Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 26, 2014 is: crabwise • \KRAB-wyze\ • adverb 1 : sideways 2 : in a sidling or cautiously indirect manner Examples: Rather than asking his parents for a car directly, Noah approached the matter crabwise, stressing how inconvenient it was for them to have to drive him everywhere. "But personally, my bed … is just for sleeping in. It is actually … 6ft wide, and it is beautiful beyond words. No matter that I have to walk crabwise round the room in order to get in, out or dressed." - Lucy Mangan, The Guardian (London), January 4, 2011 Did you know? There's no reason to be indirect when explaining the etymology of crabwise; we'll get right to the point. As you might guess, the meaning of that word is directly related to that sidling sea creature, the crab. If you live near the shore or have visited a beach near the sea, you have probably seen crabs scuttling along, often moving sideways and not taking what humans would consider the most direct route. The modern meanings of crabwise were definitely inspired by the crab's lateral or oblique approach to getting from one place to another. The word crept into English in the mid-19th century and has been sidling into our sentences ever since. 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 November 25, 2014 is: pelagic • \puh-LAJ-ik\ • adjective : of, relating to, or living or occurring in the open sea : oceanic Examples: She is studying to become a marine biologist specializing in pelagic plant life. "During this time we also have the seasonal migration of pelagic fish from the northern Gulf waters to the Key West area." - Sam O'Briant, The News-Press (Fort Myers, Florida), September 21, 2014 Did you know? Pelagic comes to us from Greek, via Latin. The Greek word pelagikos became pelagicus in Latin and then pelagic in English. (Pelagikos is derived from pelagos, the Greek word for the sea-it is also a source of archipelago-plus the adjectival suffix -ikos.) Pelagic first showed up in dictionaries in 1656; a definition from that time says that Pelagick (as it was then spelled) meant "of the Sea, or that liveth in the Sea." Over 350 years later, writers are still using pelagic with the same meaning, albeit less frequently than its more familiar synonym oceanic. 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 November 24, 2014 is: Job's comforter • \JOHBZ-KUM-fer-ter\ • noun : a person who discourages or depresses while seemingly giving comfort and consolation Examples: Danny, a reliable Job's comforter, assured Shane that the girl who'd broken his heart had always been out of his league. "It's a blessing for me, he said, that my joints are frozen solid with the arthritis, because if I tried to run around like I used to, my heart would give out sure. I told him he was a Job's comforter, what good is keeping my heart going like a watch that won't tell time if I can't get up and cook." - Ross Macdonald, The Ivory Grin, 1952 Did you know? Poor Job. He's the biblical character who endures extraordinary afflictions in a test of his piety. He loses his possessions, his children, and his health. And then, to make matters worse, three friends show up to "comfort" him. These friends turn out to be no comfort at all. Instead, they say that the things that have been happening to him happen to all sinners-and point out a number of his faults. In the mid-18th century, English speakers began using the phrase "Job's comforter" for anyone who offers similarly unhelpful consolation. 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 November 23, 2014 is: recusant • \REK-yuh-zunt\ • adjective : refusing to submit to authority Examples: Elizabeth's recusant streak was apparent even in elementary school, where she would frequently challenge the rules put forth by her teachers. "The third volume, covering the English Civil War and its aftermath, offers more of the same smoothly readable analysis.… Oliver Cromwell, with his Puritan grit and fear of recusant Catholicism, inevitably takes up much of the action." - Ian Thomson, The Independent (UK), October 22, 2014 Did you know? In 1534, Henry VIII of England declared himself the head of the Church of England, separating it from the Roman Catholic Church, and the resultant furor led to increased attention on people's religious observances. A recusant was someone who (from about 1570-1791) refused to attend services of the Church of England, and therefore violated the laws of mandatory church attendance. The name derives from the Latin verb recusare, meaning "reject" or "oppose." The adjective recusant has been in use since the late 16th century. Originally, it meant "refusing to attend the services of the Church of England," but by the century's end, both the adjective and the noun were also being used generally to suggest resistance to authority of any form. 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 November 22, 2014 is: shrive • \SHRYVE\ • verb 1 : to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to 2 : to free from guilt Examples: "Once every three months, Pancho took his savings and drove into Monterey to confess his sins, to do his penance, and be shriven and to get drunk, in the order named." - John Steinbeck, The Pastures of Heaven, 1932 "Members of Congress, a generally spineless lot, like nothing better than to be shriven of responsibility for the edicts that come out of Washington." - editorial, The Eagle-Tribune (Andover, Massachusetts), January 30, 2014 Did you know? We wouldn't want to give the history of shrive short shrift, so here's the whole story. It began when the Latin verb scribere (meaning "to write") found its way onto the tongues of certain Germanic peoples who brought it to Britain in the early Middle Ages. Because it was often used for laying down directions or rules in writing, 8th-century Old English speakers used their form of the term, scrīfan, to mean "to prescribe or impose." The Church adopted scrīfan to refer to the act of assigning penance to sinners and, later, to hearing confession and administering absolution. Today shrift, the noun form of shrive, makes up half of "short shrift," a phrase meaning "little or no consideration." Originally, "short shrift" was the barely adequate time for confession before an execution. 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 November 21, 2014 is: golden handcuffs • \GOHL-dun-HAND-kufs\ • noun : special benefits offered to an employee as an inducement to continue service Examples: It was in the company's interests to offer Janice a set of golden handcuffs in the form of company stock, since her connections and knowledge of industry secrets would not be easy to replace. "Coffey quit Moore Capital at the age of 41 to spend more time with his family having previously made his name, and a reported $700 million fortune, at GLG, where he turned down a $250 million golden handcuffs deal to stay." - Jamie Dunkley, London Evening Standard, October 8, 2014 Did you know? Chances are you've heard of a "golden handshake," which is a particularly tempting severance agreement offered to an employee in an effort to induce the person to retire early. People started getting "golden handshakes" (by that name) around 1960; by 1976, English speakers had also coined the accompanying "golden handcuffs" to describe a situation in which someone is offered a special inducement to stay. The expression turns up often in quasi-literal uses, such as "slapped golden handcuffs on" or "a shiny new set of golden handcuffs." 