Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 15, 2026 is: cloying • KLOY-ing • adjective Cloying is used disapprovingly to describe something that is too sweet, pleasant, or sentimental. // She finds most romantic comedies cloying and predictable. See the entry > Examples: “Images of her came to me often, as did snatches of songs in her repertoire, which she sang to me as lullabies. ... What I couldn't quite summon, despite what I thought of as my keen smell memory, was her fragrance. As a kid, I had never liked it. Bellodgia was heavy, spicy, and floral; when my mother would lean over me to comb my hair ... the cloying rose and carnation combined with her tugging on my scalp always threatened to give me a headache. Still ... I missed that fragrance now.” — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 10 July 2025 Did you know? The history of cloying isn't sweet—it's tough as nails. Cloying comes from the verb cloy, which in Middle English meant “to hinder or seriously injure”; its source is an Anglo-French word meaning “to prick (a horse) with a nail in shoeing.” English cloy too carried this farriery meaning (a farrier being a person who shoes horses) in the early 16th century, but it also had a general sense relating to clogging and stuffing, and in particular to overloading with especially sweet or rich food. From there quickly arose meanings of cloy still in use today: “to supply with an unwanted or distasteful excess usually of something originally pleasing” and “to be or become insipid or distasteful usually through an excess of an originally pleasurable quality (such as sweetness).” The adjective cloying, which describes things that are too sweet, pleasant, or sentimental, was doing the job it does today by the end of the 16th century.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 14, 2026 is: delegate • DEL-uh-gayt • verb To delegate something (such as control, responsibility, authority, or a job or duty) is to trust someone else with it. // Those tasks can be delegated to someone else. See the entry > Examples: “In practice, principals shuttle back and forth, sometimes multiple times a day, or divide their schedule between mornings and afternoons, or alternate full days at each school. When they're off-site, they must formally delegate authority, but parents and teachers say it's not always clear who holds decision-making power.” — Isabel Teotonio, The Toronto Star, 1 Dec. 2025 Did you know? To delegate is to literally or figuratively send someone else in your place, an idea that is reflected in the word's origin: it is a descendant of the Latin word lēgāre, meaning “to send as an envoy” (a messenger or representative). The noun delegate, which refers to a person who is chosen or elected to vote or act for others, arrived in English in the 14th century, while the verb didn't make its entrée till the early 16th century. (Note that the verb rhymes with relegate while the noun rhymes with delicate.) Some distant cousins of the word delegate that also trace back to lēgāre include legacy, colleague, relegate, and legate, “an official representative sent to a foreign country.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 13, 2026 is: umbrage • UM-brij • noun Umbrage refers to a feeling of being offended by what someone has said or done. It is often used in the phrase “take umbrage.” // Some listeners took umbrage at the podcaster's remarks about the event. See the entry > Examples: “The one item on offer was considered to be so good that the chef took umbrage at being asked for mustard.” — The Irish Times, 31 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Umbrage is a word born in the shadows. Its ultimate source (and that of umbrella) is Latin umbra, meaning “shade, shadow,” and when it was first used in the 15th century it referred to exactly that. But figurative use followed relatively quickly. Shakespeare wrote of Hamlet that “his semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more,” and by the 17th century this meaning of “vague suggestion; hint,” had been joined by other uses, including the “feeling of resentment or offense” heard today in such sentences as “many took umbrage at the speaker's tasteless jokes.” The word's early literal use is not often encountered, though it does live on in literature: for example, in her 1849 novel, Charlotte Brontë describes how the titular Shirley would relax “at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 12, 2026 is: brackish • BRACK-ish • adjective Brackish, meaning “somewhat salty,” usually describes water or bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and estuaries. The word can also mean “not appealing to the taste” or “repulsive.” // The river becomes brackish as we approach the tidemark. See the entry > Examples: “The blood-testing organs don't measure water levels but rather the concentration of salt, whose healthy range lies at almost exactly the same concentration as that of the brackish intertidal water in which vertebrates first evolved (which is about one-third as salty as seawater).” — Dan Samorodnitsky, Wired, 28 Sept. 2025 Did you know? When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant “salty,” as did its Dutch parent brac. Then, as now, brackish was used to describe water that was a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, such as one encounters where a river meets the sea. Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of “unpalatable” and “repulsive,” presumably because of the oozy, mucky, and sometimes stinky (or stinkyish, if you prefer)—not just salty—qualities of coastal estuaries and swamps.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 11, 2026 is: paradox • PAIR-uh-dahks • noun Paradox refers to something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible. It can also refer to someone who does two seemingly opposite things or who has qualities that are opposite; to a statement that seems to say two opposite things but that nonetheless may be true; or to the use of such statements in writing or speech. // It is a paradox that computers need time-consuming updates so often, since they are meant to save people time. // As an actor, she's a paradox—she loves being in the spotlight but fiercely guards her privacy. See the entry > Examples: “In some ways, I think the idea of a ‘serious lady' might even be a paradox, if to be serious means to understand the world according to one's own precepts, experiences, and observations, and to behave in a way that reflects this. A lady, on the other hand, follows rules that others have devised. How, then, can a ‘serious lady' be anything other than a very peculiar and odd creature—which the women in this book certainly are?” — Sheila Heti, from the introduction to Two Serious Ladies: A Novel by Jane Bowles, 2025 (orig. 1943) Did you know? The ancient Greeks were well aware that a paradox—the saying “less is more,” for example—can take us outside our usual way of thinking. They combined the prefix para-, “beyond” or “outside of,” with the verb dokein, “to think,” forming paradoxos, an adjective meaning “contrary to expectation.” Latin speakers used that word as the basis for a noun paradoxum, which English speakers borrowed during the 1500s as paradox.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 10, 2026 is: collude • kuh-LOOD • verb To collude is to work with others secretly especially in order to do something illegal or dishonest. Collude is used as a synonym of conspire and plot. // She is accused of colluding with known criminals. See the entry > Examples: "Two lawsuits filed in April accuse hundreds of insurers of colluding to drop policyholders and force them onto the plan, which offers limited policies that typically cost more." — Laurence Darmiento, The Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2025 Did you know? Colluding—working secretly with others to do something deceitful or illegal—is not a game, but you'd never know it if you took your cues on the meaning of collude solely from its etymology. Collude comes from the Latin verb colludere, which in turn combines the prefix com-, meaning "together," and the verb ludere, "to play." Ludere, in turn, comes from ludus, meaning "game, play, or sport." (Ludus is also the source of the adjective ludicrous and the noun interlude). Collude has a related noun—collusion—which carries the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation." Despite their playful history, collude and collusion have always suggested illicit trickery rather than good-natured fun.