying beyond major metropolitan or cultural centers Examples: The enormous Greenland Ice Sheet covers most of the hinterland of the world's largest island. "I know my country, and my fellow countrymen; the people I was meeting were simple souls, scraping a living in Yemen’s tough agricultural hinterland. Large political questions were far from their minds." - Baraa Shiban, The Guardian (London), April 6, 2015 Did you know? When you're dealing with geography, it helps to know your hinterland from your umland. In the late 19th century, geographer George Chisholm took note of the German word Hinterland (literally, "land in back of") and applied it specifically to the region just inland from a port or coastal settlement. (Chisholm spelled the word hinderland, but English speakers eventually settled on hinterland.) Early in the 20th century, another geographer adopted the German Umland ("land around") to refer to the territory around an inland town. What hinterland and umland have in common is a reference to a region economically tied to a nearby city. But nowadays hinterland has a less technical use as well; it's used for land that's simply out in the sticks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 15, 2015 is: bowdlerize • \BOHD-ler-ize\ • verb 1 : to expurgate by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar 2 : to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content Examples: Years later, it was discovered that the publisher had bowdlerized many of the poet's letters. "Being an iconic classic, however, hasn't protected Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from being banned, bowdlerized and bleeped. It hasn't protected the novel from being cleaned up, updated and 'improved.'" - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, January 6, 2011 Did you know? Few editors have achieved the notoriety of Thomas Bowdler. He was trained as a physician, but when illness prevented him from practicing medicine, he turned to warning Europeans about unsanitary conditions at French watering places. Bowdler then carried his quest for purification to literature, and in 1818 he published his Family Shakspeare [sic], a work in which he promised that "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The sanitized volume was popular with the public of the day, but literary critics denounced his modifications of the words of the Bard. Bowdler applied his literary eraser broadly, and within 11 years of his death in 1825, the word bowdlerize was being used to refer to expurgating books or other texts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 14, 2015 is: jinni • \JEE-nee\ • noun 1 : one of a class of spirits that according to Muslim demonology inhabit the earth, assume various forms, and exercise supernatural power 2 : a magic spirit believed to take human form and serve the person who calls it : genie Examples: "Onstage, she was electric. She was like some sort of jinni, a supernatural force of some sort." - Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2014 "A knockoff 'Bewitched' in which Hagman played Maj. Anthony Nelson, a bachelor astronaut more or less cohabiting with curvaceous female jinni Barbara Eden, who called him 'Master,' the series, which was risqué in a way about to become outdated, ran from 1965 to 1970…." - Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2012 Did you know? Is that jinni or jinn? Djinni or djinn? Adopted from an Arabic word for demon (usually represented in our alphabet as jinnī), this word is spelled a variety of ways in English-including genie, a spelling that comes from the same Arabic word but by way of French. All of those variant spellings are used to describe a supernatural spirit from Arabic mythology that is made of fire or air and can assume human or animal form. Mythology holds that jinn (that's the plural of jinni) love to punish humans for any harm done to them and that they are the cause of many accidents and diseases. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 13, 2015 is: askance • \uh-SKANSS\ • adverb 1 : with a side-glance : obliquely 2 : with disapproval or distrust : scornfully Examples: Rebecca's children looked askance at her when she suggested they turn off their electronic devices and go play outside in the nice weather. "Well, mandolin players tend to look askance at ukuleles, because we're often asked if that little guitar-looking thing is a ukulele. 