Podcasts about Merriam

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2025 is: peremptory • puh-REMP-tuh-ree • adjective Peremptory is a formal word used especially in legal contexts to describe an order, command, etc., that requires immediate compliance with no opportunity to show why one should not comply. It is also used disapprovingly to describe someone with an arrogant attitude, or something indicative of such an attitude. // The soldiers were given a peremptory order to abandon the mission. // The company's president tends to adopt a peremptory manner especially at the negotiating table. See the entry > Examples: “Cook had changed. He seemed restless and preoccupied. There was a peremptory tone, a raw edge in some of his dealings. Perhaps he had started to believe his own celebrity. Or perhaps, showing his age and the long toll of so many rough miles at sea, he had become less tolerant of the hardships and drudgeries of transoceanic sailing.” — Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, 2024 Did you know? Peremptory comes from the Latin verb perimere, meaning “to take entirely” or “to destroy,” which in turn combines the prefix per- (“throughout” or “thoroughly”) and the verb emere (“to take”). Peremptory implies the removal of one's option to disagree or contest something, and sometimes suggests an abrupt dictatorial manner combined with an unwillingness to tolerate disobedience or dissent, as in “employees given a peremptory dismissal.” Not to sound peremptory ourselves, but don't confuse peremptory with the similar-sounding (and related) adjective preemptive, meaning “marked by the seizing of the initiative,” as in “a preemptive attack.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2025 is: abide • uh-BYDE • verb If someone cannot abide someone or something bad, unpleasant, etc., they cannot tolerate or accept that person or thing. Abide can also mean "to accept without objection" and "to remain or continue." // I just can't abide such blatant dishonesty. // Residents agree to abide by the dorm's rules. See the entry > Examples: "If a legal party ... doesn't like a district court ruling, it is free to challenge the decision to a federal appellate court and then the Supreme Court. But while the appeal plays out, the legal party must abide by the ruling." — Will Rogers, The Baltimore Sun, 22 July 2025 Did you know? Abide has abided in the English language since before the 12th century, picking up along the way several meanings and inflections that are now rare or no longer in use. For instance, one of abide's former meanings was "to stop" and its former past participle was abidden (whereas we now use abided or abode). Today, abide often turns up in the phrase "can't abide" to say that someone cannot tolerate or accept something. The expression abide by, which means "to accept and be guided by (something)," is also common. Related terms include abiding, meaning "continuing for a long time" or "not changing" (as in "an abiding friendship"), abidance ("continuance" or "the act or process of doing what you have been asked or ordered to do"), and abode ("the place where someone lives").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2025 is: doughty • DOW-tee • adjective Doughty is a word with an old-fashioned flair used to describe someone who is brave, strong, and determined. // The monument celebrates the doughty townspeople who fended off invaders centuries ago. See the entry > Examples: “The film chooses to render our doughty heroes' super-costumes as cerulean-blue rollneck sweaters, which is a puzzling choice both aesthetically and practically: knitwear seems literally ill-fitted to derring-do.” — Glen Weldon, NPR, 25 July 2025 Did you know? There's no doubt that doughty has persevered in the English language—it's traceable all the way back to the Old English word dohtig—but how to pronounce it? One might assume that doughty should be pronounced DAW-tee, paralleling similarly spelled words like bought and sought, or perhaps with a long o, as in dough. But the vowel sound in doughty is the same as in doubt, and in fact, over the centuries, doughty's spelling was sometimes confused with that of the now obsolete word doubty (“full of doubt”), which could be the reason we have the pronunciation we use today. The homophonous dowdy (“having a dull or uninteresting appearance”) can also be a source of confusion; an easy way to remember the difference is that you can't spell doughty without the letters in tough (“physically and emotionally strong”).