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 9, 2026 is: innocuous • ih-NAH-kyuh-wus • adjective Innocuous describes either something that is not likely to bother or offend anyone (as in “an innocuous comment”), or something that causes no injury, or is otherwise considered harmless (as in “an innocuous prank”). // The reporter asked what seemed like an innocuous question, but it prompted the candidate to storm off, abruptly ending the press conference. See the entry > Examples: “Strong solar storms can be dangerous for astronauts in space, and can cause problems for GPS systems and satellites. ... But solar storms can also have more innocuous consequences on Earth, such as supercharged displays of the northern lights.” — Denise Chow, NBC News (online), May 15, 2025 Did you know? Innocuous is rooted in a lack of harm: it comes from the Latin adjective innocuus, which was formed by combining the negative prefix in- with a form of the verb nocēre, meaning “to harm” or “to hurt.” It first appeared in print in the early 1600s with the meaning “harmless; causing no injury,” as in “an innocuous gas,” and soon developed a second, metaphorical sense used to describe something that does not offend or cause hurt feelings, as in “an innocuous comment.” Innocent followed the same trajectory centuries before; its negative in- prefix joined with Latin nocent-, nocens, meaning “wicked,” which also comes from nocēre. This is not to say that nocēre has only contributed words that semantically negate the harm inherent in the root: nocēre is also the source of noxious and nuisance.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 8, 2026 is: gumbo • GUM-boh • noun Gumbo refers to a soup thickened with okra pods or filé and containing meat or seafoods and usually vegetables. The word is also used figuratively to refer to a mixture or blend of something. // The reputation of the family's gumbo guaranteed them an invitation to any and all neighborhood potlucks. // She draws her artistic inspiration from the city's rich gumbo of musical styles. See the entry > Examples: “Gram and Aunt Rachel got a big bucket of gumbo on the way home ... and we ate it out of the container with plastic spoons in front of the clubhouse TV, watching episode after episode of Jeopardy!, none of us wagering any answers. Gull sat in my lap and picked out the okra.” — Tennessee Hill, Girls with Long Shadows: A Novel, 2025 Did you know? Gumbo refers to an aromatic soup of the Creole cuisine of Louisiana, combining African, Indigenous North American, and European elements. It takes its name from the American French word gombo, which in turn is of Bantu origin and related to the Umbundu word ochinggômbo, meaning “okra.” Okra usually plays a starring role in gumbo as a thickener (unless the soup is thickened by filé, powdered young sassafras leaves) alongside the holy trinity of celery, onion, and bell pepper, and any number of additional ingredients, from seafood (shrimp, crab, or oysters) to meat (chicken, sausage, duck, or game) to leafy greens. The variety of ingredients and ways to prepare the dish eventually led to the figurative sense of gumbo referring to a variety, mixture, or mélange of things, as in “a gumbo of ideas.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 7, 2026 is: eminently • EM-uh-nunt-lee • adverb Eminently is used as a synonym of very and means "to a high degree." // Our team came up with an eminently sensible plan to reduce waste. See the entry > Examples: "This was jazz of the highest order—challenging, yet accessible, eminently entertaining and arrestingly beautiful. Goosebumps were felt." — T'Cha Dunlevy, The Gazette (Montreal, Canada), 8 July 2025 Did you know? When British physician Tobias Venner wrote in 1620 of houses "somewhat eminently situated," he meant that the houses were located at an elevated site—they were literally in a high place. That use has since slipped into obsolescence, as has the word's use to mean "conspicuously"—a sense that reflects its Latin root, ēminēre, which means "to stick out" or "protrude." All three meanings date to the 17th century, but today's figurative sense of "notably" or "very" is the only one now regularly encountered.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 6, 2026 is: loll • LAHL • verb Loll most often means “to droop or hang loosely.” It can also mean “to act or move in a relaxed or lazy manner.” // We're counting down the days until the weather will be warm enough again to laze and loll by the pool. See the entry > Examples: “Just across the highway at Año Nuevo State Park, elephant seals loll lazily on the beach.” — Scott Clark, quoted in Saveur, 3 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Despite appearances, loll isn't an exaggerated version of the abbreviation LOL. It isn't even related to laughing. Instead, it is about hanging out, both literally and figuratively. Like another relaxing verb, lull (“to cause to rest or sleep”), it probably originated as an imitation of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep. In addition to meaning “to hang loosely,” as in “a dog with its tongue lolling out,” loll shares meaning with a number of l verbs that are all about taking it easy, including loaf, lounge, and laze.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 5, 2026 is: marginalia • mahr-juh-NAY-lee-uh • noun Marginalia is a plural noun that refers to notes or other marks written in the margins of a text, and also to nonessential matters or items. // I loved flipping through my literature textbooks to find the marginalia left behind by former students. // She found the documentary's treatment of not only the major events but also the marginalia of Scandinavian history fascinating. See the entry > Examples: “Marginalia have a long history: Leonardo da Vinci famously scribbled thoughts about gravity years before Galileo Galilei published his magnum opus on the subject; the discovery was waiting under our noses in the margins of Leonardo's Codex Arundel.” — Brianne Kane, Scientific American, 19 Sept. 2025 Did you know? In the introduction to his essay titled “Marginalia,” Edgar Allan Poe wrote: “In getting my books, I have always been solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of penciling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general.” At the time the essay was first published in 1844, marginalia was only a few decades old despite describing something—notes in the margin of a text—that had existed for centuries. An older word, apostille (or apostil), refers to a single annotation made in a margin, but that word is rarely used today. Even if you are not, like Poe, simply ravenous for scribbling in your own books, you likely know marginalia as a telltale sign that someone has read a particular volume before you.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 4, 2026 is: titanic • tye-TAN-ik • adjective Something described as titanic is very great in size, force, or power. // The batter saved the game in the bottom of the ninth inning by hitting a titanic home run right out of the park. See the entry > Examples: “Absurdly, though, if you were standing on a Rodinian beach [on the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia] you might not have even noticed the seas rising at all. This is because, as the land bounced back from underneath the weight of the now-vanished ice sheets, and the gravitational pull of these titanic ice sheets on the oceans disappeared, the seas might have appeared to some Rodinian beachgoers to instead retreat from the coast, and even drop by over three hundred feet—despite the unthinkable rise in sea level globally.” — Peter Brannan, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World, 2025 Did you know? Before becoming the name of the most famous ship in history, titanic described that which resembled or was related to the Titans, the family of giant gods and goddesses in Greek mythology who were believed to have once ruled the earth. They were subsequently overpowered and replaced by the younger Olympian gods under the leadership of Zeus. The size and power of the Titans is memorialized in the adjective titanic and in the noun titanium, a chemical element of exceptional strength that is used especially in the production of steel.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 3, 2026 is: senescence • sih-NESS-unss • noun Senescence is a formal and technical word that refers to the state of being old or the process of becoming old. // Our grandparents, now in their senescence, are enjoying spending more time with family and going on new adventures together. See the entry > Examples: “Pilates provides improvements in core strength, flexibility and balance, even when done just once a week. It can help with stress relief, as well as anxiety and depression. Among those 60 years of age and older, Pilates has even been shown to slow the process of senescence.” — Leah Asmelash, CNN, 7 Sept. 2025 Did you know? Senescence can be traced back to Latin senex, meaning “old.” Can you guess which other English words come from senex? Senile might (correctly) come to mind, as well as senior. But another one might surprise you: senate. This word for a legislative assembly dates back to ancient Rome, where the Senatus was originally a council of elders composed of the heads of patrician families. There's also the much rarer senectitude, which, like senescence, refers to the state of being old (specifically, to the final stage of the normal life span).