Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 24, 2015 is: tyro • \TYE-roh\ • noun : a beginner in learning : novice Examples: The ranch has one riding trail for tyros and several more challenging options for experienced riders. "The young Falcons tyro is up for the challenge after missing the first two games of the season with an ankle injury he carried through pre-season." - Sunshine Coast Daily, March 25, 2015 Did you know? The word tyro is hardly a newcomer to Western language. It comes from the Latin tiro, which means "young soldier," "new recruit," or more generally, "novice." The word was sometimes spelled tyro as early as Medieval Latin, and can be spelled tyro or tiro in English (though tyro is the more common American spelling). Use of tyro in English has never been restricted to the original "young soldier" meaning of the Latin term. Writers in the 17th and 18th centuries wrote of tyros in various fields and occupations. Herman Melville used tyro to refer to men new to whaling and life at sea. The word is sometimes used attributively-that is, directly before another noun-as it has been since the 17th century, as in phrases like "tyro reporter" and "tyro actors." 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 23, 2015 is: null • \NULL\ • adjective 1 : having no legal or binding force : invalid 2 : amounting to nothing : nil 3 : having no value : insignificant 4 : having no elements Examples: The court will declare the city ordinance null if it is found to be in conflict with state law. "Michigan voters in November rejected two ballot questions that would essentially have allowed the state Natural Resources Commission to decide the hunting of wolves. But a legislative maneuver made those votes null." - John Barnes, Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette, December 23, 2014 Did you know? English borrowed null from the Anglo-French nul, meaning "not any." That word, in turn, traces to the Latin word nullus, from ne-, meaning "not," and ullus, meaning "any." We sometimes use null with the meaning "lacking meaning or value," as in "By the time I heard it, the news was null." In math, null is sometimes used to mean "containing nothing"; for example, the set of all whole numbers that are divisible by zero is the null set (that is, there are no numbers that fit that description). The phrase null and void is a term in its own right, defined as "having no validity." 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 22, 2015 is: quidnunc • \KWID-nunk\ • noun : a person who seeks to know all the latest news or gossip : busybody Examples: We were naturally curious when the moving van appeared in the Michaelsons' driveway, but the neighborhood quidnunc, Mrs. Dyer, had already heard that Mr. Michaelson was being transferred to a new job out of town. "To spend time with a book in order to read scandalous revelations about real-life people is not an elevated or honourable thing to do, but it appeals to the gossip-sharing quidnunc in all of us." - John Walsh, The Independent (London), July 22, 2003 Did you know? "What's new?" That's a question every busybody wants answered. Latin-speaking Nosey Parkers might have used some version of the expression quid nunc, literally "what now," to ask the same question. Appropriately, the earliest documented English use of quidnunc to refer to a gossiper appeared in 1709 in Sir Richard Steele's famous periodical, The Tatler. Steele is far from the only writer to ply quidnunc in his prose, however. You can also find the word among the pages of works by such writers as Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. But don't think the term is old news-it sees some use in current publications, too. 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 21, 2015 is: omnipotent • \ahm-NIP-uh-tunt\ • adjective : having virtually unlimited authority or influence Examples: Small children often believe their parents to be omnipotent, capable of commanding any situation or resolving any problem they find before them. "As test scores become the omnipotent factor in what determines an effective educator, a successful student, or the quality of a school, awe-inspired learning moments begin to pale in comparison to the urgency of bubbling in a correct answer." - Laurie Futterman, Miami Herald, March 11, 2015 Did you know? The word omnipotent made its way into English through Anglo-French, but it ultimately derives from the Latin prefix omni-, meaning "all," and the word potens, meaning "potent." The omni- prefix has also given us similar words such as omniscient (meaning "all-knowing") and omnivorous (describing an animal that eats both plants and other animals). Although omnipotent is used in general contexts to mean "all-powerful" (as in "an omnipotent warlord"), its original applications in English referred specifically to the power held by an almighty God. The word has been used as an English adjective since the 14th century; since 1600 it has also been used as a noun referring to one who is omnipotent. 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 20, 2015 is: ailurophile • \eye-LOOR-uh-fyle\ • noun : a cat fancier : a lover of cats Examples: Ailurophiles, young and old, are sure to love the art museum's new exhibit featuring paintings and photographs of felines, ranging from tabbies to man-eaters. "Yes, it's book one of a series…. And yes, the primary villain is a cat, whereas I'm an unashamed ailurophile. … But none of that mattered when I closed the back cover-I just wanted more, more, more." - Katie Ward Beim-Esche, Christian Science Monitor, December 30, 2014 Did you know? Although the word ailurophile has only been documented in English since the early 1900s, ailurophiles have been around for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians were perhaps history's greatest cat lovers, pampering and adorning felines, honoring them in art, even treating them as gods. But the English word ailurophile does not descend from Egyptian; rather, it comes from a combination of the Greek word ailouros, which means "cat," and the suffix -phile, meaning "lover." If Egyptian cat-loving sentiments leave you cold and you're more sympathetic to medieval Europeans who regarded cats as wicked agents of evil, you might prefer the word ailurophobe (from ailouros plus -phobe, meaning "fearing or averse to"). That's a fancy name for someone who hates or fears cats. 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 19, 2015 is: desiccate • \DESS-ih-kayt\ • verb 1 : to dry up or become dried up 2 : to preserve (a food) by drying : dehydrate 3 : to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality Examples: Weeks of blazing heat along with a prolonged lack of rain have desiccated many of the plants in our garden. "Since these insects desiccate easily, they will build tunnels to provide themselves the moisture they need." - Paula Weatherby, Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), February 7, 2015 Did you know? Raisins are desiccated grapes; they're also dehydrated grapes. And yet, a close look at the etymologies of desiccate and dehydrate raises a tangly question. In Latin siccus means "dry," whereas the Greek stem hydr- means "water." So how could it be that desiccate and dehydrate are synonyms? The answer is in the multiple identities of the prefix de-. It may look like the same prefix, but the de- in desiccate means "completely, thoroughly," as in despoil ("to spoil utterly") or denude ("to strip completely bare"). The de- in dehydrate, on the other hand, means "remove," the same as it does in defoliate ("to strip of leaves") or in deice ("to rid of ice"). 