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 10, 2025 is: temerity • tuh-MAIR-uh-tee • noun Temerity is the quality of being confident and unafraid of danger or punishment, especially in a way that seems rude or foolish. Temerity may also refer to a rash or reckless act. // She had the temerity to ask me for another loan when she had yet to begin repaying the first one. // The students somehow convinced the principal that a prank of such temerity warranted only three days' detention. See the entry > Examples: "Once upon a time, music critics were known for being crankier than the average listener. [Taylor] Swift once castigated a writer who'd had the temerity to castigate her, singing, 'Why you gotta be so mean?'" — Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? When you're feeling saucy, there's no shortage of words in the English language you can use to describe the particular flavor of your metaphorical sauce, from audacity and effrontery to the Yiddish-derived fan favorite chutzpah. If we may be so bold, let us also suggest temerity: it comes from the Latin temere, meaning "recklessly" or "haphazardly," and is good for suggesting boldness even in the face of danger or likely punishment. Temerity is a formal word, rarely used in casual writing or conversation, but provided you have the cheek to flout this convention, you may be thinking "what have I got to lose?"

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 9, 2025 is: improvident • im-PRAH-vuh-dunt • adjective Improvident is a formal word used to describe something that does not foresee or provide for the future, especially with regard to money. An improvident relationship, habit, or practice is financially unwise or impractical. // The directors were blasted at the committee hearing for their improvident use of public money. See the entry > Examples: “The problem is worst in affluent countries like the U.S., where more than two hundred pounds of food per person get thrown away each year. ‘Even modest food waste reductions would translate into considerable cumulative savings,' Smil observes. Then, there's the waste that results from improvident eating habits. If photosynthesis has a low conversion rate, feeding crops to animals compounds the problem many times over.” — Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 23 June 2025 Did you know? Improvident describes someone's actions or habits as being unwise with regard to saving or providing for the future. It's a formal word, but the behavior it describes is well illustrated by many of the stories people hear or read as children, including some of the world's oldest. In Aesop's fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” the grasshopper could certainly be called improvident—he spends all summer singing and dancing while the ant works hard to prepare for winter by storing food, and at the end of the short tale is cold and starving. While today improvident is used mostly in the context of money, and those who are irresponsible with it, one can be improvident with other things (such as time or food), even happily. In another children's tale, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, author Beatrix Potter introduces the titular family of bunnies, sleepy from eating too much lettuce, as follows: “they were very improvident and cheerful.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 8, 2025 is: bromide • BROH-myde • noun A bromide is a statement intended to make someone feel happier or calmer, but too dull and unoriginal to be effective. // Their speech had nothing more to offer than the usual bromides about how everyone needs to work together. See the entry > Examples: “According to the old bromide, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. My grandfather, who had limited formal education but a wealth of common sense, countered that with, ‘Just water and fertilize your own grass. After all, it's your grass and you are in charge of how it grows! Besides, that other stuff may be nothing but AstroTurf.'” — Rodger Dean Duncan, Forbes, 4 Sept. 2024 Did you know? A bromide is a statement so worn and trite as to be ineffective when it's offered to make someone feel better. Before the sigh-inducing type, though, bromides were most familiar in compounds like potassium bromide, used in the late 19th century as a sedative to treat everything from epilepsy to sleeplessness. (The chemical element bromine had been discovered in 1826.) Such compounds fell from use with the invention of barbiturates in the early 20th century, around the same time that the word bromide started to be applied to anything or anyone dull enough to make one drowsy.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 7, 2025 is: vamoose • vuh-MOOSS • verb Vamoose is an informal word that means "to depart quickly." // With the sheriff hot on their tails, the bank robbers knew they had better vamoose. See the entry > Examples: "... I spotted the culprit, a young racoon, attempting to dislodge one of my feeders. Caught in the act, he ran for his life when I opened the window and told him to vamoose." — Margaret Haylock Capon, The Picton County Weekly News (Ontario, Canada), 19 June 2025 Did you know? In the 1820s and '30s, the American Southwest was rough-and-tumble territory—the true Wild West. English-speaking cowboys, Texas Rangers, and gold prospectors regularly rubbed elbows with Spanish-speaking vaqueros in the local saloons, and a certain amount of linguistic intermixing was inevitable. One Spanish term that caught on with English speakers was vamos, which means "let's go." Cowpokes and dudes alike adopted the word, at first using a range of spellings and pronunciations that varied considerably in their proximity to the original Spanish form. But when the dust settled, the version most American English speakers were using was vamoose.