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 2, 2026 is: febrile • FEB-ryle • adjective Febrile is a medical term meaning "marked or caused by fever; feverish." It is sometimes used figuratively, as in "a febrile political climate." // I'm finally back on my feet after recovering from a febrile illness. // The actor delivered the monologue with a febrile intensity. See the entry > Examples: "Peppered with exclamation marks, breathless and febrile, this is an utterly mesmeric account of how one man's crimes can affect an entire community." — Laura Wilson, The Guardian (London), 20 June 2025 Did you know? The English language has had the word fever for as long as the language has existed (that is, about a thousand years); the related adjective feverish has been around since the 14th century. But that didn't stop the 17th-century medical reformer Noah Biggs from admonishing physicians to care for their "febrile patients" properly. Biggs apparently thought his medical writing required a word that clearly nodded to a Latin heritage, and called upon the Latin adjective febrilis, from febris, meaning "fever." It's a tradition that English has long kept: look to Latin for words that sound technical or elevated. But fever too comes from febris. It first appeared (albeit with a different spelling) in an Old English translation of a book about the medicinal qualities of various plants. By Biggs's time it had shed all obvious hallmarks of its Latin ancestry. Febrile, meanwhile, continues to be used in medicine in a variety of ways, including in references to such things as "febrile seizures" and "the febrile phase" of an illness. The word has also developed figurative applications matching those of feverish, as in "a febrile atmosphere."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 1, 2026 is: amortize • AM-er-tyze • verb To amortize something, such as a mortgage, is to pay for it by making regular payments over a long period of time. // If you apply extra payments directly to your loan balance as a principal reduction, your loan can be amortized sooner. See the entry > Examples: “As part of some of the league's commercial deals—where companies pay the league for rights of some sort—the NFL has received equity or warrants. … The warrants are priced at fair market value on the date of vesting and amortized over 10 years.” — Jacob Feldman and Eben Novy-Williams, Sportico, 5 Aug. 2025 Did you know? When you amortize a loan, you figuratively “kill it off” by paying it down in installments, an idea reflected in the etymology of amortize. The word comes ultimately from a Latin word meaning “to kill” that was formed in part from the Latin noun mors, meaning “death”; it is related both to murder and a word naming a kind of loan that is usually amortized: mortgage. The original use of amortize dates to the 14th century, when amortizing was about transferring ownership of a property to a corporation, and especially to an ecclesiastical corporation—that is, a corporation consisting wholly of clergy. Such land was said to be in mortmain, which under the feudal system meant that the property was permanently exempt from a lord's usual payment collections. Mortmain is of course another mors word. Its second syllable comes from Latin manus, meaning “hand,” the implication being that the property was held in the dead hand of a corporation—a hand incapable of paying out.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 31, 2025 is: retrospective • reh-truh-SPEK-tiv • adjective Retrospective describes something that relates to the past or to something that happened in the past. // The museum has curated a retrospective exhibit of the artist's early works. See the entry > Examples: "Our retrospective sense of time hinges on memory: Periods rich in novel, significant experiences feel longer, while routine collapses duration ..." — Marc Wittmann, Psychology Today, 16 Nov. 2025 Did you know? At the year's end, both introspection and retrospection are common. While introspection involves looking inward and taking stock of oneself, retrospection is all about recollecting and contemplating things that happened in the past. A look back at the history of the related adjective retrospective reveals that it retains a strong connection to its past: its Latin source is retrospicere, meaning "to look back at." Retrospective can also be used as a noun referring to an exhibition that "looks back" at an artist's work created over a span of years. Once you have retrospective and retrospection behind you, you can also add their kin retrospect (most familiar in the phrase in retrospect to describe thinking about the past or something that happened in the past) and retro (usually meaning "fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned") to your vocabulary, too.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 30, 2025 is: charisma • kuh-RIZ-muh • noun Charisma refers to a special magnetic charm or appeal that causes people to feel attracted and excited by someone. A person with charisma is captivating and often admired. // The young singer has the kind of charisma that turns a performer into a star. See the entry > Examples: "Sports and showbiz have gone hand in hand since newsreels in the 1920s showcased the skills and charisma of Babe Ruth." — Carole Horst, Variety, 16 July 2025 Did you know? The Greek word charisma means "favor" or "gift." It comes from the verb charizesthai ("to favor"), which in turn comes from the noun charis, meaning "grace." In English, charisma was originally used in Christian contexts to refer to a gift or power bestowed upon an individual by the Holy Spirit for the good of the Church—a sense that is now very rare. These days, we use the word to refer to social, rather than divine, grace. For instance, a leader with charisma may easily gain popular support, and a job applicant with charisma may shine in an interview.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 29, 2025 is: nefarious • nih-FAIR-ee-us • adjective Nefarious is a formal word that describes something as evil or immoral. // Authorities suspect that the recovered materials were going to be used for nefarious purposes. See the entry > Examples: “Introducing characters like Gorilla Grodd on DC Crime would help familiarize audiences with these figures before they potentially receive an expanded role in another project. Perhaps each season could focus on a different villain, highlighting their nefarious actions.” — Chris Agar, comicbook.com, 16 Nov. 2025 Did you know? If you need a fancy word to describe someone who's up to no good, nefarious has got you (and them) covered. It's also handy for characterizing the “no good” such a dastardly devil gets up to, as in “a nefarious business/plot/deed.” Nefarious is most often used for someone or something that is flagrantly wicked or corrupt—it's more applicable to the mustache-twirling supervillain than the morally gray antihero. In other words, there's no question that a nefarious scheme, or schemer, is not right. Etymologically, this makes perfect sense: nefarious can be traced back to the Latin noun nefas, meaning “crime,” which in turn combines ne- (“not”) and fas, meaning “right” or “divine law.” It is one of very few English words with this root, accompanied only by the likes of nefariousness and the thoroughly obscure nefast (“wicked”).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 28, 2025 is: yen • YEN • noun A yen is a strong desire, urge, or craving for something. // After dinner, the family went out for ice cream to satisfy their yen for something sweet. // Students with a yen to travel should consider studying abroad. See the entry > Examples: “If you've got a yen for succulent, right-off-the-boat Maine sea scallops, now is the time to get them.” — Stephen Rappaport, The Bangor Daily News, 26 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Although yen suggests no more than a strong desire these days (as in “a yen for a beach vacation”), at one time someone with a yen was in deep trouble: the first meaning of yen, used in the late 19th century, was an intense craving for opium. The word comes from yīn-yáhn, a combination of yīn, meaning “opium,” and yáhn, “craving,” in the Chinese language used in the province of Guangdong. In English, the Chinese syllables were translated as yen-yen, and eventually shortened to yen.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 27, 2025 is: apropos • ap-ruh-POH • preposition Apropos is used as a preposition to mean "with regard to." It is frequently used in the phrase "apropos of." // Sean interrupted our conversation about politics and, apropos of nothing, asked who we thought would win the basketball game. As an adjective, apropos describes something that is suitable or appropriate, as in "an apropos nickname." See the entry > Examples: "Once, at the height of COVID, I dropped off a book at the home of Werner Herzog. I was an editor at the time and was trying to assign him a review, so I drove up to his gate in Laurel Canyon, and we had the briefest of masked conversations. Within 30 seconds, it turned strange. 'Do you have a dog? A little dog?' he asked me, staring out at the hills of Los Angeles, apropos of nothing. He didn't wait for an answer. 