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 November 20, 2014 is: weal • \WEEL\ • noun : a sound, healthy, or prosperous state : well-being Examples: The president spoke of devotion to the common weal and the hope of creating a better country. "'Higher healthcare costs'? No one could be for that, so the campaign [against it] looks like a flag-carrier for the public weal." - Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2014 Did you know? Weal is most often used in contexts referring to the general good. One reads, for example, of the "public weal" or the "common weal." The latter of these led to the formation of the noun commonweal, a word that once referred to an organized political entity, such as a nation or state, but today usually means "the general welfare." The word commonwealth shares these meanings, but its situation is reversed; the "political entity" sense of commonwealth is still current, whereas the "general welfare" sense has become archaic. At one time, weal and wealth were also synonyms; both meant "riches" ("all his worldly weal") and "well-being." Both words stem from wela, the Old English word for "well-being," and are closely related to the Old English word for "well." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2014 is: officious • \uh-FISH-us\ • adjective 1 : volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed : meddlesome 2 : informal, unofficial Examples: Staff members view the new consultant as an officious individual offering unwanted feedback, but she is simply doing her job. "During an interview this week with Morris News, Saxby, a Republican, said he is frustrated by the delay but attributes it more to officious federal bureaucrats than to partisan gamesmanship." - Carla Caldwell, Atlanta Business Chronicle, April 2, 2014 Did you know? Don't mistake officious for a rare synonym of official. Both words stem from the Latin noun officium (meaning "service" or "office"), but they have very different meanings. When the suffix -osus ("full of") was added to officium, Latin officiosus came into being, meaning "eager to serve, help, or perform a duty." When this adjective was borrowed into English in the 16th century as officious, it carried the same meaning. Early in the 17th century, however, officious began to develop a negative sense describing a person who offers unwanted help. This pejorative sense has driven out the original "eager to help" sense to become the predominant meaning of the word in modern English. Officious can also mean "of an informal or unauthorized nature," but that sense isn't especially common. 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 November 18, 2014 is: leitmotif • \LYTE-moh-teef\ • noun 1 : a melodic phrase or figure that accompanies the reappearance of an idea, person, or situation in a music drama 2 : a dominant recurring theme Examples: The overcoming of obstacles and a love of theater are the two leitmotifs of her autobiography. "'Collaboration' is the author's supporting theme, and he weaves it in throughout his anecdotes and character studies. Approached lazily, this kind of leitmotif would be more irritating than illuminating, but Isaacson fully commits." - James Norton, The Christian Science Monitor, October 13, 2014 Did you know? The English word leitmotif (or leitmotiv, as it is also spelled) comes from the German Leitmotiv, meaning "leading motive" and formed from leiten ("to lead") and Motiv ("motive"). In its original sense, the word applies to opera music and was first used by writers interpreting the works of composer Richard Wagner, who was famous for associating a melody with a character or important dramatic element. Leitmotif is still commonly used with reference to music and musical drama but is now also used more broadly to refer to any recurring theme in the arts or in everyday life. 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 November 17, 2014 is: rife • \RYFE\ • adjective 1 : prevalent especially to an increasing degree 2 : abundant, common 3 : copiously supplied : abounding Examples: After the newspaper's managing editor was fired, speculation was rife about who would replace him. "In the battle over Amendment 2, Drug Free Florida has decried the medical marijuana ballot initiative as being rife with loopholes." - Dan Sweeney, The Sun-Sentinel (South Florida), October 15, 2014 Did you know? English is rife with words that have Germanic connections, many of which have been handed down to us from Old English. Rife is one of those words. Not a whole lot has changed with rife in its 900-year history. We continue to use the word, as we have since the 12th century, for negative things, especially those that are widespread or prevalent. Typical examples are "shoplifting was rife" or "the city was rife with greed and corruption." Rumors and speculation are also frequently described as "rife," as well. But rife can also be appropriately used, as it has been for hundreds of years, for good or neutral things. For example, you might speak of "the summer garden, rife with scents." 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 November 16, 2014 is: meliorism • \MEE-lee-uh-riz-um\ • noun : the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment Examples: The author's meliorism is evident in such statements as, "I believe that peace is inevitable." "Eric Schlosser's fine Fast Food Nation wavered between a pragmatic meliorism, devoted to reforming the meatpacking and restaurant industry, and a visionary despair over the conditions of modern American life." - Stephen Metcalf, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2001 Did you know? In 1877, British novelist George Eliot believed she had coined meliorist when she wrote, "I don't know that I ever heard anybody use the word 'meliorist' except myself." Her contemporaries credited her with coining both meliorist and meliorism, and one of her letters contains the first documented use of meliorism, but there is evidence that meliorist had been around for 40 years or so before she started using it. Whoever coined it did so by drawing on the Latin melior, meaning "better." It is likely that the English coinages were also influenced by another melior descendant, meliorate, a synonym of ameliorate ("to make better") that was introduced to English in the mid-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 November 15, 2014 is: execrable • \EK-sih-kruh-bul\ • adjective 1 : deserving to be execrated : detestable 2 : very bad : wretched Examples: It turned out that the execrable odor was coming from a bag of onions rotting in the back of the pantry. "If the waiter laid my plate on the table and said, 'Eat!' I wouldn't mind. But 'Enjoy!' is another matter. There's something cloying, manipulative and, yes, distasteful about being told to enjoy something that might, for all you know, be bland or even execrable." - Tim Johnson, The Burlington (Vermont) Free Press , February 16, 2013 Did you know? He or she who is cursed faces execrable conditions. Keep this in mind to remember that execrable is a descendant of the Latin verb exsecrari, meaning "to put under a curse." Since its earliest uses in English, beginning in the 14th century, execrable has meant "deserving or fit to be execrated," the reference being to things so abominable as to be worthy of formal denouncement (such as "execrable crimes"). But in the 19th century we lightened it up a bit, and our "indescribably bad" sense has since been applied to everything from roads ("execrable London pavement" - Sir Walter Scott) to food ("The coffee in the station house was ... execrable." - Clarence Day) to, inevitably, the weather ("the execrable weather of the past fortnight" - The (London) Evening Standard). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2014 is: devise • \dih-VYZE\ • verb 1 a : to form in the mind by new combinations or applications of ideas or principles : invent b : to plan to obtain or bring about : plot 2 : to give (real estate) by will Examples: The author's childhood home was devised to the city and the Historical Commission will turn it into a museum devoted to her life. "Students at the Ilead Charter School devised three ways to bash pumpkins into pieces. One method used rubber surgical tubing to create an Angry Birds-style slingshot to propel the squash through the air. A more direct device crushed the pumpkins with a weight and a bowling ball." - Kevin Lillard, Juneau County Star-Times (Wisconsin), October 15, 2014 Did you know? There's something inventive about devise, a word that stems from Latin dividere, meaning "to divide." By the time devise appeared in English in the 1200s, its Anglo-French forebear deviser had accumulated an array of senses, including "to divide," "distribute," "arrange," "array," "digest," "order," "plan," "invent," "contrive," and "assign by will." English adopted most of these and added some new senses over the course of time: "to imagine," "guess," "pretend," and "describe." In modern use, we've disposed of a lot of the old meanings, but we kept the one that applies to wills. Devise traditionally referred to the transfer of real property (land), and bequeath to personal property; these days, however, devise is often recognized as applying generally to all the property in a person's estate. 