'No, it’s a mandolin!'" - Geoff Howes, BG News (Bowling Green State University), April 5, 2015 Did you know? Etymologists have been scratching their heads over the origin of askance for centuries. Sources from Italian and Old Norse, among other languages, have been suggested, but, today, dictionary editors look askance at all of these explanations and simply label the word "origin unknown." What we do know is that the word was first used in English in the mid-16th century with the meaning "sideways" or "with a sideways glance," and that writers over the years have used the suggestion of someone looking askance at something to express a number of feelings from disapproval and distrust to jealousy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 12, 2015 is: ingurgitate • \in-GUR-juh-tayt\ • verb : to swallow greedily or in large quantities : guzzle Examples: "Because we always listen to 'the experts,' we make sure to ingurgitate some protein after an extended endurance workout." - Christopher Arns, Sacramento (California) Bee August 31, 2013 "The twilight deepens, one talks … feelingly about the amorous mysteries, one produces cocktails … and goes on talking so that they ingurgitate them absent-mindedly without reflection." - Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point, 1928 Did you know? Most people are familiar with regurgitate as a fancy synonym for "throw up," but far fewer know of its rarer antonym ingurgitate. It's a word more likely to turn up in a spelling bee than in a conversation, but it does see occasional use, both literal (as in "ingurgitating red wine") and figurative (as in "ingurgitating artwork"). Regurgitate and ingurgitate (as well as gurgitate, an even rarer synonym of ingurgitate, and gorge, meaning "to eat greedily") can be ultimately traced back to the Latin word for "whirlpool," which is gurges. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 11, 2015 is: technobabble • \TEK-nuh-bab-ul\ • noun : technical jargon Examples: The manual for the computer program used so much technobabble that I was completely lost. "Flitting comfortably between highbrow wit and gleeful crassness, Silicon Valley elicits more than its share of honest-to-goodness belly laughs, whether or not you’re up on the latest technobabble." - Portland (Maine) Press-Herald, April 5, 2015 Did you know? Technobabble was formed by combining techno- (meaning "technical or technological") with babble ("continuous meaningless vocal sounds"), and unsurprisingly suggests language which sounds highly technical and is incomprehensible to the listener. Techno- as a combining form has given English speakers a number of interesting words, including but not limited to technocrat, technophile and technophobia, techno-thriller, technopreneur, and even technostructure ("the network of professionally skilled scientists, engineers, and administrators that tends to control the economy"). Techno- itself traces back to the same root word that gave us technology, namely the Greek word technē, meaning "art, craft, or practical skill." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 10, 2015 is: riparian • \ruh-PAIR-ee-un\ • adjective : relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (such as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater Examples: When the students were studying riparian habitat development, their teacher took them on a field trip to a nearby creek. "But invasive plants slowly overtook the native savannahs, prairie and riparian forest that soil samples have proved were there first." - Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle, March 31, 2015 Did you know? Riparian came to English from the same source that gave us river-the Latin riparius, a noun deriving from ripa, meaning "bank" or "shore." First appearing in English in the 19th century, riparian refers to things that exist alongside a river (such as riparian wetlands, habitats, trees, etc.). Some river communities have laws called "riparian rights," referring to the rights of those owning land along a river to have access to the waterway. Note the distinction of this word from littoral, which usually refers to things that occur along the shore of a sea or ocean. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 9, 2015 is: saltation • \sal-TAY-shun\ • noun 1 a : the action or process of leaping or jumping b : dance 2 : the origin of a new species or a higher taxon in essentially a single evolutionary step Examples: "Neither kangaroos nor rats, the kangaroo rats show a genetic kinship to beavers. The name 'kangaroo' owes to their hopping on enlarged hind legs, a locomotion known as saltation." -Kevin J. Cook, The Coloradoan (Fort Collins, Colorado), August 31, 2014 "Toronto residents asked their public library to remove six books and a DVD over the past year, and one of those books was Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop. The classic rhyming tale of fatherhood and saltation was accused of putting pops at risk of being actually hopped on." - Jay Hathaway, Gawker.com, April 30, 2014 Did you know? Saltation comes from Latin, deriving ultimately from the verb salire, meaning "to leap." Etymologists think it meant "leap" or "jump" when it was first used in English, too, but documented evidence of early