'Then be careful of the coyotes,' Herzog said." — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 8 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Apropos wears its ancestry like a badge—or perhaps more fittingly a beret. From the French phrase à propos, meaning "to the purpose," the word's emphasis lands on its last syllable, which ends in a silent "s": ap-ruh-POH. Apropos typically functions as an adjective describing what is suitable or appropriate ("an apropos comment"), or as a preposition (with or without of) meaning "with regard to," as in "apropos (of) the decision, implementation will take some time." The phrase "apropos of nothing" is used to signal that what follows does not relate to any previous topic.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 26, 2025 is: grandiose • gran-dee-OHSS • adjective Grandiose is usually used disapprovingly to describe something that seems impressive or is intended to be impressive, but that is either not possible or practical. // The long-vacant historic building has finally been purchased, and the developer has announced grandiose plans to make it the center of a new theater district. See the entry > Examples: “Henry [VIII] was a leader known for his grandiose presentation, a love of dramatic rhetoric and self-promotion, and a fondness for blaming others. He carefully curated his image, issuing official portraits and closely managing public appearances. His reign concentrated power in one man and his obsessions.” — Philippa Gregory, LitHub.com, 29 Oct. 2025 Did you know? When it comes to bigness, there's grand and then there's grandiose. Both words can be used to describe something impressive in size, scope, or effect, but while grand may lend its noun a bit of dignity (i.e., “we had a grand time”), grandiose often implies a whiff of pretension. The difference between a grand plan for the city park and a grandiose one, for example, might be the difference between a tasteful fountain and a garden full of topiaries cut in the shapes of 19th century literary figures. So if you're choosing between the two, a helpful mnemonic might be that the extra letters in grandiose suggest that one's ideas, claims, promises, schemes, dreams—you get the idea—are a bit extra.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 25, 2025 is: noel • noh-EL • noun When capitalized, Noel refers to Christmas or the Christmas season. Uncapitalized, noel refers to a Christmas carol. // We were greeted at the door by a group of carolers singing noels. // Every year we send our family Christmas cards with our photo enclosed wishing everyone a joyous Noel. See the entry > Examples: “The meeting began with a touch of holiday spirit as members of the Woodland Park High School Madrigals sang three selections. The first was a Noel song with a medieval/renaissance feel that was well matched to their festive costumes. They followed with the popular ‘Carol of the Bells' and ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas.'” — Doug Fitzgerald, The Pikes Peak (Colorado) Courier, 9 Dec. 2024 Did you know? English speakers borrowed noel from the French word noël, which is also used for both the Christmas holiday and a Christmas carol. It can be traced further back to the Latin word natalis, which can mean “birthday” as a noun or “of or relating to birth” as an adjective. (The English adjective natal has the same meaning and is also an offspring of natalis.) Noels were being sung in Latin and French for centuries before English-speakers started using the word to refer to Christmas carols in the 18th century. An early use of noel (spelled Nowel) to mean “Christmas” can be found in the text of the late 14th-century Arthurian legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 24, 2025 is: hark back • HAHRK-BAK • verb Harking back can be about turning back to an earlier topic or circumstance, as in "a storyteller harking back to his youth," or it can be about going back to something as an origin or source, as in "a style that harks back to the turn of the previous century." // The dinner conversation harked back to the lunch debate over what counts as a traditional holiday meal. // The diner's interior decor harks back to the 1950s. See the entry > Examples: "The single harks back to Chenier's heyday when his music was produced on 45s and put into jukeboxes, says [Maureen] Loughran." — Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 June 2025 Did you know? Hark, a very old word meaning "to listen," was used as a cry in hunting. The master of the hunt might cry "Hark! Forward!" or "Hark! Back!" The cries became set phrases, both as nouns and verbs. Thus, a "hark back" was a retracing of a route by dogs and hunters, and to "hark back" was to turn back along the path. From its use in hunting, the verb acquired its current figurative meanings concerned with returning to the past. The variants hearken and harken (also very old words meaning "to listen") are also used, with and without back, as synonyms of hark back.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 23, 2025 is: bespoke • bih-SPOHK • adjective Bespoke describes something that is custom-made—that is, made to fit the needs or requirements of a particular person. // As a tailor, Lana specialized in crafting bespoke clothing for her clients, each piece unique and suited to their tastes. See the entry > Examples: “The vehicles are bespoke machines with every little detail thought of, from embroidered seats to custom floor mats to retro paint jobs.” — Charlie Berrey, SlashGear.com, 10 Nov. 2025 Did you know? In the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including “to speak,” “to accuse,” and “to complain.” In the 16th century, bespeak acquired another meaning: “to order.” It is from that sense that we get the adjective bespoke, referring to clothes and other things that are ordered before they are made. Bespoke has enjoyed a spike in usage in recent years, perhaps due to consumer trends that champion all things artisanal over those that are prefab.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 22, 2025 is: temporize • TEM-puh-ryze • verb To temporize is to avoid making a decision or giving a definite answer in order to have more time. // Pressured by voters on both sides of the issue, the congressman temporized. See the entry > Examples: "The question is, Did you eat the last piece of pie? And the politician who ate the last piece of pie doesn't want to say yes, because they might get in trouble. Doesn't want to say no, because that's an outright lie. So they waver, they equivocate, they temporize, they put things in context, and they talk like a politician." — David Frum, The Atlantic (The David Frum Show podcast), 21 May 2025 Did you know? Temporize comes from the Middle French word temporiser, which in turn likely traces back via Medieval Latin temporizāre, "to delay," to the Latin noun tempus, meaning "time." Tempus is also the root of such words as tempo, contemporary, and temporal. If you need to buy some time, you might resort to temporizing, but you probably won't win admiration for doing so, as the word typically carries a negative connotation. For instance, a political leader faced with a difficult issue might temporize by talking vaguely about possible solutions without actually doing anything. The point of such temporizing is to avoid taking definitive—and possibly unpopular—action, in hopes that the problem will somehow go away.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 21, 2025 is: hibernaculum • hye-ber-NAK-yuh-lum • noun Hibernaculum (plural hibernacula) refers to a shelter occupied during the winter by a dormant animal, such as an insect, snake, bat, or marmot. // Local scientists are studying the longevity of bats who use bridges and other aboveground hibernacula versus that of bats who roost all winter in subterranean caves. See the entry > Examples: “Adult female bees begin looking for a hibernation location, or hibernaculum, in the fall. If the gardener is planning to deadhead any spent flowers from the summer, aim to prune stems at varying heights (8" to 24") as a nesting site for these bees. Many perennial flowers and shrubs have pithy stems that will serve as a good location. A few common Oklahoma garden plants that are good candidates include roses, purple coneflower, salvia, bee balm, and sunflowers.” — Sherry Clark, The Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star, 8 Oct. 2025 Did you know? If you're afraid of snakes or bats, you probably won't enjoy thinking about hibernacula, where hundreds, even thousands, of these creatures might be passing the wintry months. Other creatures also use hibernacula, though many of these tend to be less crowded. The word hibernaculum has been used for the burrow of a woodchuck, for instance, as well as for a cozy caterpillar cocoon attached to a wintry twig, and for the spot in which a frog has buried itself in mud. Hibernacula are all around us and have been around for a long, long time, but we have only called them such since the late 1700s, making hibernaculum only a few decades older than the more familiar verb hibernate. Both words come from the Latin verb hibernare, meaning “to pass the winter,” which in turn comes from hibernus, meaning “winter.