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 6, 2025 is: conciliatory • kun-SILL-yuh-tor-ee • adjective Something described as conciliatory is intended to reduce hostility or to gain favor or goodwill. // As the customer's voice rose, the manager adopted a soothing, conciliatory tone and promised that the situation would be remedied. See the entry > Examples: “When I was younger, and my father found me in bed after my mother had said or done something to send me there, he would sit for a moment by my feet and tell me, in an awkward, conciliatory way, that it wasn't my mother's fault. She was sad, and worried, and she had been sad and worried for a long time, so I had to try harder to be a good, thoughtful child.” — Farah Ali, The River, The Town: A Novel, 2025 Did you know? If you are conciliatory toward someone, you're trying to win that person over to your side, usually by making them less angry. The verb conciliate was borrowed into English in the mid-16th century and descends from the Latin verb conciliare, meaning “to assemble, unite, or win over.” Conciliare, in turn, comes from the noun concilium, meaning “assembly” or “council.” Conciliatory, which appeared in English a bit later in the 16th century, also traces back to conciliare, and is used especially to describe things like tones, gestures, and approaches intended to turn someone's frown upside down. Another word that has conciliare as a root is reconcile, the earliest meaning of which is “to restore to friendship or harmony.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 5, 2025 is: lout • LOUT • noun A lout is an awkward brutish person. // It was difficult for us to focus on the movie due to the noise coming from the group of louts seated in front of us. See the entry > Examples: “Fortunately for Vince, Jake is about to sell their mother's house, and the proceeds should cover his deep debts. As is often the case with ne'er-do-wells, however, Vince doesn't make anything easy, and [actor Jason] Bateman casts him as an arrogant lout ... who's always playing the angles to his own benefit, damn the damage he causes to everyone else.” — Nick Schager, The Daily Beast, 18 Sept. 2025 Did you know? Lout belongs to a large group of words that we use to indicate a particular sort of offensive and insensitive person, that group also including such terms as boor, oaf, jerk, and churl. English speakers have used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. Well before the 12th century, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning “to bow in respect.” No one is quite sure how—or even if—the verb sense developed into a noun meaning “an awkward brutish person.” The noun could have been coined independently, but if its source was the verb, perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over the centuries to the idea that the bowing person was base and awkward as well.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 4, 2025 is: spontaneous • spahn-TAY-nee-us • adjective Spontaneous describes something that is done or said in a natural and often sudden way and without a lot of thought or planning. It can describe a person who does things that have not been planned but that seem enjoyable and worth doing at a particular time. // The kitten captured our hearts, and we made the spontaneous decision to adopt. // He's a fun and spontaneous guy, always ready for the next big adventure. See the entry > Examples: "The Harlem Renaissance was filled with poetry and song—and with performance, as enshrined in [filmmaker William] Greaves's footage which features many spontaneous, thrillingly theatrical recitations of poems by Bontemps, Hughes, Cullen, and McKay." — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 23 Sept. 2025 Did you know? When English philosopher Thomas Hobbes penned his 1654 treatise Of Libertie and Necessitie he included the following: "all voluntary actions … are called also spontaneous, and said to be done by a man's own accord." Hobbes was writing in English, but he knew Latin perfectly well too, including the source of spontaneous; the word comes (via Late Latin spontāneus, meaning "voluntary, unconstrained") from the Latin sponte, meaning "of one's free will, voluntarily." In modern use, the word spontaneous is frequently heard in more mundane settings, where it often describes what is done or said without a lot of thought or planning.