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 November 13, 2014 is: threnody • \THREN-uh-dee\ • noun : a song of lamentation for the dead : elegy Examples: Christina wrote the poem as a threnody for her grandmother, who had died the previous spring. "Ian Hobson will lead the Sinfonia strings in Strauss' 'Metamorphosen,' his threnody on the destruction of German musical monuments at the end of World War II." - John Frayne, The News-Gazette (Champaign, Illinois), September 11, 2014 Did you know? Threnody encompasses all genres. There are great threnodies in prose (such as the lines from Charles Dickens’ Bleak House upon the death of Little Jo: "Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead…."), in poetry (as in W. H. Auden’s "Funeral Blues": "The stars are not wanted now: put out every one, / Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun…."), and in music (Giovanni Pergolesi’s "Stabat Mater," for one). Threnody, which we borrowed from the Greek word thrēnōidia (from thrēnos, the word for "dirge"), has survived in English since the early 1600s. Melody, tragedy, and comedy are related to threnody through the Greek root that forms their ending-aeidein, which means "to sing." 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 November 12, 2014 is: hallowed • \HAL-ohd\ • adjective 1 : holy, consecrated 2 : sacred, revered Examples: "He who enters a university walks on hallowed ground," declared Harvard President James Bryant Conant on the celebration of that institution's 300th anniversary. "People pass Richards Memorial Park every day, many without knowing the amount of rich Talbot County history buried in its hallowed grounds." - Josh Bollinger, Sunday Star (Easton, Maryland), October 12, 2014 Did you know? The adjective hallowed probably doesn't give you the shivers-or does it? Hallowed is the past participle of the verb hallow, a term that descends from the Middle English halowen. That word can in turn be traced back to hālig, Old English for "holy." During the Middle Ages, All Hallows' Day was the name for what Christians now call All Saints' Day, and the evening that preceded All Hallows' Day was All Hallow Even-or, as we know it today, Halloween. 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 November 11, 2014 is: anodyne • \AN-uh-dyne\ • adjective 1 : serving to alleviate pain 2 : not likely to offend or arouse tensions Examples: The group's latest album is a fairly anodyne affair; it contains a number of lively tunes that are easy on the ears, but which play it far too safe to ever be anything more than passing amusements. "British comics in the 1950s were pale imitations of American ones. Many were anodyne: the first two prosecutions under a 1955 law prohibiting 'harmful publications' for children were both in 1970." - The Economist, May 10, 2014 Did you know? Anodyne came to English via Latin from Greek anōdynos ("without pain"), and it has been used as both an adjective and a noun ("something that relieves pain") since the 16th century. It has sometimes been used of things that dull or lull the senses and render painful experiences less so. Edmund Burke used it this way, for example, in 1790 when he referred to flattery as an "anodyne draft of oblivion" that renders one (in this particular case, the deposed King Louis XVI) forgetful of the flatterer's true feelings. In the 1930s, a newer second sense began appearing in our vocabulary. Now, in addition to describing things that dull pain, anodyne can also refer to that which doesn't cause discomfort in the first place. 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 November 10, 2014 is: egregious • \ih-GREE-juss\ • adjective : conspicuous; especially : conspicuously bad : flagrant Examples: It was an egregious breach of theater etiquette on Eugene's part when he left his cell phone on during the play and it rang during an important scene. "Stanford still leads in the nation in scoring defense, but had perhaps the most egregious defensive breakdown of the weekend, failing to cover a Notre Dame receiver who scored the winning touchdown on a fourth-down pass with 1:01 left." - Jake Curtis, San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2014 Did you know? Egregious derives from the Latin word egregius, meaning "distinguished" or "eminent." In its earliest English uses, egregious was a compliment to someone who had a remarkably good quality that placed him or her eminently above others. That's how English philosopher and theorist Thomas Hobbes used it in flattering a colleague when he remarked, "I am not so egregious a mathematician as you are." Since Hobbes' day, however, the meaning of the word has become noticeably less complimentary, possibly as a result of ironic use of its original sense. 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 November 9, 2014 is: injunction • \in-JUNK-shun\ • noun 1 : the act or an instance of enjoining : order, admonition 2 : a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing a specified act Examples: The family gathered in the room to hear the matriarch's dying injunctions. "A Superior Court judge Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction preventing a Santa Fe Springs wastewater plant from removing sludge from tanks … until a plan has been approved by the local air quality district." - Mike Sprague, Whittier Daily News (California), October 7, 2014 Did you know? Injunction derives, via Anglo-French and Late Latin, from the Latin verb injungere, which in turn derives from jungere, meaning "to join." Like our verb enjoin, injungere means "to direct or impose by authoritative order or with urgent admonition." (Not surprisingly, enjoin is also a descendant of injungere.) Injunction has been around in English since at least the 15th century, when it began life as a word meaning "authoritative command." In the 16th century it developed a legal second sense applying to a court order. It has also been used as a synonym of conjunction, another jungere descendant meaning "union," but that sense is extremely rare. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 8, 2014 is: Byzantine • \BIZ-un-teen\ • adjective 1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of the ancient city of Byzantium or of the Byzantine Empire 2 : of or relating to the churches using a traditional Greek rite and subject to Eastern canon law 3 often not capitalized : of, relating to, or characterized by a devious and usually surreptitious manner of operation 4 often not capitalized : intricately involved : labyrinthine Examples: A decade of reckless investments and byzantine power struggles eventually led to the company's collapse. "But [Ira] Glass is surely not alone in finding the Bard hard: all those byzantine complexities of plot, all that highly wrought language." - Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, October 6, 2014 Did you know? Today, the city that lies on the Bosporus Strait in Turkey is named Istanbul, but it was once known as Constantinople (a name given to it when it became capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire), and in ancient times, it was called Byzantium. Its history is exotic-filled with mystics, wars, and political infighting-and the word Byzantine (from Late Latin Byzantinus, for "native of Byzantium") became synonymous with anything characteristic of the city or empire, from architecture to intrigue. The figurative sense of labyrinthine deviousness first appeared in the late 1930s. It was popularized by its frequent use in reference to the Soviet Union, whose secrecy and despotism were equated by Westerners with what went on in the old Byzantine Empire. 