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 20, 2025 is: decorous • DECK-er-us • adjective Decorous is a formal adjective used to describe an attitude or behavior characterized by propriety and good taste. // The ceremony was conducted with a decorous solemnity. See the entry > Examples: “... Elizabeth reveals, later, that she felt she never belonged to the decorous world of parties and corsets and curls and feathers on the head ...” — Ryan Lattanzio, Indie Wire, 13 Oct. 2025 Did you know? One of the earliest recorded uses of decorous appears in a book titled The Rules of Civility (1671): “It is not decorous to look in the glass, to comb, brush, or do any thing of that nature to ourselves, whilst the said person be in the Room.” This rule of thumb may be a bit outdated; like many behaviors once deemed unbecoming, public primping is unlikely to offend in modern times. Though mores shift, decorous lives on to describe timeless courtesies like polite speech, proper attire, and (ahem) covering one's cough.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 19, 2025 is: veracity • vuh-RASS-uh-tee • noun Veracity is a formal word that can refer to truth or accuracy, or to the quality of being truthful or honest. // The jury seemed not to doubt the veracity of the witness. See the entry > Examples: "Raise your hand if you've been questioning the veracity of real events, news stories and images posted on social media lately. It used to be we'd have to tiptoe around a minefield of hoaxes only once a year, on April 1. But thanks to the proliferation of misinformation spawned by artificial intelligence, every day on the internet is an exercise in judgment and media literacy." — Laura Yuen, The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, 9 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Veracity has been in use since the early 17th century, and we can honestly tell you that it comes from the Latin adjective vērāx, "truthful," which in turn comes from the earlier verus, "true." Verus also gives us the words verity ("the quality of being true"), verify ("to establish the truth of"), and verisimilitude ("the appearance of truth"), among other words. In addition, vērāx is the root of the word veraciousness, a somewhat rarer synonym and cousin of veracity.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 18, 2025 is: jaunty • JAWN-tee • adjective Something described as jaunty is lively in manner or appearance. Jaunty can also describe something, such as an article of clothing, that suggests a lively and confident quality. // The server whistled a jaunty tune as she wiped the tables and set out fresh flowers in preparation for the day's diners. See the entry > Examples: “He stood at the front of the room and announced that we would begin with a quiz, which we all failed because the quiz was over material that we were supposed to have covered during the last class. When he handed the quizzes back to us after the break, he did so in a frenetic, almost jaunty way, running up and down the aisles and announcing our grades—‘Zero, zero, zero'—loudly before tossing the quizzes down in front of us ...” — Lori Ostlund, Are You Happy?: Stories, 2025 Did you know? Does throwing on a jaunty hat make someone appear more genteel? Maybe, but something more definitive links the words: both jaunty and genteel come from the French word gentil, meaning “of aristocratic birth.” Genteel was borrowed first to describe things associated with aristocratic people. Jaunty joined the language just a few years later in the mid-17th century as a synonym of stylish and also as a synonym for genteel. While genteel has maintained its associations of propriety and high social class, jaunty has traipsed into less stuffy territory as a descriptor of tunes and hats and other things that suggest lively confidence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 17, 2025 is: espouse • ih-SPOWZ • verb To espouse an ideology, belief, etc., is to take it up and support it as a cause. Espouse is usually encountered in formal speech and writing. // The article explores some of the lesser-known viewpoints espoused by the charismatic leader. See the entry > Examples: “Crammed into a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village, they [Yoko Ono and John Lennon] immersed themselves in the city's counterculture, absorbing progressive politics whenever they weren't glued to the television set. Lennon's celebrity secured the duo a large platform to espouse these ideas ...” — Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Pitchfork, 11 Oct. 2025 Did you know? As you might guess, the words espouse and spouse are hitched, both coming from the Latin verb spondēre, meaning “to promise” or “to betroth.” In fact, the two were once completely interchangeable, with each serving as a noun meaning “a newly married person” or “a partner in marriage” and also as a verb meaning “to marry.” Their semantic separation began when the noun espouse fell out of use. Nowadays, espouse is almost exclusively encountered as a verb used in the figuratively extended sense “to commit to and support as a cause.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 16, 2025 is: conversant • kun-VER-sunt • adjective Conversant, usually used in the phrase "conversant with," describes someone who has knowledge of or experience with something. // The ideal candidate for the sommelier position will have expert knowledge of the various wines served in the restaurant and be conversant with the rich world of viniculture. See the entry > Examples: "The advantages of franchise expansion are obvious. These shows benefit from name recognition and a dedicated audience, as well as writers, producers and crew members already conversant with that audience's expectations." — Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, 6 July 2025 Did you know? The adjectives conversant and conversational both descend from the Latin verb conversari, meaning "to associate with." Conversant dates to the Middle Ages; an early meaning of the word was simply "having familiar association." One way to associate with others is to have a conversation with them—in other words, to talk. For a short time in the 19th century conversant could mean "relating to or suggesting conversation," but for the most part that meaning stayed with conversational while conversant went in a different direction. Today, conversant is sometimes used, especially in the United States, with the meaning "able to talk in a foreign language," as in "she is conversant in several languages," but it is more often associated with knowledge or familiarity, as in "conversant with the issues."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 15, 2025 is: dreidel • DRAY-dul • noun A dreidel is a 4-sided toy marked with Hebrew letters and spun like a top in a game of chance. The game, played by children especially at Hanukkah, is also called dreidel. // All the kids in the family look forward to playing dreidel together during Hanukkah. See the entry > Examples: “The Jewish tradition has always been syncretic, adapting and responding to the culture around it, he [Rabbi Steven Philp] said. Hanukkah is ‘a great example of this,' Philp said, noting that the holiday's traditions—like spinning the dreidel, eating latkes or potato pancakes, and munching on ... jelly-filled doughnuts—are customs that were borrowed from neighboring cultures over time.” — Kate Heather, The Chicago Sun-Times, 25 Dec. 2024 Did you know? If your dreidel is spinning beneath the glow of the menorah, it's probably the Jewish festival of lights known as Hanukkah. The holiday celebrates the miracle of a small amount of oil—enough for one day—burning for eight days in the Temple of Jerusalem. And though it's a toy, the dreidel's design is very much an homage: on each of its four sides is inscribed a Hebrew letter—nun, gimel, he, and shin—which together stand for Nes gadol haya sham, meaning “A great miracle happened there.” (In Israel, the letter pe, short for po, “here,” is often used instead of shin). In the game of dreidel, each letter bears its own significance: the dreidel is spun and depending on which letter is on top when it lands, the player's currency, or gelt, is added to or taken from the pot. Nun means the player does nothing; gimel means the player gets everything; he means the player gets half; and shin means the player adds to the pot. Wherever you land on holiday traditions, we wish you words of gimel: gratitude, grub, and, of course, gaiety.