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 3, 2025 is: fidelity • fuh-DELL-uh-tee • noun Fidelity is the quality or state of being faithful to a person, such as a partner or spouse, or a thing, such as one's country. Fidelity can also refer to accuracy or exactness in details, or the degree to which an electronic device (such as a television) accurately reproduces its effect (such as sound or picture). // After almost three decades on the job, no one can doubt their fidelity to the company. // The movie's director insisted on total fidelity to the book. See the entry > Examples: “The origins of the role [of ring bearer] actually have their roots in ancient Egypt, where a young boy would be enlisted to carry rings to a couple as a symbol of love, fidelity, and fertility.” — Shelby Wax, Vogue, 10 July 2025 Did you know? Fidelity came to English by way of Middle French in the 15th century, and can ultimately be traced back to the Latin adjective fidēlis, meaning “faithful, loyal, trustworthy.” While fidelity was originally exclusively about loyalty, it has for centuries also been used to refer to accuracy, as in “questions about the fidelity of the translation.” Nowadays fidelity is often used in reference to recording and broadcast devices, conveying the idea that a broadcast or recording is “faithful” to the live sound or picture that it reproduces.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 2, 2025 is: arbitrary • AHR-buh-trair-ee • adjective Arbitrary describes something that is not planned or chosen for a particular reason, is not based on reason or evidence, or is done without concern for what is fair or right. // Because the committee wasn't transparent about the selection process, the results of the process appeared to be wholly arbitrary. // An arbitrary number will be assigned to each participant. See the entry > Examples: “The authority of the crown, contemporaries believed, was instituted by God to rule the kingdom and its people. England's sovereign was required to be both a warrior and a judge, to protect the realm from external attack and internal anarchy. To depose the king, therefore, was to risk everything—worldly security and immortal soul—by challenging the order of God's creation. Such devastatingly radical action could never be justified unless kingship became tyranny: rule by arbitrary will rather than law, threatening the interests of kingdom and people instead of defending them.” — Helen Castor, The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, 2024 Did you know? Donning black robes and a powdered wig to learn about arbitrary might seem to be an arbitrary—that is, random or capricious—choice, but it would in fact jibe with the word's etymology. Arbitrary comes from the Latin noun arbiter, which means “judge” and is the source of the English word arbiter, also meaning “judge.” In English, arbitrary first meant “depending upon choice or discretion” and was specifically used to indicate the sort of decision (as for punishment) left up to the expert determination of a judge rather than defined by law. Today, it can also be used for anything determined by or as if by chance or whim.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 1, 2025 is: ostracize • AH-struh-syze • verb To ostracize someone is to exclude them from a group by the agreement of the group's members. // She was ostracized by her community after refusing to sign the petition. See the entry > Examples: "Telling stories with affection and noodging, [comedian Sarah] Silverman has always been encouraged by her family, who embraced rather than ostracized her for revealing family secrets on the way to reaping howls of laughter." — Thelma Adams, The Boston Globe, 19 May 2025 Did you know? In ancient Greece, citizens whose power or influence threatened the stability of the state could be exiled by a practice involving voters writing that person's name down on a potsherd—a fragment of earthenware or pottery. Those receiving enough votes would then be subject to temporary exile from the state. Ostracize comes from the Greek verb ostrakízein (itself from the noun óstrakon meaning "potsherd"), used in 5th century Athens for the action of banishing someone by way of such a vote. Someone ostracized today is not exiled, but instead is excluded from a group by the agreement of the group's members.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 31, 2025 is: hobgoblin • HAHB-gahb-lin • noun A hobgoblin is a mischievous goblin that plays tricks in children's stories. When used figuratively, hobgoblin refers to something that causes fear or worry. // This Halloween we were greeted at our door by werewolves, mummies, and a wide assortment of sweet-toothed hobgoblins. See the entry > Examples: “Vampires and zombies took a big bite out of the horror box office in Sinners and 28 Years Later, and with Del Toro's Frankenstein hitting theaters next week, it would seem that a return to classic marquee monsters is one of the stories of this summer's movie season. But there's one old-school hobgoblin that's lurking around the edges of this narrative, omnipresent, repeated across a number of notable new titles, but still somehow avoiding the limelight: the witch ...” — Payton McCarty-Simas, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? While a goblin is traditionally regarded in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to