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 November 7, 2014 is: prototype • \PROH-tuh-type\ • noun 1 : an original model on which something is patterned : archetype 2 : an individual that exhibits the essential features of a later type 3 : a standard or typical example 4 : a first full-scale and usually functional form of a new type or design of a construction (such as an airplane) Examples: It's not clear at this point how the device will differ from its prototype. "Someone seems to have gotten his or her hands on an iPhone 6 prototype and is now selling it on eBay for a handsome sum-bidding had reached $83,300 at the time of this writing." - Lauren Walker, Newsweek, October 6, 2014 Did you know? The prefix prot-, or proto-, comes from Greek and has the basic meaning "first in time" or "first formed." A prototype is someone or something that serves as a model or inspiration for those that come later. A successful fund-raising campaign can serve as a prototype for future campaigns. The legendary Robin Hood, the "prototypical" kindhearted and honorable outlaw, has been the inspiration for countless other romantic heroes. And for over a century, Vincent van Gogh has been the prototype of the brilliant, tortured artist who is unappreciated in his own time. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 6, 2014 is: chouse • \CHOWSS\ • verb : cheat, trick Examples: In Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, the miserable Mr. Cruncher fumes, "If I ain't … been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with!" "The 18th fairway Saturday afternoon bore a scene only accessible in a gentrified sport such as golf; Polson's Jaylin Kenney bookended by Erin Tabish and Katie Fyall of Whitefish, all three girls calm and cordial as could be, each likely secretly hoping to chouse a collapse out of the other." - Mark Robertson, Lake County Leader & Advertiser (Polson, Montana), October 9, 2013 Did you know? "You shall chouse him of Horses, Cloaths, and Mony," wrote John Dryden in his 1663 play Wild Gallant. Dryden was one of the first English writers to use chouse, but he wasn't the last. That term, which may derive from a Turkish word meaning "doorkeeper" or "messenger," has a rich literary past, appearing in works by Samuel Pepys, Henry Fielding, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, among others, but its use dropped off in the 20th century. In fact, English speakers of today may be more familiar with another chouse, a verb used in the American West to mean "to drive or herd roughly." In spite of their identical spellings, though, the two chouse homographs are not related (and the origin of the latter is a source of some speculation). 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 November 5, 2014 is: trenchant • \TREN-chunt\ • adjective 1 : keen, sharp 2 : vigorously effective and articulate; also : caustic 3 a : sharply perceptive : penetrating b : clear-cut, distinct Examples: The daily news satire show not only offers a healthy dose of laughs but also trenchant commentary on the current events of the day. "Nowhere was hayseed dialect better used to deliver trenchant truths than in 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' Through the voice of an uneducated river-town boy, Mark Twain skewered pretense, pride, and the shameful inhumanity of slavery and racism." - John Yemma, Christian Science Monitor, October 5, 2014 Did you know? The word trenchant comes from the Anglo-French verb trencher, meaning "to cut," and may ultimately derive from the Vulgar Latin trinicare, meaning "to cut in three." Hence, a trenchant sword is one with a keen edge; a trenchant remark is one that cuts deep; and a trenchant observation is one that cuts to the heart of the matter. Relatives of trenchant in English include the noun trench ("a long ditch cut into the ground") and the verb retrench ("to cut down or pare away" or "to cut down expenses"). 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 November 4, 2014 is: demagogue • \DEM-uh-gahg\ • noun : a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power Examples: The nation's voters ousted their incumbent president for a demagogue who persuasively capitalized on fears of another recession. "Messrs. Cameron, Miliband and Clegg were personally far less popular in Scotland than the fluent demagogue Mr. Salmond. Did this older, gnarlier Scot ignite feelings of envy and inadequacy in the English trio's patrician breasts?" - Quentin Letts, Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2014 Did you know? When the ancient Greeks used dēmagōgos (from dēmos, meaning "people," and agein, "to lead") they meant someone good-a leader who used outstanding oratorical skills to further the interests of the common people. Mid-17th-century writers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Dryden-and, later, Jonathan Swift-employed the English word that way. But, at the same time, the word took a negative turn, coming to suggest one who uses powers of persuasion to sway and mislead. "A plausible, insignificant word, in the mouth of an expert demagogue, is a dangerous and a dreadful weapon," declared Robert South, known for his sermons, in 1716. 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 November 3, 2014 is: fusty • \FUSS-tee\ • adjective 1 : saturated with dust and stale odors : musty 2 : rigidly old-fashioned or reactionary Examples: We opened the windows to air out the fusty room. "Unlike so many fusty historical monuments, her statue appears alive, with the writer’s cloak blowing in the wind, a huge raven flying in his path and a trail of pages … spilling from his briefcase." - James Sullivan, Boston Globe, September 30, 2014 Did you know? Fusty probably derives from the Middle English word foist, meaning "wine cask," which in turn traces to the Medieval Latin word fustis, meaning "tree trunk" or "wood." So how did fusty end up meaning "old-fashioned"? Originally, it described wine that had gotten stale from sitting in the cask for too long; fusty literally meant that the wine had the "taste of the cask." Eventually any stale food, especially damp or moldy food, was called "fusty." Those damp and moldy connotations were later applied to musty places, and later still to anything that had lost its freshness and interest-that is, to anything old-fashioned. 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 November 2, 2014 is: malapropism • \noun\ • MAL-uh-prah-piz-um 1 : the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase; especially : the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context 2 : an example of malapropism : malaprop Examples: Unloosing one of his frequent malapropisms, grandfather declared that by eating healthy and exercising regularly he hoped to become "nearly immoral." "'Thank you so much,' Dunham said … to a tanned and slender young blonde who, in a rather brilliant malapropism, said, 'I’d be remorse if I didn’t stop and say how much I love your work.'" - Meghan Daum, The New York Times Magazine, September 4, 2014 Did you know? Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, was known for her verbal blunders. "He is the very pine-apple of politeness," she exclaimed, complimenting a courteous young man. Thinking of the geography of contiguous countries, she spoke of the "geometry" of "contagious countries," and she hoped that her daughter might "reprehend" the true meaning of what she was saying. She regretted that her "affluence" over her niece was small. The word malapropism derives from this blundering character's name, which Sheridan took from the French term mal à propos, meaning "inappropriate." 