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 14, 2025 is: multitudinous • mul-tuh-TOO-duh-nus • adjective Multitudinous is a formal word with meanings that relate to multitudes. It can mean “existing in a great multitude”—that is, “very many”; or “including a multitude of individuals”; or “existing in or consisting of innumerable elements or aspects.” // The two old friends reminisced about the multitudinous ways in which their lives had changed. // The author's appearance is expected to attract a multitudinous gathering that will fill the auditorium. See the entry > Examples: “Launched as Holton's artistic inquiry into his own Chinese heritage, the project has evolved into a profound examination of family dynamics, migration, and cultural hybridity in contemporary New York, where the American identity is multitudinous.” — Natasha Gural, Forbes, 11 June 2025 Did you know? “I am large, I contain multitudes.” So wrote Walt Whitman in his most celebrated poem, “Song of Myself.” He was expressing his ability to hold within himself contradictory statements, facets, opinions, beliefs, etc. Another, if less poetic, way of saying “I contain multitudes” might be “I am multitudinous,” using the sense of that five-syllable word meaning “existing in or consisting of innumerable elements or aspects.” Multitudinous doesn't have a lot of meanings—three to be exact—but each one concerns, well, a lot. In addition to serving Whitmanesque purposes as noted above, multitudinous is the kind of highly expressive word that you can rely upon when you want something a little more emphatic than plain old numerous, as in “multitudinous possibilities.” Lastly, its original sense—still in use today—is a synonym of populous meaning “including a multitude of individuals,” as in “the multitudinous city.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 13, 2025 is: alleviate • uh-LEE-vee-ayt • verb To alleviate something is to make it less painful, difficult, or severe. Alleviate can also mean "to partially remove or correct." // There's no cure for the common cold, but there are various treatments that may alleviate some of the symptoms. // The new tunnel should alleviate traffic congestion on the bridge. See the entry > Examples: "The funds are meant to alleviate monetary barriers and enhance the fashion industry's talent pipeline." — Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 30 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Now for a bit of light reading. Alleviate comes from Latin levis, meaning "having little weight." (Levis also gave rise to the English adjective light as in "not heavy.") In its early days during the 16th century, alleviate could mean both "to cause (something) to have less weight" or "to make (something) more tolerable." The literal "make lighter" sense is no longer used, and today only the "relieve, lessen" sense remains. Incidentally, not only is alleviate a synonym of relieve, it's also a cousin: relieve comes from Latin levare ("to raise"), which in turn comes from levis.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 12, 2025 is: waggish • WAG-ish • adjective Waggish describes someone who is silly and playful, and especially someone who displays a mischievous sense of humor. The word can also describe things that such a person might do or possess. // He had a waggish disposition that could irk adults but typically delighted children. // She denied the prank but did so with a waggish smirk that didn't match her disavowal. See the entry > Examples: “[Patricia] Lockwood began her writing life quietly, as a poet. She found her first major audience on Twitter, posting self-proclaimed ‘absurdities' ... that quickly came to define the medium's zany, waggish ethos ...” — Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? One who is waggish acts like a wag. What, then, is a wag? It has nothing to do with a dog's tail; in this case a wag is a clever person prone to joking. Though light-hearted in its use and meaning, the probable source of this particular wag is grim: it is thought to be short for waghalter, an obsolete English word that translates as gallows bird, a gallows bird being someone thought to be deserving of hanging (wag being the familiar wag having to do with movement, and halter referring to a noose). Despite its gloomy origins, waggish is now often associated with humor and playfulness—a wag is a joker, and waggery is merriment or practical joking. Waggish can describe the prank itself as well as the prankster type; the class clown might be said to have a “waggish disposition” or be prone to “waggish antics.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 11, 2025 is: leviathan • luh-VYE-uh-thun • noun Leviathan is a word with literary flair that can refer broadly to something very large and powerful, or more narrowly to a large sea animal, or a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy. // Towering leviathans of the forest, giant sequoias often reach heights of more than 200 feet. See the entry > Examples: “These are dim days for the leviathan merchants. The smart whaling families have diversified and will hang onto their wealth for years to come. ... The less smart, those convulsed by the strange desire to continue doing what had always been done, who consider it a divinely issued directive to rid the waves of great fish, now face a problem: the Atlantic whale that built their houses and ships has seemingly wised up ...” — Ethan Rutherford, North Sun, or The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther: A Novel, 2025 Did you know? Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, Leviathan (in Hebrew, Liwyāthān), are thought to have been inspired by an ancient myth in which the god Baal slays a multiheaded sea monster. Leviathan appears in the Book of Psalms as a sea serpent that is killed by God and then given as food to creatures in the wilderness, and it is mentioned in the Book of Job as well. After making a splash in English in the 1300s, the word Leviathan began to be used, capitalized and uncapitalized, for enormous sea creatures both imagined and real—including as a synonym of whale over 100 times in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, as in “ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan.” Today, leviathan can be used for anything large and powerful, from ships to corporations.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 10, 2025 is: grift • GRIFT • verb To grift is to use dishonest tricks to illegally take money or property. // The email scammer shamelessly grifted thousands of dollars from unwitting victims. See the entry > Examples: "When the families demanded he return the jewellery he had grifted from them he arranged meetings and then did not show." — Peter Spriggs, The Echo (South Essex, England), 31 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Someone who grifts is a thief, but of a particular sort: they illegally obtain money or property by means of cleverness or deceit, and do not usually resort to physical force or violence. A grifter might be a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, a scammer, or a con artist. The most plausible etymology we have for the murky term is that grift is an early 20th century alteration of graft, a slightly older word which refers to the acquisition of money or property in dishonest or questionable ways. Both grift and graft have noun and verb forms.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 9, 2025 is: paltry • PAWL-tree • adjective Paltry is a formal word that can describe something that is very small or too small in amount, or something that has little meaning, importance, or worth. // They're offering a paltry salary for the position. // The professor announced they'd finally had enough of the students' paltry excuses for being late to class. See the entry > Examples: "When the witty and wry English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett interviewed Bill Gates for GQ in 1995, only 39% of Americans had access to a home computer. According to the Pew Research Center, the number who were connected to the internet was a paltry 14%." — Ed Simon, LitHub.com, 25 Nov. 2024 Did you know? Before paltry was an adjective, it was a noun meaning trash. That now-obsolete noun came from palt or pelt, a dialect term referring to a piece of coarse cloth, or more broadly, to trash. The adjective paltry, which dates to the mid-16th century, originally described things considered worthless, or of very low quality, but it's gained a number of meanings over the centuries, none of which are complimentary. A paltry house might be neglected and unfit for occupancy; a paltry trick is a trick that is low-down and dirty; a paltry excuse is a poor one; and a paltry sum is small and insufficient.