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 18, 2015 is: wimple • \WIM-pul\ • verb 1 : to cover with or as if with a wimple : veil 2 : to ripple 3 : (chiefly Scottish) to follow a winding course : meander Examples: A thick fog wimpled the shoreline so that the only thing that could be seen from the distance was the light winking from the top of the lighthouse. "In retrospect, [The Sound of Music] may have been the first movie to introduce the concept of 'saboteur nun,' and made people think differently about the wimpled sorority." - James Lileks, National Review Online, December 9, 2013 Did you know? Wimple is the name of the covering worn over the head and around the neck and chin by women in the late medieval period, as well as by some modern nuns. Its name is akin to Old Saxon wimpal and Middle Dutch wimpel, both of which mean "veil" or "banner." Like the word veil, wimple is also used as a verb meaning "cover" and was adopted by literary writers as a substitute for ripple and meander, especially when writing about streams. "Over the little brook which wimpled along below towered an arch," James Russell Lowell once observed. 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 17, 2015 is: rebarbative • \rih-BAR-buh-tiv\ • adjective : repellent, irritating Examples: The cantankerous professor found the music, clothing, and slang favored by her students to be rebarbative. "For all the complaints about his abrasiveness, the shadow chancellor is simply doing his job.… He once gave me a heartfelt radio interview in which he suggested, like the character in the Roger Rabbit movie, that he was not so much bad but 'just drawn that way,' and that maturity had taken the edge off his rebarbative manner." - Anne McElvoy, The Guardian, February 22, 2015 Did you know? You may be surprised to learn that today's word traces back to the Latin word for beard-barba-making it a very distant relative of the English word beard. But there is some sense to the connection. After all, beards may not be repellent, but they can be prickly and scratchy. Another descendant of Latin barba is the English word barb, which can refer to a sharp projection (as found on barbed wire) or a biting critical remark, both of which can discourage others from getting too close. An interesting side note: barber too traces back to barba-but by way of an Anglo-French word for beard. 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 16, 2015 is: hat trick • \HAT-TRICK\ • noun 1 : the retiring of three batsmen with three consecutive balls by a bowler in cricket 2 : the scoring of three goals in one game by a single player 3 : a series of three victories, successes, or related accomplishments Examples: "Scoring a celestial hat trick, the space shuttle Discovery placed its third satellite in orbit Saturday." - The Houston Post, September 2, 1984 "Eleven seconds into the third period, hundreds of hats were thrown onto the ice after Flyers center Brayden Schenn apparently scored the first hat trick of his career." - Sam Carchidi, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 2015 Did you know? It may surprise some people to learn that the term hat trick actually originated in British cricket. A bowler who retired three batsmen with three consecutive balls in cricket was entitled to a new hat at the expense of the club to commemorate this feat. Eventually, the phrase was applied to the same player scoring three goals in any goal sport, and baseball announcers now occasionally refer to a batter who gets three hits in three turns at bat as having managed a hat trick as well. The phrase finally broadened to include any string of three important successes or achievements in any field. 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 15, 2015 is: stentorian • \sten-TOR-ee-un\ • adjective : extremely loud Examples: The foreman barked out his orders in a stentorian tone that could be heard clearly over the din of the factory's machinery. "[Lawrence] Tanter … was the first voice to stand out among the bedlam when the Lakers came from behind to beat Boston in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals. He said simply in his stentorian way, 'Number 16.'" - Mike Bresnahan, Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2015 Did you know? The Greek herald Stentor was known for having a voice that came through loud and clear. In fact, in the Iliad, Homer described Stentor as a man whose voice was as loud as that of fifty men together. Stentor's powerful voice made him a natural choice for delivering announcements and proclamations to the assembled Greek army during the Trojan War, and it also made his name a byword for any person with a loud, strong voice. Both the noun stentor and the related adjective stentorian pay homage to the big-voiced warrior, and both have been making noise in English since the early 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 April 14, 2015 is: bilk • \BILK\ • verb 1 : to block the free development of : frustrate 2 a : to cheat out of something valuable : defraud b : to evade payment of or to 3 : to slip away from Examples: The investigation revealed that the garage had been bilking motorists for repairs that had never been made. "Two women were convicted Thursday of taking part in a scheme in which unnecessary medical procedures were carried out in order to bilk insurance companies out of more than $50 million." - Sean Emery, Orange County Register (California), March 7, 2015 Did you know? Initially, "bilking" wasn't considered cheating-just good strategy for cribbage players. Language historians aren't sure where bilk originated, but they have noticed that its earliest uses occur in contexts referring to cribbage. Part of the scoring in cribbage involves each player adding cards from his or her hand to a pile of discards called the "crib." At the end of a hand, the dealer gets any points in the crib. Strategically, then, it's wisest for the dealer's opponent to discard non-scoring cards-the ones most likely to "balk," or put a check on, the dealer's score. Etymologists theorize that "bilk" may have originated as an alteration of that card-game "balk." 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 13, 2015 is: febrile • \FEB-ryle\ • adjective : marked or caused by fever : feverish Examples: The patient exhibited a rash and febrile symptoms that were consistent with a certain rare tropical infection. "Febrile seizures typically occur between the ages of 6 months and 6 years old. They happen when a fever spikes very quickly...." - Vikki Ortiz Healy, Chicago Tribune, August 4, 2014 Did you know? Not too surprisingly, febrile originated in the field of medicine. We note its first use in the work of the 17th-century medical reformer Noah Biggs. Biggs used it in admonishing physicians to care for their "febrile patients" properly. Both feverish and febrile are from the Latin word for fever, which is febris. Nowadays, febrile is used in medicine in a variety of ways, including references to such things as "the febrile phase" of an illness. And, like feverish, it also has an extended sense, as in "a febrile emotional state." 