use in that sense is scarce. Instead, the oldest manuscripts containing the word (which date from the 1620s) show it used as a synonym of "dancing." The first recorded incidence of the "leaping" sense dates from 1646, when British physician and author Sir Thomas Browne used it in an entomological context: "Locusts ... being ordained for saltation, their hinder legs doe far exceed the other." The word made the leap to evolutionary theory in 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 May 8, 2015 is: louche • \LOOSH\ • adjective : not reputable or decent Examples: The man was nicely dressed but had a hard-boiled, louche look about him that raised suspicion. "However louche Los Angeles' image may be, it remains a puritanical city in a puritanical state. California caps the number of bar licenses … at one for every 2,000 residents. That number hasn't changed since 1939…." - Josh Stephens, Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2015 Did you know? Louche ultimately comes from the Latin word luscus, meaning "blind in one eye" or "having poor sight." This Latin term gave rise to the French louche, meaning "squinting" or "cross-eyed." The French gave their term a figurative sense as well, taking that squinty look to mean "shady" or "devious." English speakers didn't see the need for the sight-impaired uses when they borrowed the term in the 19th century, but they kept the figurative one. The word is still quite visible today and is used to describe both people and things of questionable repute. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 7, 2015 is: virtuoso • \ver-choo-OH-soh\ • noun 1 : someone skilled in or having a taste for the fine arts 2 : someone who excels in the technique of an art; especially : a highly skilled musical performer 3 : a person who has great skill at some endeavor Examples: Peggy, a virtuoso on the piano, performed her first recital when she was only six years old. "The night's loose theme was the '27 Club,' that small but storied group of well-known musicians who passed away at age 27-among them guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana wailer Kurt Cobain, blues legend Robert Johnson, and Rolling Stones founding member Brian Jones." - Maura Johnston, Boston Globe, April 6, 2015 Did you know? English speakers borrowed the Italian noun virtuoso in the 1600s, but the Italian word had a former life as an adjective meaning both "virtuous" and "skilled." In English, virtuoso can be pluralized as either virtuosos or virtuosi, and it is often used attributively-that is, like an adjective before another noun, as in "a virtuoso performer." The first virtuosos were individuals of substantial knowledge and learning ("great wits," to quote one 17th-century clergyman). The word was then transferred to those skilled in the arts, and by the 18th century it had acquired its specific sense applied to musicians. In the 20th century, English speakers broadened virtuoso again to apply to a person skilled in any pursuit. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 6, 2015 is: dauntless • \DAWNT-lus\ • adjective : resolute especially in the face of danger or difficulty : fearless, undaunted Examples: The rescuers were dauntless, battling cold, wind, and fatigue to reach the injured mountain climbers. "In recent years Scandinavian central bankers have shown the same dauntless appetite for exploration that once saw Nordic ships fan out across the globe." - Financial Times, April 9, 2015 Did you know? The history of the world is peopled with dauntless men and women who refused to be subdued or "tamed" by fear. The word dauntless can be traced back to Latin domare, meaning "to tame" or "to subdue." When our verb daunt (a domare descendant borrowed by way of Anglo-French) was first used in the 14th century, it shared these meanings. The now-obsolete "tame" sense referred to the taming or breaking of wild animals, particularly horses: an undaunted horse was an unbroken horse. Not until the late 16th century did we use undaunted with the meaning "undiscouraged and courageously resolute" to describe people. By then, such lionhearted souls could also be described as undauntable, and finally, in Henry VI, Part 3, Shakespeare gave us dauntless. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 5, 2015 is: epigram • \EP-ih-gram\ • noun 1 : a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought 2 : a terse, sage, or witty and often paradoxical saying 3 : expression marked by the use of epigrams Examples: On the wall of his studio, Jonathan kept a framed print of his favorite epigram from Benjamin Franklin: "Little strokes fell great oaks." "But this is a work that tends to rely on pithy epigrams, rather than build a sturdy narrative arc about a young artist's awakening and an old artist's raging against the dying of the light." - Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune, February 13, 2015 Did you know? Ancient Greeks and Romans used the word epigramma (from Greek epigraphein, meaning "to write on") to refer to a concise, witty, and often satirical verse. The Roman poet Martial (who published eleven books of these epigrammata, or epigrams, between the years 86 and 98 C.E.) was a master of the form: "You puff the poets of other days, / the living you deplore. / Spare me the accolade: your praise / Is not worth dying for." English speakers adopted the "verse" sense of the word when we first used epigram for a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event in the 15th century. In the late 18th century, we began using epigram for concise, witty sayings, even if they didn't rhyme. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 4, 2015 is: cozen • \KUZ-un\ • verb 1 : to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery 2 : to gain by artful coaxing or tricky deception Examples: The young man used his charm to cozen elderly victims into pouring their savings into his investment scheme. "The BBC stated in its coverage of the decision that some satirical content had been mistaken for the truth in the past, including one instance in 2013 when the Washington Post was cozened into reporting that Sarah Palin signed onto Al-Jazeera as a correspondent." - Chandra Johnson, Deseret News, August 20, 2014 Did you know? "Be not utterly deceived (or to speak in plainer terms, cozened at their hands)." Denouncing the evils of the times, 16th-century Puritan pamphleteer Philip Stubbes thus warned against unscrupulous merchants. Cozen may not seem a "plainer term" to us, but it might have to the horse-dependent folks of the 16th century. Some linguists have theorized that cozen traces to the Italian noun cozzone, which means "horse trader." Horse-trading, as in the actual swapping of horses, usually involved bargaining and compromise-and, in fact, the term "horse-trading" has come to suggest any shrewd negotiation. It seems safe to assume that not all of these negotiations were entirely on the up-and-up. Given its etymological association with horse traders, therefore, it's not too surprising that cozen suggests deception and fraud. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 3, 2015 is: predicate • \PRED-uh-kayt\ • verb 1 : affirm, declare 2 a : to assert to be a quality, attribute, or property - used with of b : to make (a term) the predicate in a proposition 3 : found, base - usually used with on 4 : imply Examples: "We don't elect them to agree with us, but rather to explain to us the best options available. All of this is predicated on the sacred trust that elected officials will share all options they've explored, identify the ones they haven't, and share the rationale behind their decisions." - Robert F. Walsh, Stratford (Connecticut) Star, January 29, 2015 "His speech ushered in a new era of social media. Agencies sprung up promising client services predicated on [Mark] Zuckerberg's vision of a more social, interactive approach to marketing communication." - Mark Ritson, Marketing Week, January 15, 2015 Did you know? The verb predicate means, among other things, "to found or base." Despite being attested as early as 1754, that sense has endured attack as a misuse on the grounds that it is not true to its Latin root praedicare, meaning "to proclaim, assert." This criticism, however, has subsided. Predicate can also mean "imply," but be careful about using it to mean "predict"-that use does appear in published sources sometimes, but it's an easy target for usage commentators, who are bound to consider it an all-too-predictable error. The meaning of predicate directly tapped from its Latin root-that is, "to assert"-most often occurs in metaphysic contemplation. A simplistic example of such use is the statement "if y is said to be x (e.g., an apple is a fruit), everything that is predicated of y is predicated of x." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 2, 2015 is: masterful • \MASS-ter-ful\ • adjective 1 a : inclined and usually competent to act as master b : suggestive of a domineering nature 2 : having or reflecting the skills of a master Examples: "The San Carlos-based author is a masterful storyteller, and her command of language, plot and character come together brilliantly…." - Georgia Rowe, San Jose (California) Mercury News, March 20, 2015 "He was a fellow of huge physical strength, masterful, violent, with a certain barbaric thrift and some intelligence of men and business." - Robert Louis Stevenson, In the South Seas, 1896 Did you know? Some commentators insist that masterful must only mean "domineering," reserving the "expert, skillful" sense for masterly. The distinction is a modern one. In earlier times, the terms were used interchangeably, with each having both the "domineering" and "expert" senses. The "domineering" sense of masterly fell into disuse around the 18th century, however, and in the 20th century the famous grammarian H. W. Fowler decided that masterful should be similarly limited to a single meaning. He summarily ruled that the "expert" definition of masterful was incorrect. Other usage writers followed his lead. But the "expert" meaning of masterful has continued to flourish in standard prose in spite of the disapproval, and, considering the sense's long history, it cannot really be called 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 May 1, 2015 is: aficionado • \uh-fish-ee-uh-NAH-doh\ • noun : a person who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity : devotee Examples: Mickey's brother, an aficionado of jazz, was a regular at the downtown clubs and often bought new records on the day they were released. "For American chess aficionados, lopsided defeats in three U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. team matches in less than a decade after World War II was an understandably painful blow." - Shelby Lyman, The Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), April 3, 2015 Did you know? The affection an aficionado has for his or her favorite subject isn't merely emotional-it's also etymological. Back in the early 1800s, English borrowed aficionado from the past participle of the Spanish verb aficionar, which means "to inspire affection." That verb comes from the Spanish noun afición, meaning "affection." Both Spanish words trace to the Latin affectio (which is also an ancestor of the English word affection). Affectio, in turn, is from afficere ("to influence") and gave English speakers the noun and verbs affect. 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 30, 2015 is: mogul • \MOH-gul\ • noun 1 : (capitalized Mogul) an Indian Muslim of or descended from one of several conquering groups of Mongol, Turkish, and Persian origin; especially : Great Mogul 2 : a person of rank, power, influence, or distinction often in a specified area Examples: The media mogul owned such a large number of newspapers and television stations across the country that his influence on political discourse could not be denied. "Music mogul Russell Simmons is producing a brand new stage musical that will celebrate three generations of hip-hop, from Run DMC to Kanye West." - Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press, March 19, 2015 Did you know? Started by Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan, the Muslim Mogul dynasty ruled much of India from the early 16th century to the mid-18th century. The Moguls (whose name is also spelled Moghul or Mughal) were known for their talented and powerful rulers (called "Great Moguls"), so it's no surprise that in English the word mogul came to denote a powerful person, as in today's familiar references to "media moguls." Skiers might wonder if such power moguls have anything to do with the name they use for a bump in a ski run, but that hilly homonym has nothing to do with Asian Mogul dynasties. We picked up the skier's mogul from German dialect, from a root that is probably related to the Viennese mugl, meaning "small hill." 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 29, 2015 is: commodious • \kuh-MOH-dee-us\ • adjective : comfortably or conveniently spacious : roomy Examples: "Branch … says the top priority for a moviegoer is comfortable seating. To meet that demand, Hendrick Construction … removed the theater's 1,800 traditionally narrow, fabric-covered folding seats and replaced them with 800 more commodious, densely padded, soft grey vinyl recliners nearly 3 feet in width." - Roberta Fuchs, Mecklenburg Times (Charlotte, North Carolina), March 2, 2015 "The voice came from the boughs of a tall cherry-tree, where Adam had no difficulty in discerning a small blue-pinafored figure perched in a commodious position where the fruit was thickest." - George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859 Did you know? Although it's now used to mean "roomy," in the 16th century commodious was regularly used to mean "handy" or "serviceable," a meaning that is true to the word's Latin ancestor, commodum, meaning "convenience." Poet William Cowper used the word in that original sense in a letter referring to a vessel that served double duty, carrying mackerel and herring from a seaside town to London, then making the return trip carrying passengers. As Cowper observed, "The cheapness of the conveyance made it equally commodious for dead fish and lively company." (No doubt the arriving passengers had a lively smell, which may be one reason why Cowper also noted that some visitors to the seaside town were company whom "people who were nice in the choice of their company, were rather fearful of keeping company with.") 