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 8, 2025 is: bravado • bruh-VAH-doh • noun Bravado refers to confident or brave talk or behavior that is intended to impress other people. // She tells the stories of her youthful exploits with enough bravado to invite suspicion that they're embellished a bit. // The crew of climbers scaled the mountain with youthful bravado. See the entry > Examples: "One problem that exists in the whitewater community overall is that people don't always understand the basic elements associated with water and their ignorance and bravado often lead to an incident where someone gets injured or killed." — Tracy Hines, The Durango (Colorado) Herald, 19 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Displays of bravado may be show-offish, daring, reckless, and inconsistent with good sense—take, for example, the spectacular feats of stuntpeople—but when successful, they are still likely to be met with shouts of "bravo!" Celebrities, political leaders, corporate giants, and schoolyard bullies, however, may show a different flavor of bravado: one that suggests an overbearing boldness that comes from arrogance or from being in a position of power. The word bravado originally comes from the Italian adjective bravo, meaning "wild" or "courageous," which English can also thank for the more common brave.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 7, 2025 is: enigmatic • en-ig-MAT-ik • adjective Something or someone described as enigmatic is mysterious and difficult to understand. // The band's lead singer has always been an enigmatic figure, refusing to use social media or even sit for interviews. See the entry > Examples: “For thirty years, Perlefter's carpet hung peacefully on the wall in the museum, delighting visitors with its beauty, its unusual palette, enigmatic motifs and its echoes of four empires.” — Dorothy Armstrong, Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets, 2025 Did you know? The noun enigma can refer to a puzzle, a riddle, a question mark. It's no mystery then, that the adjective enigmatic describes what is hard to solve or figure out. An enigmatic person, for example, may be someone with a bit of je ne sais quoi. What's behind a stranger's enigmatic smile? Your guess is as good as ours. Does the vocabulary in the short story you're reading render it a tad enigmatic? Better grab a dictionary! Both enigma and enigmatic come from the Greek verb ainissesthai, meaning “to speak in riddles.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 6, 2025 is: sensibility • sen-suh-BIL-uh-tee • noun Sensibility is a formal word often used in its plural form to refer someone's personal or cultural approach to what they encounter, as in “the speaker made sure to tailor his speech to the sensibilities of his audience.” Sensibility can also be used for the kind of feelings a person tends to have in general, as well as for the ability to feel and understand emotions. // Many older cartoons feel out of line with modern sensibilities. // She brought an artistic sensibility to every facet of her life, not just her celebrated painting. See the entry > Examples: “[Lady] Gaga's absurdist sensibilities have long been an underrated facet of her work—probably because she's so good at delivering them with a straight face.” — Rich Juzwiak, Pitchfork, 10 Mar. 2025 Did you know? The meanings of sensibility run the gamut from mere sensation to excessive sentimentality, but we're here to help you make sense of it all. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized. In Jane Austen's books, sensibility is mostly an admirable quality she attributes to, or finds lacking in, her characters: “He had ... a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely” (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion). In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an “excess of sensibility” on the other: “Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation ... she was everything but prudent.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 5, 2025 is: inoculate • ih-NAHK-yuh-layt • verb To inoculate a person or animal is to introduce immunologically active material (such as an antibody or antigen) into them especially in order to treat or prevent a disease. Inoculate can also mean "to introduce (something, such as a microorganism) into a suitable situation for growth," and in figurative use, it can mean "to protect as if by inoculation" or "to introduce something into the mind of." // In 1796, the English physician Edward Jenner discovered that inoculating people with cowpox could provide immunity against smallpox. // The cheese is inoculated with a starter culture to promote fermentation. See the entry > Examples: "Truffle farmers ... inoculate oak or hazelnut seedlings with truffle spores, plant the seedlings and wait patiently often a decade or more for the underground relationship to mature. The eventual harvest is a reward for years of cooperation between tree and fungus." — David Shubin, The Weekly Calistogan (Calistoga, California), 30 Oct. 2025 Did you know? If you think you see a connection between inoculate and ocular ("of or relating to the eye"), you have a good eye—both words look back to oculus, the Latin word for "eye." But what does the eye have to do with inoculation? Our answer lies in the original use of inoculate in Middle English: "to insert a bud into a plant for propagation." The Latin oculus was sometimes applied to things that were seen to resemble eyes, and one such thing was the bud of a plant. Inoculate was later applied to other forms of engrafting or implanting, including the introduction of vaccines as a preventative against disease.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 4, 2025 is: frowsy • FROW-zee • adjective Something described as frowsy has a messy or dirty appearance. // The lamp, discovered in a neglected corner of a frowsy antique store, turned out to be quite valuable. See the entry > Examples: “Footage from his early shows is sublime. In one, models with frowsy hair totter along the catwalk in clogs, clutching—for reasons not explained—dead mackerel.” — Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian (London), 4 Mar. 2024 Did you know? Despite its meanings suggesting neglect and inattention, frowsy has been kept in steady rotation by English users since the late 1600s. The word (which is also spelled frowzy and has enjoyed other variants over the centuries) first wafted into the language in an olfactory sense describing that which smells fusty and musty—an old factory, perhaps, or “corrupt air from animal substance,” which Benjamin Franklin described as “frouzy” in a 1773 letter. Frowsy later gained an additional sense describing the appearance of something (or someone) disheveled or unkempt. Charles Dickens was a big fan of this usage, writing of “frowzy fields, and cowhouses” in Dombey and Son and “a frowzy fringe” of hair hanging about someone's ears in The Old Curiosity Shop. Both senses are still in use today.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 3, 2025 is: alchemy • AL-kuh-mee • noun Alchemy refers to a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way. // They practiced their alchemy in the kitchen, turning a pile of vegetables and legumes into an extravagant meal. // The shopkeepers hoped for some sort of economic alchemy that would improve business. See the entry > Examples: “Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System hit North American shores, singlehandedly resurrecting the video-game market after its infamous post-Atari crash in 1983. To do so, it needed a heavy hitter, a killer must-have title that could put butts in seats and lock audiences into the tube TV until their eyes bleed. That game was Super Mario Bros.—a product so potent, its exact alchemy has never been re-created.” — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 18 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Alchemy—the medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy that focused on the attempt to change less valuable metals into gold, to find a universal cure for disease, and to discover a means of prolonging life indefinitely—was practiced in much of the ancient world, from China and India to Greece. Alchemy as practiced in ancient Egypt was later revived in 12th-century Europe through translations of Arabic texts into Latin, which led to the development of pharmacology and to the rise of modern chemistry. The word alchemy was first used in English in the 1400s, and by the mid-1500s it had developed figurative senses relating to powers and processes that can change or transform things in mysterious or impressive ways.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 2, 2025 is: cajole • kuh-JOHL • verb To cajole someone is to use flattery or gentle urging to persuade them to do something or to give you something. Cajole can also mean “to deceive with soothing words or false promises.” It is often used with the word into. // She cajoled her partner into going to the party with her. // They hoped to cajole him into cooperating with local officials. See the entry > Examples: “... I cajoled my father into letting me use the company season tickets which were supposed to be used for clients, but sometimes wound up in my hands.” — Sal Maiorana, The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, 22 Oct. 2025 Did you know? However hard we try, we can't cajole the full history of cajole from the cages of obscurity. We know that it comes from the French verb cajoler, meaning “to give much attention to; to make a fuss over; to flatter or persuade with flattery,” and goes back to the Middle French cajoller, meaning “to flatter out of self-interest.” But the next chapter of the word's history may, or may not, be for the birds: it's possible that cajoller relates to the Middle French verb cageoller, used for the action of a jay or other bird singing. Cageoller, in turn, traces back to gaiole, a word meaning “birdcage” in a dialect of Picardy.