be more of a playful troublemaker. (The character of Puck from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream might be regarded as one.) First appearing in English in the early 1500s, hobgoblin combined goblin (ultimately from the Greek word for “rogue,” kobalos) with hob, a word from Hobbe (a nickname for Robert) that was used both for clownish louts and rustics and in fairy tales for a mischievous sprite or elf. The American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson famously applied the word's extended sense in his essay Self-Reliance: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2025 is: truculent • TRUCK-yuh-lunt • adjective Truculent describes a person who is easily annoyed and eager to argue or fight. It can also describe the mood or attitude of such a person. // The approach of multiple deadlines had put me in a truculent mood, and I could tell my colleagues were avoiding me. See the entry > Examples: “It's the holidays, and strings of gaudy rainbow lights twinkle from gables. In cozy living rooms, the elders doze in their chairs while middle-aged siblings bicker and booze it up around the dining table. Little kids squirm in makeshift beds trying to stay awake for Santa, while truculent teenagers sneak out into the suburban night to do secret teenager things.” — Jessica Kiang, Variety, 24 May 2024 Did you know? English speakers adopted truculent from Latin in the mid-16th century, trimming truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning “savage,” and keeping the word's meaning. Apparently in need of a new way to describe what is cruel and fierce, they applied truculent both to brutal things (wars, for example) and people (such as tyrants). Eventually even a plague could be truculent. In current use, though, the word has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now typically describes the sort of person who is easily annoyed and eager to argue, or language that is notably harsh.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2025 is: deliquesce • del-ih-KWESS • verb Deliquesce can mean "to dissolve or melt away" or, in reference to some fungal structures (such as mushroom gills), "to become soft or liquid with age or maturity." // The mushrooms deliquesced into an inky fluid. See the entry > Examples: "He would mould his figures in full in wax, then take a hot knife and—like a metaphysical surgeon—cut away triangles, rhomboids, flaps and scraps, until only a latticework was left. These new shapeshifting figures comprised more gaps than joins: bodies in the delicate, arduous process of shedding their skins, scattering into metal petals, being eroded and deliquesced. Things were freshly able to pass through these painstakingly hard-to-cast bronzes: light, air, sight." — Robert Macfarlane, Apollo, 1 May 2025 Did you know? Deliquesce comes from the prefix de- ("from, down, away") and a form of the Latin verb liquēre, meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When deliquesce is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2025 is: menagerie • muh-NAJ-uh-ree • noun Menagerie refers to a collection of animals kept especially to be shown to the public, as well as a place where such animals are kept. It can also refer figuratively to any varied mixture of things. // The aviary featured a menagerie of exotic birds. // The space is eclectically furnished with a menagerie of flea market finds. See the entry > Examples: “The creatures are usually found hanging from phones or handbags ... or clutched as a kind of pet. They come in a menagerie of more than three hundred collectible forms. They can be matched to a personal style or mood: pink fur for when you're feeling flirty; glowing red eyes for a bit of an edge ...” — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 20 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Back in the days of Middle French, ménagerie meant “the management of a household or farm” or “a place where animals are tended.” When English speakers adopted menagerie in the 1600s, they applied it specifically to places where wild and often also foreign animals were kept and trained for exhibition, as well as to the animals so kept. This second meaning was eventually generalized to refer to any varied mixture, especially one that includes things that are strange or foreign to one's experience.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2025 is: acerbic • uh-SER-bik • adjective Something described as acerbic is sharply or bitingly critical, sarcastic, or ironic in temper, mood, or tone. // The comedian draws crowds that appreciate his acerbic wit. See the entry > Examples: "Whether she's giving a sarcastic eye-roll, tossing off an acerbic zinger, or seducing with a come-hither stare, [actress Jennifer] Simard intimately understands the art of underplaying." — Christopher Wallenberg, The Boston Globe, 1 June 2025 Did you know? English speakers created acerbic in the 19th century by combining the adjective acerb with the suffix -ic-. Acerb had already been around for a couple centuries, but for most of that time it had been used only to describe foods with a sour taste. (Acerb is still around today, but now it's simply a less common synonym of acerbic.) Acerbic and acerb ultimately come from the Latin adjective acerbus, which can mean "harsh" or "unpleasant." Another English word that comes from acerbus is exacerbate, which means "to make more violent or severe."