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 November 1, 2014 is: simplistic • \sim-PLISS-tik\ • adjective : excessively simple : not complete or thorough enough : not treating or considering all possibilities or parts Examples: The statistics are based on a simplistic study of a small, unrepresentative population and cannot be applied to the broader population. "Although the movie loses steam by its simplistic, rushed ending, it touts a strong script, one peppered with plenty of humor and funny asides, like Carl having no idea what Twitter is." - Lana Sweeten-Shults, Times Record News (Wichita Falls, TX), October 3, 2014 Did you know? "The facts of nature and of life are more apt to be complex than simple. Simplistic theories are generally one-sided and partial," wrote the American clergyman James Freeman Clarke in the 19th century, nicely illustrating the difference between plain, ordinary simple and the then-new adjective simplistic. Simplistic is generally synonymous with oversimplified, but we didn't have the verb oversimplify and its participle oversimplified until well into the 20th century. Simplistic is sometimes used in the neutral sense of "not complicated" (in which case it is synonymous with simple) but this borders on misuse-simplistic is generally understood to be pejorative. 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 October 31, 2014 is: adduce • \uh-DOOSS\ • verb : to offer as example, reason, or proof in discussion or analysis Examples: "The arguments she had adduced rang true." - Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary, 1922 "Morris asserts that productive war makes governments, which in turn ensure peace and prosperity. He adduces the Roman Empire as his prime example." - Alan Cate, Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), April 27, 2014 Did you know? We won't lead you astray over the history of adduce; it is one of a plethora of familiar words that trace to the Latin root ducere, which means "to lead." Perhaps we can induce you to deduce a few other ducere offspring if we offer a few hints about them. One is a synonym of kidnap, one's a title for a British royal, and one's another word for decrease. Give up? They are abduct, duke, and reduce, respectively. There are also many others, including induce, which means "to persuade" or "to bring about." 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 October 30, 2014 is: collywobbles • \KAH-lee-wah-bulz\ • noun : pain in the abdomen and especially in the stomach : bellyache Examples: "It's no wonder you've got the collywobbles," said Ruth to her niece, "given the amount of Halloween candy you ate last night!" "But even the hint of closing this cherished window into Detroit's past gives loyal museumgoers the collywobbles." - Joy Hakanson Colby, The Detroit News, December 30, 2005 Did you know? We don't know who first clutched his or her tummy and called the affliction "collywobbles," but we do know the word's earliest print appearance dates from around 1823. We also know that the word probably came about through a process called "folk etymology." In that process, unusual words are transformed to make them look or sound like other, more familiar words. Collywobbles is believed to be a friendlier-sounding transformation of cholera morbus (the New Latin term for the disease cholera) that was influenced by the words colic and wobble. 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 October 29, 2014 is: quixotic • \kwik-SAH-tik\ • adjective 1 : foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals 2 : capricious, unpredictable Examples: Pauline characterized her Halloween decorating plans as ambitious, but she secretly feared that "quixotic" was a more apt descriptor. "David Smith has chased for at least 15 years what seemed a quixotic challenge-finding a way to harness the energy remaining in discarded batteries which could represent at least 50 percent of their power capacity." - Richard Craver, Winston-Salem Journal (North Carolina), September 28, 2014 Did you know? If you guessed that quixotic has something to do with Don Quixote, you're absolutely right. The hero of the 17th-century Spanish novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (by Miguel de Cervantes) didn't change the world by tilting at windmills, but he did leave a linguistic legacy in English. The adjective quixotic is based on his name and has been used to describe unrealistic idealists since at least the early 18th century. The novel has given English other words as well. Dulcinea, the name of Quixote's beloved, has come to mean "mistress" or "sweetheart," and rosinante, which is sometimes used to refer to an old, broken-down horse, comes from the name of the hero's less-than-gallant steed, Rocinante. 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 October 28, 2014 is: sempiternal • \sem-pih-TER-nul\ • adjective : of never-ending duration : eternal Examples: No matter how much we try to analyze it, the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, will be a matter of sempiternal debate. "But by Page 10, I knew I'd never read 'Moby-Dick.' The novel- if you can call such an idiosyncratic book by any generic name-hit me like a storm out of nowhere. It contained a wild deluge of thoughts and ideas and sempiternal images." - Amy Wilentz, Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2011 Did you know? Despite their similarities, sempiternal and eternal come from different roots. Sempiternal is derived from the Late Latin sempiternalis and ultimately from semper, Latin for "always." (You may recognize semper as a key element in the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps: semper fidelis, meaning "always faithful.") Eternal, on the other hand, is derived by way of Middle French and Middle English from the Late Latin aeternalis and ultimately from aevum, Latin for "age" or "eternity." Sempiternal is much less common than eternal, but some writers have found it useful. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, wrote, "The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, … to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why…." 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 October 27, 2014 is: homage • \AH-mij\ • noun 1 : something done or given as an acknowledgement of a vassal's duty to his lord 2 a : respect b : tribute Examples: One scene in the movie was clearly the director's homage to his mentor and idol. "Click through the slideshow to preview Fili’s homage to Italian typography, including elegant signs for trattorias, … cinemas, and more." - Erica Schwiegershausen, New York Magazine, September 17, 2014 Did you know? The root of homage is homo-, the Latin root meaning "man." In medieval times, a king's male subject could officially become the king's "man" by publicly announcing allegiance to the monarch in a formal ceremony. In that ritual, known as homage, the subject knelt and placed his hands between those of his lord, symbolically surrendering himself and putting himself at the lord's disposal and under his jurisdiction. A bond was thus forged between the two; the vassal's part was to revere and serve his lord, and the lord's role was to protect the vassal and his family. Over time, homage was extended from the ceremony to the acts of duty and respect done for the lord, and eventually to any respectful act or tribute. 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 October 26, 2014 is: maunder • \MAWN-der\ • verb 1 : chiefly British : grumble 2 : to wander slowly and idly 3 : to speak indistinctly or disconnectedly Examples: Chelsea left a nearly incoherent message on my voicemail, maundering on for several minutes without ever getting around to her reason for calling. "Some of Tyler's students lag behind to chat, maundering along at their own pace." - Cody Winchester, Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), May 14, 2011 Did you know? Maunder looks a lot like meander, and that's not all the two words have in common-both mean "to wander aimlessly," either physically or in speech. Some critics have suggested that while meander can describe a person's verbal and physical rambling, in addition to the wanderings of things like paths and streams, maunder should be limited to wandering words. The problem with that reasoning is that maunder has been used of the physical movements of people since at least 1775, whereas meander didn't acquire that use until around 1831. These days, meander tends to be the more common choice, although maunder does continue to turn up in both applications. 