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 12, 2015 is: lotusland • \LOH-tus-land\ • noun 1 : a place inducing contentment especially through offering an idyllic living situation 2 : a state or an ideal marked by contentment often achieved through self-indulgence Examples: The tropical resort was stunning, but after two weeks of recreation and relaxation, I was ready to leave lotusland and return home. "As a work of fiction it was artless at best, but as a portrait of the pampered children of lotusland it had a devastating aura of authenticity; younger people may have read it for titillation, but their parents read it as a disturbing report from an unknown country." - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, October 12, 1987 Did you know? In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his men discover a magical land of lotus-eaters. Some of the sailors eat the delicious "lotus" and forget about their homeland, pleading to stay forever in this "lotusland." (It is likely that the lotus in question was inspired by the fruit of a real plant of the buckthorn family, perhaps the jujube, whose sweet juice is used in candy making and which has given its name to a popular fruity candy.) The label lotusland is now applied to any place resembling such an ideal of perfection, but it also carries connotations of indolence and self-indulgence, possibly derived from the way the sailors refused to work once they reached the original lotusland. The dreamy unreality of a lotusland is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. 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 11, 2015 is: verdant • \VER-dunt\ • adjective 1 a : green in tint or color b : green with growing plants 2 : unripe in experience or judgment : green Examples: The golf course was noted for its tricky hazards and lush, verdant borders along its fairways. "Her favorite part of the room was the expansive window looking out over a verdant landscape of hills and distant mountains." - SDNews.com (San Diego), March 9, 2015 Did you know? English speakers have been using verdant as a ripe synonym of green since the late 16th century, and as a descriptive term for inexperienced or naive people since the 1820s. (By contrast, the more experienced green has colored our language since well before the 12th century and was first applied to inexperienced people in the 1540s.) Verdant is derived from the Old French word for green, vert, which in turn is from Latin virēre, meaning "to be green." Today, vert is used in English as a word for green forest vegetation and the heraldic color green. Another descendant of virēre is the adjective virescent, meaning "beginning to be green." 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 10, 2015 is: juncture • \JUNK-cher\ • noun 1 : joint, connection 2 : a point of time; especially : one made critical by a concurrence of circumstances Examples: "At this juncture in the editing process," said Philip, "it is important that all facts have been double-checked and sources verified." "Obasohan's absence came at a critical juncture when the game got away from the Crimson Tide...." - Kevin Scarbinsky, AL.com, March 3, 2015 Did you know? Juncture has many relatives in English-and some of them are easy to spot, whereas others are not so obvious. Juncture derives from the Latin verb jungere ("to join"), which gave us not only join and junction but also conjugal ("relating to marriage") and junta ("a group of persons controlling a government"). Jungere also has distant etymological connections to joust, jugular, juxtapose, yoga, and yoke. The use of juncture in English dates back to the 14th century. Originally, the word meant "a place where two or more things are joined," but by the 17th century it could also be used of an important point in time or of a stage in a process or activity. 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 9, 2015 is: bicoastal • \bye-KOAST-ul\ • adjective : of or relating to or living or working on both the east and west coasts of the United States Examples: Richard and Laura had become a bicoastal couple, often shuttling between their primary home in New York and their vacation ranch in San Diego. "Mish grew up in Southern California and now lives near the Chesapeake Bay. She uses those bicoastal influences to inspire her beachy, nautical designs." - Zoë Read, Baltimore Sun, January 1, 2015 Did you know? Bicoastal is a word whose meaning shifted in the 1970s to reflect our mobile society. Prior to that, the term was occasionally used in general contexts involving both coasts (as in "a bicoastal naval defense"). These days bicoastal is almost always associated with people who make frequent trips between one coast and the other. An article with a Los Angeles dateline published in The New York Times in 1983 declared bicoastal to be "a popular term among an affluent, mobile set of Angelenos." But Angelenos weren't the only ones using the term-by that time, the word had already been appearing in national magazines. 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 8, 2015 is: travail • \truh-VAIL\ • noun 1 a : work especially of a painful or laborious nature : toil b : a physical or mental exertion or piece of work : task, effort c : agony, torment 2 : childbirth, labor Examples: "Japan's electronics industry has been able to hold on to its status as a powerhouse exporter in spite of numerous travails, such as the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s." - Tatsuo Ito, Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2015 "But this is not the first time Bono has dabbled in journalism, or exposed himself to the unforgiving gaze of the blogosphere. Other literary travails include a blog for the Financial Times in which he describes meeting the Japanese prime minister…." - Alexandra Topping, The Guardian, January 13, 2009 Did you know? Etymologists are pretty certain that travail comes from trepalium, the Late Latin name of an instrument of torture. We don't know exactly what a trepalium looked like, but the word's history gives us an idea. Trepalium is derived from the Latin tripalis, which means "having three stakes" (from tri-, meaning "three," and palus, meaning "stake"). From trepalium sprang the Anglo-French verb travailler, which originally meant "to torment" but eventually acquired the milder senses "to trouble" and "to journey." The Anglo-French noun travail was borrowed into English in the 13th century, followed about a century later by travel, another descendant of travailler. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 7, 2015 is: anfractuous • \an-FRAK-chuh-wus\ • adjective : full of windings and intricate turnings : tortuous Examples: "Dr. X almost never left the boundaries of Old Shanghai, which was part of a separate district; more to the point, he stuck to a small but anfractuous subregion…." - Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, 1995 "The anfractuous remainder of the plot is a booby trap for anyone trying to explain it." - James MacKillop, Syracuse (New York) New Times, November 9, 2011 Did you know? Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that our English word comes from Latin anfractus (same meaning as anfractuous), which in turn comes from the Latin verb frangere, meaning "to break." (Frangere is also the source of fracture, fraction, fragment, and frail.) The prefix an- here means "around." At first, anfractuous was all about ears and the auditory canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Now anfractuous has been around some 400 years, without a break, giving it plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be an anfractuous thought process or an anfractuous shoreline. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 6, 2015 is: purport • \per-PORT\ • verb 1 : to have the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred); also : claim 2 : intend, purpose Examples: The authors purport to offer irrefutable proof of a conspiracy, but in reality their book gives us nothing but unproven conjecture. "A disclosure requirement does not purport to be a solution, in and of itself, to a problematic public practice-no more than a news report about a scandal claims to resolve it." - Chris Gates, New York Times, March 2, 2015 Did you know? The verb purport passed into English in the late 1300s. It derives from the Anglo-French verb purporter (meaning both "to carry" and "to mean"), which itself combined the prefix pur- ("thoroughly") and the verb porter ("to carry"). Like its French parent, purport originally referred to the indubitable meaning or intention conveyed in a text or statement. Inevitably, what was purported sometimes faced contradiction or doubt. By the late 17th century, use of purport reflected this fact in its now common sense referring to claims, assertions, or appearances that only seem to be true on the surface. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 5, 2015 is: enjoin • \in-JOIN\ • verb 1 : to direct or impose by authoritative order or with urgent admonition 2 a : forbid, prohibit b : to prohibit by a judicial order : put an injunction on Examples: "And yet, to satisfy this good old man, / I would bend under any heavy weight / That he'll enjoin me to." - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 1600 "A federal district judge has preliminarily enjoined the White House from moving forward on its unilateral policy, only further emphasizing that this is a job for Congress." - editorial, Houston Chronicle, February 25, 2015 Did you know? Which of these words do you think has the same root as enjoin? a. endorse b. joy c. junta d. purloin It might help if we tell you that enjoin derives ultimately from the Latin verb jungere, which means "to join." Jungere is behind a number of English words, including join, conjoin, disjoin, and junction. Are you ready for your answer? The correct choice is junta, a term that entered English by way of Spanish. A junta is a committee that controls a government, especially after a revolutionary seizure of power-in other words, a group of persons "joined" together for a specific purpose. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 4, 2015 is: incisive • \in-SYE-siv\ • adjective : impressively direct and decisive (as in manner or presentation) Examples: "Albee, 84 and frail from recent heart surgery, smiled broadly as he came on stage to take a bow Saturday. He knows that 'Virginia Woolf' is the play that will forever be synonymous with his name, and he could not have hoped for a more incisive rendering of it." - Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times, October 14, 2012 "For more than two decades, Carr focused his considerable talents on media criticism, lacing his columns with incisive commentary and wit." - Terrence McCoy and Justin Moyer, Washington Post, February 13, 2015 Did you know? Incisive has meant "impressively direct and decisive" since around 1834 and derives from the Latin verb caedere, meaning "to cut." Its linguistic kin include many cuttings from the fruitful stem caedere, such as scissors, chisel, incise ("to cut into or engrave"), excise ("to remove by cutting"), incisor ("a front tooth typically adapted for cutting"), incision ("cut" or "gash"), precise ("minutely exact"), and concise ("brief"). In addition to the meaning illustrated above, incisive also carries a couple of lesser-known literal meanings relating to cutting: "having a cutting edge or piercing point" (as in "incisive fangs"), and, in dentistry, "of, relating to, or situated near the incisors." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 3, 2015 is: sounding board • \SOUND-ing-BORD\ • noun : a person or group on whom one tries out an idea or opinion as a means of evaluating it Examples: Mika and Meg have used one another as sounding boards for the 15 years they've shared an office. "Slade had met with Roelandt in the past to discuss some of the inventor's ideas. He served as a sounding board for Roelandt and Frear as they improved the P5 and developed a pricing strategy." - Rob Swenson, Sioux Falls Business Journal, March 3, 2015 Did you know? Beginning during the Renaissance, a flat wooden canopy called a sounding board was placed over church pulpits, amplifying the sound of the preacher's voice, carrying it to the farthest reaches of the church. Similarly, ideas can be spread by a figurative sounding board. A publication, for example, can be a sounding board for propaganda. That's one modern sense of the word. But when sound bounces off a literal sounding board, not only does it reach more people, it also comes across more clearly. Likewise, "bouncing" ideas off another person can lend clarity to one's thought processes. If someone comes to you and says "How does this sound?" and leaves with his or her mind made up (whether or not you've ventured a word), you have served as a very effective sounding board. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 2, 2015 is: capricious • \kuh-PRISH-us\ • adjective : governed or characterized by caprice : impulsive, unpredictable Examples: The court ruled that the punishment was arbitrary and capricious. "Some of her songs are humorous, even capricious, though many reflect on the more hidden of life's injustices." - St. Augustine (Florida) Record, February 27, 2015 Did you know? The noun caprice, which first appeared in English in the mid-17th century, is a synonym of whim. Evidence shows that the adjective capricious debuted about sixty years before caprice; it's likely, however, that both words derived via French from the Italian capriccio, which originally referred not to a sudden desire but to a sudden shudder of fear. Capriccio in turn derives from the Italian capo, meaning "head," and riccio, the word for "hedgehog." Someone who shuddered in fear, therefore, was said to have a "hedgehog head"-meaning that his or her hair stood on end like the spines of a hedgehog. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 1, 2015 is: diapause • \DYE-uh-pawz\ • noun : a period of physiologically enforced dormancy between periods of activity Examples: Although insects most often enter diapause when they are pupae, diapause can occur during any life stage. "Last week I discovered dozens of Monarch butterfly eggs at the ranch when a cold front pushed … migrants down to the Texas funnel. The early moving butterflies broke their reproductive diapause to lay hundreds of eggs." - Monica Maeckle, MySanAntonio.com, September 25, 2014 Did you know? Diapause, from the Greek word diapausis, meaning "pause," may have been coined by the entomologist William Wheeler in 1893. Wheeler's focus was insects, but diapause, a spontaneous period of suspended animation that seems to happen in response to adverse environmental conditions, also occurs in the development of crustaceans, snails, and other animals. Exercising poetic license, novelist Joyce Carol Oates even gave the word a human application in her short story "Visitation Rights" (1988): "Her life, seemingly in shambles, ... was not ruined; ... injured perhaps, and surely stunted, but only temporarily. There had been a diapause, and that was all...." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 31, 2015 is: refluent • \REH-floo-unt\ • adjective : flowing back Examples: "And in haste the refluent ocean / Fled away from the shore and left the line of the sand-beach / Covered with waifs of the tide…." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, 1847 "… and I could imagine that the clean water broke away from her sides in refluent wavelets as though in recoil from a thing unclean." - Frank Norris, A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West, 1903 Did you know? Refluent was first documented in English during the 15th century, and it can be traced back to the Latin verb refluere, meaning "to flow back." Refluere, in turn, was formed from the prefix re- and the verb fluere ("to flow"). Other fluere descendants in English include confluent ("flowing together"), fluent and fluid (both of which share the earliest sense of "flowing easily"), circumfluent ("flowing around"), and even affluent (which first meant "flowing abundantly"). Refluent even has an antonym derived from fluere-effluent, meaning "flowing out." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 30, 2015 is: amphibology • \am-fuh-BAH-luh-jee\ • noun : a sentence or phrase that can be interpreted in more than one way Examples: Still feeling some of the effects of her recent cold, Tara was bemused by the amphibology on the café's menu: "Try our soup-you won't get better." "I have started an amphibology collection: my favourite to date is the garage that advertises its services with the words: 'Why go anywhere else to be robbed?'" - Jonathan Ford, Financial Times, July 27, 2012 Did you know? A venerable old word in English, amphibology is from Greek amphibolos (via Late Latin and Latin). Amphibolos, from amphi- ("both") and ballein ("to throw"), literally means "encompassing" or "hitting at both ends"; figuratively it means "ambiguous." Amphibology is an equivocator's friend. An editor who has been sent an unsolicited manuscript to critique, for example, might reply, "I shall lose no time in reading your book." Or a dinner guest who feels the onset of heartburn might say something like, "Ah, that was a meal I shall not soon forget!" But amphibology’s ambiguity can be unintended and undesirable as well, as in "When Mom talked to Judy, she said she might call her back the next day." (Who said who might call whom back?) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 29, 2015 is: discomfit • \diss-KUM-fit\ • verb 1 : to frustrate the plans of : thwart 2 : to put into a state of perplexity and embarrassment : disconcert Examples: Jacob was discomfited by his curious young son's forward, probing questions. "For more than two decades, the work of this British artist has dazzled and discomfited, seduced and unsettled, gliding effortlessly between high and low, among cultures, ricocheting off different racial stereotypes and religious beliefs." - Roberta Smith, New York Times, October 31, 2014 Did you know? Disconcerted by discomfit and discomfort? Here's a little usage history that might help. Several usage commentators have, in the past, tried to convince their readers that discomfit means "to rout" or "to completely defeat" and not "to discomfort, embarrass, or make uneasy." In its earliest uses discomfit did in fact mean "to defeat in battle," but that sense is now rare, and the extended sense, "to thwart," is also uncommon. Most of the recent commentaries agree that the sense "to discomfort or disconcert" has become thoroughly established and is the most prevalent meaning of the word. There is one major difference between discomfit and discomfort, though-discomfit is used almost exclusively as a verb, while discomfort is much more commonly used as a noun than a 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 March 28, 2015 is: persiflage • \PER-suh-flahzh\ • noun : frivolous bantering talk : light raillery Examples: Since the final round ended sooner than expected, the quiz show host engaged in persiflage with the contestants until it was time to sign off. "The pleasant research I did for this story-in which coffee is equated with romance-led me to discover the famous cafés of Turin…. As in Prague, Paris, or Vienna, they have for generations been arenas for aristocratic persiflage, intellectual gossip, even revolutionary ideas." - Andrea Lee, Gourmet, May 2004 Did you know? Unwanted persiflage on television might provoke an impatient audience to hiss or boo, but from an etymological standpoint, no other reaction could be more appropriate. English speakers picked up persiflage from French in the 18th century. Its ancestor is the French verb persifler, which means "to banter" and was formed from the prefix per-, meaning "thoroughly," plus siffler, meaning "to whistle, hiss, or boo." Siffler in turn derived from the Latin verb sibilare, meaning "to whistle or hiss." By the way, sibilare is also the source of sibilant, a word linguists use to describe sounds like those made by "s" and "sh" in sash. That Latin root also underlies the verb sibilate, meaning "to hiss" or "to pronounce with or utter an initial sibilant." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 27, 2015 is: quiescent • \kwy-ESS-unt\ • adjective 1 : marked by inactivity or repose : tranquilly at rest 2 : causing no trouble or symptoms Examples: The alligator is deceptively quiescent on the sunny shore, watching its approaching prey, waiting for the moment to strike. "Measles made a modest comeback around 1990, and then fell quiescent-until the recent outbreak of measles cases at Disneyland in California…." - Richard A. Epstein, Defining Ideas, February 2, 2015 Did you know? Quiescent won't cause you any pain, and neither will its synonyms latent, dormant, and potential-at least not immediately. All four words mean "not now showing signs of activity or existence." Latent usually applies to something that has not yet come forth but may emerge and develop, as in "a latent desire for success." Dormant implies a state of inactivity similar to sleep, as in "their passions lay dormant." Potential applies to what may or may not come to be. "A potential disaster" is a typical example. Quiescent, which traces to Latin quiescere (meaning "to become quiet" or "to rest"), often suggests a temporary cessation of activity, as in "a quiescent disease" or "a summer resort quiescent in wintertime." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 26, 2015 is: verdigris • \VER-duh-greess\ • noun : a green or bluish deposit formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces Examples: "Metals gain a rich … verdigris over time, looking better with age and weathering." - Maureen Gilmer, Biloxi (Mississippi) Sun Herald, January 16, 2015 "They are covering up not only the verdigris that developed on the copper roof, but also years of wear and tear that caused the roof to leak." - Kyle Stokes, Indiana Public Media, September 16, 2013 Did you know? "Green of Greece"-that is the literal translation of vert de Grece, the Anglo-French phrase from which the modern word verdigris descends. A coating of verdigris forms naturally on copper and copper alloys, such as brass and bronze, when those metals are exposed to air. (It can also be produced artificially.) The word verdigris has been associated with statuary and architecture, ancient and modern, since it was first used in the 14th century. Some American English speakers may find that they know it best from the greenish blue coating that covers the copper of the Statue of 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 March 25, 2015 is: ulterior • \ul-TEER-ee-er\ • adjective 1 a : lying farther away : more remote b : situated on the farther side 2 : going beyond what is openly said or shown Examples: "While their campaign does shed light on an important issue, their good intentions are undercut by their ulterior motive, which is to make a profit." - Robert Lees, The Highlander (University of California-Riverside), February 10, 2015 "Dreyer describes Seuss's personal collection of paintings and sculptures as 'secret art.' Geisel literally kept them in the closet … and his widow, Audrey Geisel, has never sold an original Seuss. She authorized high-quality lithograph prints so the public can see the ulterior side of her late husband." - Alexandria (Virginia) Times, December 6, 2011 Did you know? Although now usually hitched to the front of the noun motive to refer to a hidden need or desire that inspires action, ulterior began its career as an adjective in the mid-17th century describing something occurring at a subsequent time. By the early 18th century it was being used to mean both "more distant" (literally and figuratively) and "situated on the farther side." The "hidden" sense with which we’re most familiar today followed quickly after those, with the word modifying nouns like purpose, design, and consequence. Ulterior comes directly from the Latin word for "farther" or "further," itself assumed to be the comparative form of ulter, meaning "situated beyond." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 24, 2015 is: jackanapes • \JAK-uh-nayps\ • noun 1 : monkey, ape 2 a : an impudent or conceited fellow b : a saucy or mischievous child Examples: Mrs. Hobson had her neighbor's son pegged as a disrespectful jackanapes and was therefore reluctant to hire him to shovel the driveway. "If I were still the rambunctious little jackanapes I once was, I would have stayed in the room and played astronaut all day." - Christopher Muther, Boston Globe, August 16, 2014 Did you know? William de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk, was a well-regarded soldier and commander during the Hundred Years' War. It was during his dukedom (1448-1450), however, that England lost its possessions in northern France, and his popularity consequently suffered. The coat of arms for de la Pole's family sported an image of a collar and chain that, at the time, was commonly used for leashing pet monkeys, then known as jackanapes (a word whose precise origin is uncertain). By association, people gave the Duke the nickname "Jack Napis," and soon jackanapes took on a life of its own as a word for an impudent person and, later, a misbehaving child. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 23, 2015 is: obstinate • \AHB-stuh-nut\ • adjective 1 : perversely adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion 2 : not easily overcome or removed Examples: As usual, Uncle Mitch remained obstinate in his opinion even though the facts were clearly stacked against him. "The obstinate 55-year-old tenant who refused to vacate her crumbling East Harlem apartment building so that it could be renovated was evicted last month." - Jan Ransom, Daily News (New York), October 29, 2014 Did you know? If you're obstinate, you're just plain stubborn. Obstinate, dogged, stubborn, and mulish all mean that someone is unwilling to change course or give up a belief or plan. Obstinate suggests an unreasonable persistence; it's often a negative word. Dogged implies that someone goes after something without ever tiring or quitting; it can be more positive. Stubborn indicates a resistance to change, which may or may not be admirable. Someone who displays a really unreasonable degree of stubbornness could accurately be described as mulish. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 22, 2015 is: firebrand • \FYRE-brand\ • noun 1 : a piece of burning wood 2 : one that creates unrest or strife (as in aggressively promoting a cause) : agitator Examples: She's an activist who views herself as a relentless firebrand willing to stand up for her beliefs even when they are not popular. "Collins said Americans shouldn't just think of Malcolm X as a firebrand but should be inspired by him to understand and be vigilant about liberties for all." - Susanne Cervenka, USA Today, February 17, 2015 Did you know? The original firebrands were incendiary indeed: they were pieces of wood set burning at the fire, perhaps for use as a light or a weapon. English speakers started brandishing those literal firebrands as long ago as the 13th century. (Robinson Crusoe held one high as he rushed into a cave on his deserted island and saw "by the light of the firebrand . . . lying on the ground a monstrous, frightful old he-goat.") But the burning embers of the wooden firebrand quickly sparked figurative uses for the term, too. By the early 14th century, firebrand was also being used for one doomed to burn in hell, and by 1382, English writers were using it for anyone who kindled mischief or inflamed passions. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 21, 2015 is: expiate • \EK-spee-ayt\ • verb 1 : to extinguish the guilt incurred by 2 : to make amends for Examples: Though the editorial characterizes the mayor's failure to disclose the details of the meeting as a lapse that cannot be expiated, most citizens seem ready to forgive all. "The ethical ambiguity of Szuml's role as Sonderkommando-a 'gray zone,' as Primo Levi described it, victim verging on perpetrator-is expiated to a degree by an act of self-sacrifice." - Tova Reich, Washington Post, September 25, 2014 Did you know? "Disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to expiate." That ominous biblical prophecy (Isaiah 47:11, RSV) shows that expiate was once involved in confronting the forces of evil as well as in assuaging guilt. The word derives from expiare, Latin for "to atone for," a root that in turn traces to the Latin term for "pious." Expiate originally referred to warding off evil by using sacred rites or to using sacred rites to cleanse or purify something. By the 17th century, Shakespeare (and others) were using it to mean "to put an end to": "But when in thee time's furrows I behold, / Then look I death my days should expiate" (Sonnet 22). Those senses have since become obsolete, and now only the "extinguish the guilt" and "make amends" senses remain in 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 March 20, 2015 is: zephyr • \ZEFF-er\ • noun 1 a : a breeze from the west b : a gentle breeze 2 : any of various lightweight fabrics and articles of clothing Examples: "There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds." - Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876 "Strangely enough, by the end of a Maine winter, a 32-degree breeze feels like a palm-scented zephyr from Bali." - Brett Willis, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, January 8, 2015 Did you know? For centuries, poets have eulogized Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind, and his "swete breeth" (in the words of Geoffrey Chaucer). Zephyrus, the personified west wind, eventually evolved into zephyr, a word for a breeze that is westerly or gentle, or both. Breezy zephyr may have blown into English with the help of William Shakespeare, who used the word in his 1611 play Cymbeline: "Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st / In these two princely boys! They are as gentle / As zephyrs blowing below the violet." Today, zephyr is also the sobriquet of a lightweight fabric and the clothing that is made from it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 19, 2015 is: sprachgefühl • \SHPRAHKH-guh-fuel\ • noun 1 : the character of a language 2 : an intuitive sense of what is linguistically appropriate Examples: One review of the book praised the author's sprachgefühl and her graceful, literary style. "Robert Dankoff patiently taught me Ottoman Turkish, attempting to instill in me Sprachgefühl, and carefully corrected every inaccurate transliteration and translation that I insisted he read." - Marc David Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 2008 Did you know? Sprachgefühl was borrowed into English from German at the end of the 19th century and combines two German nouns, Sprache, meaning "language, speech," and Gefühl, meaning "feeling." (Nouns are capitalized in German, and you'll occasionally see sprachgefühl capitalized in English too, as in our second example.) We're quite certain that the quality of sprachgefühl is common among our readers, but the word itself is rare, making only occasional appearances in our language. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 18, 2015 is: controvertible • \KAHN-truh-ver-tuh-bul\ • adjective : capable of being disputed or opposed by reason Examples: "A key piece of evidence was found at last: a copy of John of Balliol's words of homage and of feudal recognition to Edward I. Because these words had been formally drawn up by a notary public, they constituted firm and not-readily controvertible evidence." - Hunt Janin, Medieval Justice: Cases and Laws in France, England and Germany, 500-1500, 2004 "There are two sisters…. Each possesses a ferociously 'true' version of a shared childhood scene. All these decades later, the sisters still can't agree, still won't agree…. One sister has to be right, and one sister has to be wrong-the proof is controvertible.… How would you know who is telling the truth?" - Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune, November 21, 2013 Did you know? If you're familiar with incontrovertible, you may have wondered about the existence of controvertible. Both words are direct descendants of controvert ("to dispute or oppose by reasoning"), which dates back to 1584 in English and itself derives from controversy. Controvertible was documented in print as early as 1610, and incontrovertible turned up around thirty years later. Controversy comes to us (through Anglo-French) from the Latin controversus, meaning "disputable," and can ultimately be traced back to the Latin contro- ("against") and versus, the past participle of vertere ("to turn"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 17, 2015 is: inveigle • \in-VAY-gul\ • verb 1 : to win over by wiles : entice 2 : to acquire by ingenuity or flattery : wangle Examples: I was relieved when I finally managed to inveigle her assistant into fitting me into her schedule. "… but now the industry is headed down a path where more loathsome strategies are being put in place to inveigle consumers to throw down their dough before learning whether or not the game is actually worth buying." - Paul Tamburro, Craveonline.com, January 21, 2015 Did you know? Inveigle, a word that dates from the 16th century, refers to the act of using clever talk, trickery, or flattery either to persuade somebody to do something or to obtain something. What could such a word possibly have to do with blindness? Inveigle came to English from the Anglo-French verb enveegler, which means "to blind or hoodwink someone," from the adjective enveugle, meaning "blind." Enveugle derives from the Medieval Latin ab oculis, a phrase which literally translates to "lacking eyes." You might say that a person who is inveigled to do or give up something is too "blinded" by someone's words to know that he or she is being tricked. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2015 is: rhadamanthine • \rad-uh-MAN-thun\ • adjective : (often capitalized) rigorously strict or just Examples: The judge took the maliciousness of the crime into account and decided upon a rhadamanthine punishment. "Sometimes, she writes with incandescent hope; often, she manifests a disagreeable proclivity for passing Rhadamanthine judgment on us all." - Andrew Solomon, New York Times, December 12, 2014 Did you know? In Greek mythology, there were three judges of the underworld: Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus. Minos, a son of Zeus and Europa, had been the king of Crete before becoming supreme judge in the underworld after his death. Aeacus, another son of Zeus, was king of Aegina before joining the underworld triumvirate. Rhadamanthus, brother of Minos and king of the Cyclades Islands, was especially known for being inflexible when administering his judgment-hence, the meaning of rhadamanthine as "rigorously strict or just." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 15, 2015 is: huckster • \HUCK-ster\ • noun 1 : hawker, peddler 2 : one who produces promotional material for commercial clients especially for radio or television 3 : someone who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way Examples: Olivia protested futilely as her brother handed over his allowance to a huckster who was dealing in cheap magic tricks. "If I have one complaint with this wonderful cruise, it would be with the hucksters bringing popcorn and enormous expensive smoothies up and down the aisles of the theater to sell to children who had just had dinner and dessert." - Julie Hatfield, Boston Globe, February 15, 2015 Did you know? Hawkers, peddlers, and hucksters have been selling things out of the back of wagons, in narrow alleys, and on the fringes of towns for years (though nowadays, they're more likely to plug their wares on television or the Internet). Of those three words-hawker, peddler, and huckster-the one that has been around the longest in English is huckster. It has been with us for over 800 years, and it derives from the Middle Dutch word hokester, which in turn comes from the verb hoeken, meaning "to peddle." Peddler (or pedlar) was first attested in the 14th century, and the pertinent sense of hawker has only been appearing in English texts since the early 1500s. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 14, 2015 is: gibe • \JYBE\ • verb 1 : to utter taunting words 2 : to deride or tease with taunting words Examples: "I had read every piece he had written in the last five years. I playfully gibed him about obscure predictions he had made years ago in other articles, and was prepared to thoughtfully discuss his most recent column." - Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone, 2005 "The Gridiron Show group joked with and gibed at those in the Memphis power structure, politicians mostly. Rarely did anyone get their feelings hurt by the skits in the shows…." - Toby Sells, Memphis Magazine, December 2014 Did you know? Confused about jibe and gibe? The distinction actually isn't as clear-cut as some commentators would like it to be. Jibe is used both for the verb meaning "to be in accord, agree" ("jibe with") and for the nautical verb and its related noun ("jibe the mainsail," "a risky jibe in heavy seas"). Gibe is used for the verb meaning "to deride or tease" and for the related noun meaning "a taunting remark." But jibe is a recognized variant of gibe, so it also has "taunting" or "teasing" uses. Gibe has been used occasionally as a variant of jibe, but this use is very rare, and many people consider it to be 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 March 13, 2015 is: nonage • \NAH-nij\ • noun 1 : minority 2 a : a period of youth b : lack of maturity Examples: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. … This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance." - Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment?" (1784), translated by Mary C. Smith "[Adolf] Berle was an amazing person. He entered Harvard College in his nonage, being only fourteen years old." - Keith Paul Bishop, National Law Review, October 9, 2014 Did you know? Minority, majority; infancy, adulthood; nonage, full age-here you have the three contrasting pairs that constitute the vocabulary of legal age. Minority, infancy, and nonage are synonyms that mean "the state or time of being under legal age." Majority, adulthood, and full age mean "the state or time of being of legal age." (All these words, particularly infancy and adulthood, have other meanings as well, of course.) Nonage came to us by way of Middle English from an Anglo-French union of non- and age, which combine to mean "not of age." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 12, 2015 is: mythomania • \mith-uh-MAY-nee-uh\ • noun : an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating Examples: The idea of trust is an important theme in the book; the reader is never sure of the extent of the protagonist's mythomania. "The pathological liar … cannot help lying, even when the lie causes harm. It is this aspect of mythomania that distinguishes it as an illness rather than a habit." - Gloria Wall, Journal Review (Crawfordsville, Indiana), April 27, 2012 Did you know? We wouldn't lie to you about the history of mythomania. It comes from two ancient roots, the Greek mythos (meaning "myth") and the Late Latin mania (meaning "insanity marked by uncontrolled emotion or excitement"). One myth about mythomania is that it's a very old word; actually, the earliest known uses of the term date only from the beginning of the 20th century. It was predated by a related word, mythomaniac, which appeared around the middle of the 19th century. Mythomaniac initially referred to someone who was obsessed with or passionate about myths, but it was eventually used for individuals affected with or exhibiting mythomania. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2015 is: lucrative • \LOO-kruh-tiv\ • adjective : producing wealth : profitable Examples: The company announced plans to expand its manufacturing operations soon after it won a lucrative contract with the government. "Many mistakenly believe they need to spend years in school … before they can start earning a decent salary; this is simply a misconception. In fact, there are a number of lucrative jobs out there that don't require a college degree." - Laura Woods, Dallas Morning News, January 23, 2015 Did you know? Paying, gainful, remunerative, and lucrative share the meaning of bringing in a return of money, but each term casts a different light on how much green you take in. Paying is the word for jobs that yield the smallest potatoes-your first paying job probably provided satisfactory compensation, but you weren't going to get rich by it. Gainful employment might offer a bit more cash, and gainful certainly suggests that an individual is motivated by a desire for gain. Remunerative implies that a job provides more than the usual rewards, but a lucrative position is the one you want-those are the kind that go well beyond your initial hopes or expectations. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 10, 2015 is: panjandrum • \pan-JAN-drum\ • noun : a powerful personage or pretentious official Examples: Little gets done in this town without the approval of the local panjandrums on the board of selectmen. "Unexpectedly, this private sector panjandrum launched into a paean of praise for the public service ethos." - David Walker, The Guardian, January 30, 2015 Did you know? Panjandrum looks like it might be a combination of Latin and Greek roots, but in fact it is a nonsense word coined by British actor and playwright Samuel Foote around 1755. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Foote made up a line of gibberish to "test the memory of his fellow actor Charles Macklin, who had asserted that he could repeat anything after hearing it once." Foote's made-up line was, "And there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at the top." Some 75 years after this, Foote's passage appeared in a book of stories for children by the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth. It took another quarter century before English speakers actually incorporated panjandrum into their general vocabulary. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 9, 2015 is: apple-polish • \AP-ul-pah-lish\ • verb 1 : to attempt to ingratiate oneself : toady 2 : to curry favor with (as by flattery) Examples: "There still might be time to apple-polish the boss." - Garry Smits, Florida Times-Union, October 30, 2008 "One of the reasons unions (and step increases) exist is to eliminate cronyism or favoritism. No teacher has to apple-polish the principal to get a raise." - John Jones, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, June 11, 2011 Did you know? It began innocently enough: a shiny apple for the teacher, a young student's gift (OK, bribe) given in the hope that classroom high jinks would be forgotten or forgiven. The college students of the 1920s tried a more sophisticated version of the trick, polishing professorial egos with compliments in the hopes of getting a better grade. Because of its similarity to the "apple for the teacher" practice, college students dubbed that grade-enhancement strategy apple-polishing. But the idea quickly lost its luster and by 1935 the verb apple-polish had picked up negative connotations. Nowadays, the apple-polisher (academic or otherwise) is viewed in the same much-maligned class as the toady, sycophant, and bootlicker. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 8, 2015 is: fatidic • \fay-TID-ik\ • adjective : of or relating to prophecy Examples: I hope the dream I had last night about losing my wedding ring doesn't prove fatidic. "Shakespeare strews his plays with portents; Pushkin probes his life for fatidic dates; but no writer can have been more fascinated by patterns in time than Nabokov." - Brian Boyd, Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays, 2011 Did you know? As you might guess, fatidic is a relative of the word fate. The Latin word for fate is fatum, which literally means "what has been spoken." Fatum, in turn, comes from fari, meaning "to speak." In the eyes of the ancients, your fate was out of your hands-what happened was up to gods and demigods. Predicting your fate was a job for oracles and prophets. Fatidic is fatum combined with dicere, meaning "to say." That makes fatidic a relative of the word predict as well; the -dict of predict also comes from Latin dicere. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 7, 2015 is: dyspepsia • \dis-PEP-shuh\ • noun 1 : indigestion 2 : ill humor : disgruntlement Examples: The meatball sandwich was delicious, but not worth the dyspepsia suffered because of it. "His Coughlin Sideline Scowl ought to be copyrighted. It's a perfect blend of dyspepsia, anger, frustration, and befuddlement. No one expresses displeasure any better or more photogenically." - Bob Brookover, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 7, 2014 Did you know? When people get indigestion, they are often affected by nausea, heartburn, and gas-things that can cause the world's greatest gastronome to curse the world's most delectable dishes. So, it is no wonder that dyspepsia, a word for indigestion, has also come to mean "ill humor" or "disgruntlement." The word itself is ultimately derived from the Greek prefix dys- ("faulty" or "impaired") and the verb pessein ("to cook" or "to digest"). To please the wordmonger's appetite, we would like to end with this tasty morsel: Dyspepsia has an opposite, eupepsia-a rarely used word meaning "good digestion." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 6, 2015 is: eolian • \ee-OH-lee-un\ • adjective : borne, deposited, produced, or eroded by the wind Examples: The park is known for its eolian caves-chambers formed in sandstone cliffs by powerful winds. "Basaltic minerals in the mudstone are similar to those in nearby eolian deposits." - D. T. Vaniman et al., Science, December 9, 2013 Did you know? When Aeolus blew into town, things really got moving. He was the Greek god of the winds and the king of the floating island of Aeolia. In The Odyssey, Homer claims Aeolus helped Odysseus by giving him a favorable wind. Aeolus also gave English speakers a few terms based on his name, including today's adjective eolian (also spelled aeolian), which is often used for wind-sculpted geological features such as caves and dunes, and aeolian harp, an instrument that makes music when the wind blows across its strings. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.