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 1, 2025 is: pseudonym • SOO-duh-nim • noun A pseudonym is a name that someone (such as a writer) uses instead of their real name. // bell hooks is the pseudonym of the American writer Gloria Jean Watkins. See the entry > Examples: “Edgar Wright, the filmmaker and genre specialist who has given the world modern gems like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Baby Driver, estimates he was around 13 years old when he read ‘the Bachman Books,' a collection of four novels that Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman during the early years of his career.” — Don Kaye, Den of Geek, 9 Oct. 2025 Did you know? Pseudonym has its origins in the Greek adjective pseudōnymos, which means “bearing a false name.” French speakers adopted the Greek word as the noun pseudonyme, and English speakers later modified the French word into pseudonym. Many celebrated authors have used pseudonyms. Samuel Clemens wrote under the pseudonym “Mark Twain,” Charles Lutwidge Dodgson assumed the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” and Mary Ann Evans used “George Eliot” as her pseudonym.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 30, 2025 is: iconoclast • eye-KAH-nuh-klast • noun Iconoclast originally referred to someone who destroys religious images or who opposes their veneration. It is now used to refer broadly to anyone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted. // The comedian had developed a reputation as a contrarian and an iconoclast for whom no topic was off-limits. See the entry > Examples: “Chicago will be the only U.S. city to see the 92-year-old iconoclast Yoko Ono's new show. ... ‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind' goes back to the start of the artist's career in the mid-'50s, and the role she played in the creative worlds of New York, Tokyo and London.” — Carrie Shepherd, Axios, 1 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Iconoclast comes from the Middle Greek word eikonoklástēs, which translates literally as “image destroyer.” While the destruction wrought by today's iconoclasts is figurative—in modern use, an iconoclast is someone who criticizes or opposes beliefs and practices that are widely accepted—the first iconoclasts directed their ire at religious icons, those representations of sacred individuals used as objects of veneration. The Byzantine Empire's Iconoclastic Controversy occurred in the 8th and 9th centuries, but the word iconoclast didn't find its way to English until the 17th century. Figurative use came later still.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 29, 2025 is: exculpatory • ek-SKUL-puh-tor-ee • adjective Something described as exculpatory serves to prove that someone is not guilty of doing something wrong. // Their lawyer presented insurmountable exculpatory evidence at the trial. See the entry > Examples: “That agreement also requires prosecutors to implement new policies to prevent the misuse of informants, maintain records and audits, and to disclose exculpatory evidence to criminal defendants involving snitches.” — Salvador Hernandez, The Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Exculpatory is the adjectival form of the verb exculpate, meaning “to clear from guilt.” The pair of words cannot be accused of being secretive—their joint etymology reveals all: they are tied to the Medieval Latin verb exculpare, a word that combines the prefix ex-, meaning “out of” or “away from,” with the Latin noun culpa, meaning “blame.” The related but lesser-known terms inculpate (“to incriminate”) and inculpatory (“implying or imputing guilt”) are antonyms of exculpate and exculpatory. A related adjective, culpable, describes someone or something deserving of blame. All of these words are found most often in formal speech and writing, but if you choose to drop them into everyday conversation, your dictionary exculpates you.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 28, 2025 is: sustain • suh-STAYN • verb To sustain someone or something is to provide what is needed for that person or thing to exist or continue. Sustain also means "to hold up the weight of," "to suffer or endure," or "to confirm or prove." In legal contexts, to sustain something is to decide or state that it is proper, legal, or fair. // Hope sustained us during that difficult time. // The shed roof collapsed, unable to sustain the weight of all the snow. // The athlete sustained serious injuries during last week's game. See the entry > Examples: "Pushing fallen leaves into garden beds to insulate plants and nourish the soil will also shelter hibernating insects that, in turn, will sustain ground-feeding birds. It's much better for the ecosystem—and easier for the gardener—than bagging them up and sending them to a landfill." — Jessica Damiano, The Chicago Daily Herald, 12 Oct. 2025 Did you know? The word sustain is both handy and hardy. Its use has been sustained since the days of Middle English (it traces back to the Latin verb sustinēre meaning "to hold up" or "to sustain") by its utility across a variety of consequential subjects, from environmental protections to legal proceedings to medical reports. The word is so prevalent and so varied in its application, in fact, that it enjoys sustained high ranking as one of our top lookups—evidence of our readers' sustained commitment to, well, sustaining themselves with information about words.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 27, 2025 is: cornucopia • kor-nuh-KOH-pee-uh • noun A cornucopia, also known as a horn of plenty, is a curved, hollow goat's horn or similarly shaped receptacle (such as a horn-shaped basket) that is overflowing, especially with fruit and vegetables. The image of a cornucopia is commonly used as decoration and as a symbol of abundance, but the word cornucopia is today more often encountered in its metaphorical use referring to an overflowing abundance, or to a seemingly inexhaustible amount of something. // The zoo's new aviary is a veritable cornucopia of color and sound, with scores of different bird species swooping and squawking through the canopy. See the entry > Examples: “It was rather dark in there. ... However, the counters and their cornucopia of offerings were brightly lit. Want chocolate bars? Nasal sprays? Gummy bears? Bath bombs? Tinctures? Vapes? Mints? Jellies? Peanut butter cups? Lemonade? Fruit punch?” — Marla Jo Fisher, The Orange County (California) Register, 1 Sept. 2025 Did you know? Cornucopia comes from the Late Latin phrase cornu copiae, which translates literally as “horn of plenty.” A traditional staple of feasts, the cornucopia is believed to represent the horn of a goat from Greek mythology. According to legend, it was from this horn, which could be filled with whatever the owner wished, that the god Zeus was fed as an infant by his nurse, the nymph Amalthaea. Later, the horn was filled with flowers and fruits, and given as a present to Zeus. The filled horn (or a receptacle resembling it) has long served as a traditional symbol in art and decoration to suggest a store of abundance. The word first appeared in English in the early 16th century; a century later, it developed the figurative sense of “an overflowing supply.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 26, 2025 is: unabashed • un-uh-BASHT • adjective Someone who is unabashed is not embarrassed or ashamed about openly expressing strong feelings or opinions. // Unabashed by their booing and hissing, the artist continued with the musical performance. See the entry > Examples: “Take the melodramatic storyline of a telenovela and tell it through the unabashed mediums of opera and drag, and you'll have ‘Inebria Me,' the subversive experimental opera by San Cha ending its West Coast tour at REDCAT this month. Latin dance fuses with queer storytelling as the sounds of ... punk, classical and electronic make up the performance, which pulls from creator San Cha's 2019 album ‘La Luz de la Esperanza.'” — Katerina Portela, The Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2025 Did you know? To abash someone is to shake up their composure or self-possession, as illustrated by Charlotte Brontë in her 1849 novel Shirley: “He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him.” When you are unabashed you make no apologies for your behavior, nor do you attempt to hide or disguise it; but when you are abashed your confidence has been thrown off and you may feel rather inferior or ashamed of yourself. English speakers have been using abashed to describe feelings of embarrassment since the 14th century, but they have only used unabashed (brazenly or otherwise) since the 15th century (not that there's anything wrong with that).