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 October 25, 2014 is: vendetta • \ven-DET-uh\ • noun 1 : a feud between different families 2 : an often prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, or hostile acts or exchange of such acts Examples: The vendetta between the two more powerful families on the island reached new heights when the prominent son of one family and two of his associates suddenly went missing. "Lawyers for the indicted … sheriff are accusing the federal prosecutor of misconduct, saying he has a vendetta against their client and threatened him with arrest during a heated May meeting over U.S. Forest Service patrols in northern New Mexico." - Russell Contreras, Albuquerque Journal, August 20, 2014 Did you know? Vendetta has been getting even in English since the mid-19th century. English speakers borrowed vendetta, spelling and all, from Italian, in which it means "revenge." It ultimately traces to the Latin verb vindicare, which means "to lay claim to" or "to avenge." That Latin word is also in the family tree of many other English terms related to getting even, including avenge, revenge, vengeance, vindicate, and vindictive. 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 October 24, 2014 is: lyric • \LEER-ik\ • adjective 1 : suitable for singing : melodic 2 : expressing direct usually intense personal emotion Examples: The critics are praising Jessica's debut novel as a lyric masterpiece that bravely lays out the emotional tensions experienced by its young protagonist. "Virtually all of Big Jim’s lyric digressions were on writers. When Big Jim talked about Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman or whomever, he spoke and we listened and learned." - Frank Clancy, Savannah Morning News, September 23, 2014 Did you know? To the ancient Greeks, anything lyrikos was appropriate to the lyre. That elegant stringed instrument was highly regarded by the Greeks and was used to accompany intensely personal poetry that revealed the thoughts and feelings of the poet. When the adjective lyric, a descendant of lyrikos, was adopted into English in the 1500s, it too referred to things pertaining or adapted to the lyre. Initially, it was applied to poetic forms (such as elegies, odes, or sonnets) that expressed strong emotion, to poets who wrote such works, or to things that were meant to be sung; over time, it was extended to anything musical or rhapsodic. Nowadays, lyric is also used as a noun naming either a type of poem or the words of a song. 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 October 23, 2014 is: interlocutor • \in-ter-LAH-kyuh-ter\ • noun : one who takes part in dialogue or conversation Examples: Steve's aggressive insistence on the correctness of his own opinions frequently made his interlocutors uncomfortable. "I don't wonder that one of his interlocutors stared when he seriously suggested to them that MPs were paid too much, and would do their job much better if they were on the minimum wage." - Philip Hensher, The Independent (London), September 14, 2014 Did you know? Interlocutor derives from the Latin interloqui, meaning "to speak between" or "to issue an interlocutory decree." (An interlocutory decree is a court judgment that comes in the middle of a case and is not decisive.) Interloqui, in turn, ultimately comes from the words inter-, "between," and loqui, "to speak." Some other words that English borrowed from loqui are loquacious ("talkative"), circumlocution (essentially, "talking around a subject"), ventriloquism ("talking in such a way that one's voice seems to come from someone or something else"), eloquent ("capable of fluent or vivid speech"), and grandiloquence ("extravagant or pompous speech"). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2014 is: turophile • \TOOR-uh-fyle\ • noun : a connoisseur of cheese : a cheese fancier Examples: Surely the turophiles at our table can recommend some good cheeses to pair with our wine selection. "For this dish you need a special cheese from Switzerland called Raclette. It's expensive and hard to find where I live, and it smells terrible-or, to turophiles like me, divine." - Patty Kirk, Starting From Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook, 2008 Did you know? Are you stuck on Stilton or gaga for Gouda? Do you crave Camembert? If so, you just might be a turophile, the ultimate cheese lover. From an irregular formation of the Greek word for cheese, tyros, plus the English -phile, meaning "lover" (itself a descendant of the Greek -philos, meaning "loving"), turophile first named cheese aficionados as early as 1938. It was in the 1950s, however, that the term really caught the attention of the American public, when Clifton Fadiman (writer, editor, and radio host) introduced turophile to readers of his eloquent musings on the subject of cheese. 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 October 21, 2014 is: redux • \ree-DUKS\ • adjective : brought back Examples: Now running in his own campaign, the son of the former mayor was advised to develop his own identity and not simply portray himself as his father redux. "Think of it as 'Combat Evolved' redux. 'Destiny' wants to meld the multiplayer and single-player experience into a coherent whole." - Gieson Cacho, San Jose Mercury News, September 16, 2014 Did you know? In Latin, redux (from the verb reducere, meaning "to lead back") can mean "brought back" or "bringing back." The Romans used redux as an epithet for the Goddess Fortuna with its "bringing back" meaning; Fortuna Redux was "one who brings another safely home." But it was the "brought back" meaning that made its way into English. Redux belongs to a small class of English adjectives that are always used postpositively-that is, they always follow the words they modify. Redux has a history of showing up in titles of English works, such as John Dryden’s Astraea Redux (a poem "on the happy restoration and return of his sacred majesty, Charles the Second"), Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux, and John Updike’s Rabbit Redux. 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 October 20, 2014 is: impunity • \im-PYOO-nuh-tee\ • noun : exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss Examples: Penalties for breaking the law can be made harsher, but without extra funding for its enforcement, people will continue to violate it with impunity. "Carlos Zarate, a congressman who sits on the Philippine House of Representatives' Human Rights Committee, said in an interview Tuesday that the arrest of General Palparan did not signal an end to the problem of security forces committing abuses with impunity." - Floyd Whaley, The New York Times, August 13, 2014 Did you know? Impunity (like the words pain, penal, and punish) traces to the Latin noun poena, meaning "punishment." The Latin word, in turn, came from Greek poinē, meaning "payment" or "penalty." People acting with impunity have prompted use of the word since the 1500s, as in this 1660 example by Englishman Roger Coke: "This unlimited power of doing anything with impunity, will only beget a confidence in kings of doing what they list [desire]." While royals may act with impunity more easily than others, the word impunity can be applied to the lowliest of beings as well as the loftiest: "Certain beetles have learned to detoxify [willow] leaves in their digestive tract so they can eat them with impunity" (Smithsonian, September 1986). 