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 28, 2015 is: portmanteau • \port-MAN-toh\ • noun 1 : a large suitcase 2 : a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms Examples: The word "ginormous" is a portmanteau of "gigantic" and "enormous." "… the rumors that the singer [Rihanna] is now dating Leonardo DiCaprio may or may not be true, but they do give the world the portmanteau RihCaprio." - Alison Herman, Flavorwire, March 20, 2015 Did you know? In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to explain words from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" and is told that slithy is "like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word." Although slithy hasn't caught on (it's made up of slimy and lithe, according to Humpty Dumpty), another portmanteau invented by Carroll has in fact found a place in the language: chortle (supposedly from chuckle and snort). English includes other portmanteaus, too, such as brunch (breakfast and lunch) and dramedy (drama and comedy). Following Carroll's lead, English speakers have come to call these fairly common words by the not-so-common name for a type of traveling bag with two compartments. The technical (and simpler) term for such words is blend. 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 27, 2015 is: savvy • \SAV-ee\ • verb : to understand Examples: "The agency's Denver office sent Siringo, who savvied some Spanish, to Santa Fe." - Ollie Reed Jr., Albuquerque (New Mexico) Tribune, June 30, 2001 "And kudos to Stan for the sensitivity. Savvying the tension between Ted and Peggy, Stan offers a sincere, 'Buck up chief.'" - Marisa Nadolny, The Day, March 25, 2015 Did you know? You may be familiar with the noun savvy, meaning "practical know-how" (as in "her political savvy"), and the adjective use (as in "a savvy investor"). And if you've seen any of the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean movies, you also know that the verb is used as an informal, one-word question meaning "Do you understand?" (as in "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?"). But Jack Sparrow (i.e., Johnny Depp) didn't invent the term. Both the noun and the verb came into use around 1785. Savvy is based on the Portuguese term sabe, meaning "he knows," which itself is from Latin sapere, meaning "to be wise." Creole speakers interpreted the Portuguese term as sabi and began using it as one would "know." Eventually, the Creole sabi evolved into today's 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 April 26, 2015 is: rococo • \ruh-KOH-koh\ • adjective 1 : of or relating to an artistic style especially of the 18th century characterized by fanciful curved asymmetrical forms and elaborate ornamentation 2 : excessively ornate or intricate Examples: Among the items being auctioned off is a beautiful set of six chairs carved in a rococo style. "Mythological creatures of all sizes embellish hundreds of temples and rococo shrines clustered around a 300-foot-tall spire covered with 20 tons of gold and topped by a 72-carat diamond." - Curtis Ellis, Boston Globe, February 22, 2015 Did you know? In the 18th century, French artists rebelled against the ponderousness of baroque style and began to create light, delicate interior decorations, furniture, and architectural elements characterized by fanciful, curved, asymmetrical forms and elaborate ornamentation. The name of their new style, rococo, has been traced to the French rocaille, a term that evoked the ornamental use of rock and shell forms. In time, rococo was also applied to similarly ornamented and intimate styles of painting and music. But all fashions fade, and by the mid-1800s the rococo style was deemed excessively ornate and out-of-date. Now rococo is often used with mild disdain to describe the overly elaborate. 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 25, 2015 is: lissome • \LISS-um\ • adjective 1 : easily flexed 2 : lithe, nimble Examples: The lissome figures of the swimmers wriggled up and down the lanes of the pool. "One [pas de deux](/dictionary/pas de deux), by Vernard J. Gilmore and Sarah Daley, whose arms floated from her lissome torso like drifting silk, offered a rare glimpse of the choreography's eerie capriciousness." - Gia Kourlas, New York Times, December 8, 2014 Did you know? Lissome (sometimes spelled lissom) is a gently altered form of its synonym, lithesome. While lissome tends to be the more popular choice these days, the two words have similar pasts. They both appeared in the second half of the 18th century, and they both trace back to the much older lithe ("supple" or "graceful"), which first appeared in English during the 14th century and comes from an Old English word meaning "gentle." Lissome can also be an adverb meaning "in a supple or nimble manner," but this use is rare. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.