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 26, 2025 is: cognoscente • kahn-yuh-SHEN-tee • noun Cognoscente refers to a person with expert knowledge in a subject. It is usually encountered in its plural form, cognoscenti, and preceded by the. // The audience at the club, though small, was full of writers, musicians, and other noteworthy members of the jazz cognoscenti. See the entry > Examples: "Even as [Ray] Bradbury was embraced by the New York cognoscenti—traveling to the city in the fall of '46, drawing the attention of Truman Capote, meeting Gore Vidal, dancing with Carson McCullers at a Manhattan party—Mars beckoned. Yet he would not dare tell his New York associates, for fear of being laughed out of the room." — Sam Weller, LitHub.com, 28 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Cognoscente and connoisseur—both terms for those in the know—are more than synonyms; they're also linguistic cousins. Both terms descend from the Latin verb cognōscere, meaning "to know," and they're not alone. You might guess that cognizance and cognition are members of the cognōscere clan. Do you also recognize a family resemblance in recognize? Can you see through the disguise of incognito? Did you have a premonition that we would mention precognition? Cognoscente itself came to English by way of Italian and has been a part of the language since the late 1700s.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2025 is: wreak • REEK • verb Wreak means “to cause something very harmful or damaging.” It is often used with on or upon. // The virus wreaked havoc on my laptop. See the entry > Examples: “Ours is a geography of cataclysm: Santa Anas wreak their psychic wrath; the odor of disaster seeps from the street like that sulfurous egg smell of the La Brea Tar Pits.” — John Lopez, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Sept. 2025 Did you know? In its early days, wreak was synonymous with avenge, a meaning exemplified when Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus proclaims “We will solicit heaven, and move the gods / To send down Justice for to wreak our wrongs.” This sense is now archaic, but the association hasn't been lost: although wreak is today most often paired with havoc, it is also still sometimes paired with words like vengeance and destruction. We humbly suggest you avoid wreaking any of that, however, no matter how badly you may crave your just deserts.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 24, 2025 is: rancid • RAN-sid • adjective Rancid usually describes something edible that has a strong and unpleasant smell or taste because it is no longer fresh. In figurative use, rancid describes things that are very distasteful or offensive. // The corpse flower, which is the largest known individual flower of any plant species, stays open five to seven days and emits a rancid odor. See the entry > Examples: "A great oil should smell green, fresh, alive. Give it a sniff before pouring: Even once-vibrant olive oils can start to lose their aroma after a while. If the oil smells bland, it's best for sautéing, roasting or baking rather than finishing. If it smells rancid (or waxy), toss it." — Andy Baraghani, The New York Times, 27 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Rancid and putrid and fetid—oh my! All three words are used to describe unpleasant smells and tastes, and each traces its roots to a "stinky" Latin word: rancid can be traced back to rancēre; the root of putrid shares an ancestor with putēre; and fetid comes from foetēre—all verbs meaning "to stink." Not long after entering the language in the early 17th century, rancid also developed a second, figurative sense which is used for non-gustatory and non-olfactory offenses, as in "rancid hypocrisy."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 23, 2025 is: litany • LIT-uh-nee • noun Litany usually refers to a long list of complaints, problems, etc. It can also refer to a sizable series or set, a lengthy recitation, a repetitive chant, or a particular kind of call-and-response prayer. // Among the television critic's litany of complaints about the new series is the anachronistic costume design. See the entry > Examples: “Out spilled the litany of all the names of all the things you thought I still feared: A big, bad wolf, a two-headed snake, a balding hyena, a beast dropped from the sky, an earthquake, a devil with red bells around its neck. Your words were steady, steeped in the old stories, but my eyes flicked to the window, unafraid. I was too old for easy monsters.” — Raaza Jamshed, What Kept You?: Fiction, 2025 Did you know? How do we love the word