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 October 19, 2014 is: esculent • \ESS-kyuh-lunt\ • adjective : edible Examples: Morels are esculent mushrooms and are delicious, but be warned that there are also false morels, which are poisonous. "The berry, which has two to three times more antioxidants than blueberries, falls from what the Brazilians call 'The Tree of Life', with about 90 per cent being inedible, but the esculent skin of the aҫaí tastes like a vibrant blend of berries and dark chocolate." - Sarah O'Brien, Newcastle Herald (Australia), December 14, 2013 Did you know? One appealing thing about esculent is that this word, which comes from the Latin for food (esca), has been around for over 375 years. If we give you just one more tidbit of etymology-that esca is from Latin edere, which means "to eat"-can you pick which of the following words is NOT related to esculent? Comestible, edacious, edible, escalade, escarole, or obese. Comestible (meaning "edible"), edacious (meaning "voracious"), edible, escarole (a type of salad green), and obese are all descendants of edere. Only escalade (meaning "an act of scaling walls") doesn't belong on the list. It descends from the Italian scalare, meaning "to scale." 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 October 18, 2014 is: neophilia • \nee-uh-FILL-ee-uh\ • noun : love or enthusiasm for what is new or novel Examples: Loretta wondered if it was neophilia that led her husband to buy shiny new power tools even when the ones he already had were in perfect condition. "Time was, not too many years ago, when shopping was a pleasure. The atmosphere at the malls, the array of items, the decor, the people, the variety of shops, all beckoned to our neophilia, although I wasn’t aware there was a word for it." - Juanita Hughes, Cherokee Tribune (Canton, Georgia), September 2, 2014 Did you know? The earliest known example of neophilia in print is from an 1899 issue of Political Science Quarterly, a publication of Columbia University. The word is a combination of the Greek-derived combining forms neo-, meaning "new," and -philia, meaning "liking for." In the 1930s, the form neophily was introduced as a synonym of neophilia, but no neophilia could save it from obscurity-it has never caught on. The opposite of neophilia is neophobia, meaning "a dread of or aversion to novelty." It has been around slightly longer than neophilia, having first appeared in 1886. 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 October 17, 2014 is: forswear • \for-SWAIR\ • verb 1 : to make a liar of (oneself) under or as if under oath 2 a : to reject, deny, or renounce under oath b : to renounce earnestly Examples: Tina forswore flying after the latest airline mishap left her stranded in Chicago for eighteen hours. "… the film finds Cotillard playing an ordinary woman who, shortly after recovering from a period of depression, finds herself being laid off in unusual circumstances. If she can persuade a majority of her colleagues to forswear their annual bonuses then she can keep her job." - Donald Clarke, The Irish Times, August 22, 2014 Did you know? Forswear (which is also sometimes spelled foreswear) is the modern English equivalent of the Old English forswerian. It can suggest denial ("[Thou] would'st forswear thy own hand and seal" - John Arbuthnot, John Bull) or perjury ("Is it the interest of any man … to lie, forswear himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder?" - Charles Dickens, American Notes). But in current use, it most often has to do with giving something up, as in "the warring parties agreed to forswear violence" and "she refused to forswear her principles." The word abjure is often used as a synonym of forswear, though with less emphasis on the suggestion of perjury or betrayal of the beliefs that one holds dear. 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 October 16, 2014 is: bucket shop • \BUK-ut-SHAHP\ • noun 1 : a gambling establishment that formerly used market fluctuations (as in commodities) as a basis for gaming 2 : a dishonest brokerage firm Examples: "Today … the SEC is able to intervene more quickly to shut down frauds, like boiler rooms or bucket shops pushing bogus stocks…." - The Orange County Register, October 15, 2001 "As a result, dozens of operations have sprouted up on the Caymans to supply directors, from one-man bucket shops to powerhouse law firms." - Azam Ahmed, The New York Times, July 2, 2012 Did you know? In the 1870s, a bucket shop was a lowly saloon that sold beer and other cheap hooch in buckets. How did the term make the jump from watering hole to Wall Street? No one is really sure. Some speculate that it may have been because of the small-time gambling that took place at the original bucket shops, while others claim it derives from the bucket elevator used to transport things between the Chicago Board of Trade and a market for small investors housed directly below it. By the 1880s, bucket shop was being used for pseudo "investment houses" where gamblers bid on the rise and fall of stock prices. These days the term is used for any business that sells cut-price goods, especially airline tickets. 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 October 15, 2014 is: doctrinaire • \dahk-truh-NAIR\ • adjective : attempting to put into effect an abstract doctrine or theory with little or no regard for practical difficulties Examples: "As doctrinaire as I may be about players being ready to play every day," Coach said, "they are also human beings; I need to accept they are going to need breaks once in a while." "We use endorsement interviews to see how candidates interact with their opponents, how politically daring (or doctrinaire) they are and whether they’re thinking more about the public’s good or their own campaigns." - Elizabeth Sullivan, Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), September 21, 2014 Did you know? Doctrinaire didn't start out as a critical word. In post-revolutionary France, a group who favored constitutional monarchy called themselves Doctrinaires. Doctrine in French, as in English, is a word for the principles on which a government is based; it is ultimately from Latin doctrina, meaning "teaching" or "instruction." But both ultraroyalists and revolutionists strongly derided any doctrine of reconciling royalty and representation as utterly impracticable, and they resented the Doctrinaires' influence over Louis XVIII. So when doctrinaire became an adjective, "there adhered to it some indescribable tincture of unpopularity which was totally indelible" (Blanc's History of Ten Years 1830-40, translated by Walter K. Kelly in 1848). 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 October 14, 2014 is: judgment • \JUJ-munt\ • noun 1 : a formal utterance of an authoritative opinion 2 : a formal decision given by a court 3 : the capacity for judging or the exercise of this capacity Examples: Theresa showed good judgment by clearing her family out of the house as soon as she smelled gas. "Christenson said he'll reserve judgment on the larger iPhone 6 until he holds one in his hand." - Neil Nisperos, Redlands Daily Facts (California), September 10, 2014 Did you know? Judgment can also be spelled "judgement," and usage experts have long disagreed over which spelling is the preferred one. Henry Fowler asserted, "The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] prefers the older and more reasonable spelling. 'Judgement' is therefore here recommended." William Safire held an opposite opinion, writing, "My judgment is that Fowler is not to be followed." "Judgement" is in fact the older spelling, but it dropped from favor and for centuries "judgment" was the only spelling to appear in dictionaries. That changed when the OED (Fowler's source) was published showing "judgement" as an equal variant. Today, "judgment" is more popular in the U.S., whereas both spellings make a good showing in Britain. 