litany? Let us count the ways. We love its original 13th century meaning, still in use today, referring to a call-and-response prayer in which a series of lines are spoken alternately by a leader and a congregation. We love how litany has developed in the intervening centuries three figurative senses, and we love each of these as well: first, a sense meaning “repetitive chant”; next, the “lengthy recitation” sense owing to the repetitious—and sometimes interminable—nature of the original litany; and finally, an even broader sense referring to any sizeable series or set. Though litanies of this third sort tend to be unpleasant, we choose today to think of the loveliness found in the idea of “a litany of sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2025 is: frolic • FRAH-lik • verb To frolic is to play and move about happily. // We watched the seals as they frolicked in the harbor. See the entry > Examples: “Harper's consciousness ends up in the body of her mom, Anna. Lily bodyswaps with her soon-to-be grandma Tess. And vice versa. Meaning Lohan and Curtis are playing teens again. While their younger co-stars mug sternly, make jokes about regaining a metabolism ‘the speed of light,' and frolic on electric scooters, Freaky Friday's dynamic duo fling themselves into silly sequences ...” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable, 5 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Frolic is a word rooted in pleasure. Its most common function today is as a verb meaning “to play and move about happily,” as in “children frolicking in the waves,” but it joined the language in the 16th century as an adjective carrying the meaning of its Dutch source vroolijk: “full of fun; merry.” Shakespeare's Puck used it this way in A Midsummer Night's Dream, saying “And we fairies … following darkness like a dream, now are frolic.” Verb use quickly followed, and by the early 17th century the word was also being used as a noun, as in “an evening of fun and frolic.”

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 21, 2025 is: sedentary • SED-un-tair-ee • adjective Something described as sedentary does or involves a lot of sitting. Sedentary can also mean "not physically active" (as in "a sedentary lifestyle") or "not migratory" (as in "sedentary birds" or "a sedentary civilization"). // Editing the dictionary is a sedentary job. See the entry > Examples: "From open offices to home workstations, employees across industries invested in sit-stand setups with the hope of counteracting sedentary lifestyles." — Michelle Stansbury, Forbes, 25 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Sedentary comes from the Latin verb sedēre, meaning "to sit." Other descendants of sedēre include dissident, insidious, preside, reside, and subsidy. Sedēre is also the base of the rare sedens, a noun that refers to a person who remains a resident of the place or region of their birth.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 20, 2025 is: etymology • eh-tuh-MAH-luh-jee • noun An etymology is an explanation of a word's history—that is, where the word came from and how it developed. // As a word nerd, I'm always eager to learn a word's etymology and trace it back to its earliest known origins. See the entry > Examples: “A recent Vogue bride, Nicole Amarise, changed her name—as did her husband. ‘Together we opted to create a new one for our new life together,' she says. ‘We gave ChatGPT information about the etymology of our old surnames, and guided it to generate surname options for us that could relate to our heritages and cultures.'” — Shelby Wax, Vogue, 16 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The etymology of etymology itself is relatively straightforward, so we won't bug you with a lengthy explanation. Etymology ultimately comes from the Greek word etymon, meaning “literal meaning of a word according to its origin.” Etymon in turn comes from etymos, which means “true.” Be careful not to confuse etymology with the similar sounding entomology. Entomon means “insect” in Greek, and entomology is a branch of zoology that deals with insects.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 19, 2025 is: veritable • VAIR-uh-tuh-bul • adjective Veritable is a formal adjective that means “being in fact the thing named and not false, unreal, or imaginary.” It is often used to stress the aptness of a metaphorical description. // The island is a veritable paradise. // The sale attracted a veritable mob of people. See the entry > Examples: “The Roma are often described as an ethnic minority, but many Romani communities view ‘Roma' as a broad racial identity, stretching all the way back to our Indian ancestry. Indeed, to look at the Roma as one ethnicity is to disregard the veritable mosaic of Romani subgroups. There's a thread that holds us all together, which to me feels like a string of fairy lights scattered across the world. Each of these lights shines with its own unique beauty.” — Madeline Potter, The Roma: A Traveling History, 2025 Did you know? Veritable, like its close relative verity (“truth”), came to English through Anglo-French from Latin, ultimately the adjective vērus, meaning “true,” which also gave English verify, aver, and verdict. Veritable is often used as a synonym of genuine or authentic (“a veritable masterpiece”), but it is also frequently used to stress the aptness of a metaphor, often with a humorous tone (“a veritable swarm of lawyers”). In the past, language commentators objected to the latter use, but today it doesn't draw much criticism.