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 October 13, 2014 is: posthaste • \POHST-HAYST\ • adverb : with all possible speed Examples: "You must leave posthaste," Virginia theatrically admonished her guests, "or you'll miss your ferry!" "Yes, West Palm Beach commissioners should green-light the chief’s efforts to address the issue posthaste." - Palm Beach Post, September 3, 2014 Did you know? In the 16th century, the phrase "haste, post, haste" was used to inform "posts," as couriers were then called, that a letter was urgent and must be hastily delivered. Posts would then speedily gallop along a route, with a series of places at which to get a fresh horse or to relay the letter to a fresh messenger. Shakespeare was one of the first to use a version of the phrase adverbially in Richard II. "Old John of Gaunt ... hath sent post haste / To entreat your Majesty to visit him," the Bard versified. He also used the phrase as an adjective (a use that is now obsolete) in Othello: "The Duke ... requires your haste-post-haste appearance," Lieutenant Cassio reports to the play's namesake. Today, the word still possesses a literary flair attributable to the Bard. 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 October 12, 2014 is: megillah • \muh-GHIH-luh\ • noun : slang a long involved story or account Examples: Instead of just saying she was running late, Lynette went into the whole megillah of why her appointment would have to be rescheduled. "It takes place far below the surface of the earth, among dripping stalactites, and if you're a fan of Tolkien's mythos in any of its versions, you know it's perhaps the most pivotal moment in the whole megillah: the scene where Bilbo gets his paws on That Ring." - Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, December 13, 2012 Did you know? Although megillah is a slang word in English, it has perfectly respectable Hebrew origins. Megillah derives from the Yiddish megile, which itself comes from the Hebrew word mĕgillāh, meaning "scroll" or "volume." (Mĕgillāh is especially likely to be used in reference to the Book of Esther, which is read aloud at Purim celebrations.) It makes sense, then, that when megillah first appeared in English in the mid-20th century, it referred to a story that was so long (and often tedious or complicated) that it was reminiscent of the length of the mĕgillāh scrolls. The Hebrew word is serious, but the Yiddish megile can be somewhat playful, and our megillah has also inherited that lightheartedness. 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 October 11, 2014 is: derogate • \DAIR-uh-gayt\ • verb 1 : to cause to seem inferior : disparage 2 : to take away a part so as to impair : detract 3 : to act beneath one's position or character Examples: It is easy to derogate the prom committee for its lackluster theme now, but nobody came forward with any better ideas while it was being discussed. "In two national elections, American voters definitively entrusted that man with the job. That man represents the presidency…. Politicians who publicly disrespect the man who holds that office derogate their own profession." - Laura Washington, Chicago Sun-Times, June 23, 2014 Did you know? You're probably familiar with derogatory, the adjective meaning "expressing a low opinion," but you may not be as well-acquainted with the less common verb, derogate. Both words can be traced back to the Late Latin word derogatus, which is the past participle of the verb derogare, meaning "to detract" or "to annul (a law)." Derogare, in turn, derives from the Latin word for "ask," rogare. Derogate first appeared in English in the 15th century. Derogatory was adopted in the early 16th century, and has become much more popular than the verb. Other derogate relatives include derogative, derogation, and derogatorily. 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 October 10, 2014 is: clerisy • \KLAIR-uh-see\ • noun : intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite: intelligentsia Examples: The book's author claims that a successful society must have both a strong commitment to democratic ideals and a well-established clerisy. "The situation was so dire that it required nothing less than scientific experts freed from constitutional strictures to run the government and the elevation of intellectuals and artists to the status of a new cultural clerisy." - Daniel DiSalvo, The Washington Times, February 18, 2014 Did you know? English philosopher-poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) believed that if humanity was to flourish, it was necessary to create a secular organization of learned individuals, "whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars" to "diffuse through the whole community … that quantity and quality of knowledge which was indispensable." Coleridge named this hypothetical group the clerisy, a term he adapted from Klerisei, a German word for clergy (in preference, it seems, to the Russian term intelligentsia which we borrowed later, in the early 1900s). Coleridge may have equated clerisy with an old sense of clergy meaning "learning" or "knowledge," which by his time was used only in the proverb "an ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy." 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 October 9, 2014 is: infinitesimal • \in-fin-ih-TESS-uh-mul\ • adjective 1 : taking on values arbitrarily close to but greater than zero 2 : immeasurably or incalculably small Examples: Stella includes a lottery ticket in every birthday card she sends despite the infinitesimal chances that it will be a winning one. "Across the nation, voters in the magic age range of 18 to 29 … have been coming out in this year’s primaries at a rate 20 percent less than their mostly oblivious elders, a rate which in South Florida would put their impact on the election somewhere between sparse and infinitesimal." - Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald, August 27, 2014 Did you know? Infinite, as you probably know, means "endless" or "extending indefinitely." It is ultimately from Latin infinitus, the opposite of finitus, meaning "finite." The notion of smallness in infinitesimal derives from the mathematical concept that a quantity can be divided endlessly; no matter how small, it can be subdivided into yet smaller fractions, or "infinitesimals." The concept was still in its infancy in 1710 when Irish philosopher George Berkeley observed that some people "assert there are infinitesimals of infinitesimals of infinitesimals, etc., without ever coming to an end." He used the adjective in a mathematical sense, too, referring to "infinitesimal parts of finite lines." Less than a quarter century later, the adjective had acquired a general sense applicable to anything too small to be measured. 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 October 8, 2014 is: pork barrel • \PORK-BAIR-ul\ • noun : government projects or appropriations yielding rich patronage benefits; also: government funds, jobs, or favors distributed by politicians to gain political advantage Examples: It was apparent that the construction of the new parking garage was not a necessary project but a pork barrel deal for the business owners who would see increased foot traffic. "In a debate over pork barrel projects in 2007, [Sen. Tom Coburn] admonished his colleagues, 'Your duty is to the country as a whole, not to the well-heeled special interests who are the beneficiaries.'" - Chris Casteel, NewsOK.com (Oklahoma City), September 7, 2014 Did you know? You might expect that the original pork barrels were barrels for storing pork-and you're right. In the early 19th century, that's exactly what pork barrel meant. But the term was also used figuratively to mean "a supply of money" or "one's livelihood" (a farmer, after all, could readily turn pork into cash). When 20th-century legislators doled out appropriations that benefited their home districts, someone apparently made an association between the profit a farmer got from a barrel of pork and the benefits derived from certain state and federal projects. By 1909, pork barrel was being used as a noun naming such government appropriations, and today the term is usually used attributively in constructions such as "pork barrel spending" or "a pork barrel project." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.