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 18, 2025 is: muse • MYOOZ • verb When muse is used to mean "to think about something carefully or thoroughly," it is usually followed by about, on, over, or upon. The word can also mean "to become absorbed in thought," or "to think or say something in a thoughtful way." // He mused on the possibility of pursuing a master's degree. // "I could sell the house," she mused aloud, "but then where would I go?" See the entry > Examples: "On a crisp winter's day, 100-year-old Peg Logan sits in her favorite wingback chair in the living room of her Harpswell home. She flips through the pages of an oversized gardening book and muses about the vegetables she'll plant in the spring." — Connie Sage Conner, The Harpswell (Maine) Anchor, 27 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Muse on this: the word muse comes from the Anglo-French verb muser, meaning "to gape, to idle, to muse." The image evoked is one of a thinker so absorbed in thought as to be unconsciously open-mouthed. Those who muse on their pets' musings might like to know that muser is ultimately from the Medieval Latin noun musus, meaning "mouth of an animal"—also source of the word muzzle. The noun muse, which in lowercase refers to a source of inspiration and when capitalized to one of the sister goddesses of Greek mythology, has no etymological link: that word comes from the Greek Mousa. The ultimate Greek origin of the word museum translates as "of the Muses."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 17, 2025 is: kibosh • KYE-bosh • noun Kibosh refers to something that serves as a check or stop. It is usually used in the phrase “put the kibosh on” to mean “to stop or end (something)” or “to prevent (something) from happening or continuing.” // I downloaded an app to help me put the kibosh on my high screen time. See the entry > Examples: “… Maybe, suggests [Graham] Dugoni and other advocates, instead of putting the kibosh on devices entirely, we need to treat modern society like a teenager on a rebellious streak. Rather than saying no, we need to show them support, offer a gentle hand, maybe even make them think it's their idea. In a way, it's time for some gentle parenting.” — Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable, 3 June 2025 Did you know? Evidence of kibosh dates the word to only a few years before Charles Dickens used it in an 1836 sketch, but despite kibosh being relatively young its source is elusive. Claims were once made that it was Yiddish, despite the absence of a plausible Yiddish source. Another hypothesis pointed to the Irish term caidhp bhais, literally, “coif (or cap) of death,” explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. But evidence for any metaphorical use of this phrase in Irish is lacking, and kibosh is not recorded in English as spoken in Ireland until decades after Dickens's use. More recent source theories include a heraldic term for an animal's head when born with only its face fully showing, and an Arabic word meaning “whip, lash,” but as the note at our etymology explains, no theory has sufficient evidence to back it.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 16, 2025 is: biannual • bye-AN-yuh-wul • adjective Biannual is an adjective used to describe something that happens twice a year, or something that happens every two years. // The art show is a biannual event that won't happen again for two more years. // The group holds biannual meetings in December and July. See the entry > Examples: “About 200 miles of trails make up The Alabama Coastal Birding Trail along Alabama's Gulf coast. These comprehensive trails span both Baldwin and Mobile counties, following the coastline, wetlands, and backwaters—all crucial stopover habitats for migratory birds. Visit in the fall or spring to see part of the beautiful biannual journey for yourself.” — Catherine Jessee, Southern Living, 8 Mar. 2025 Did you know? When we describe something as biannual, we can mean either that it occurs twice a year or that it occurs once every two years. So how does someone know which particular meaning we have in mind? Well, unless we provide them with a contextual clue, they don't. Some people prefer to use semiannual to refer to something that occurs twice a year, reserving biannual for things that occur once every two years. This practice is hardly universal among English speakers, however, and biannual remains a potentially ambiguous word. Fortunately, English also provides us with biennial, a word that specifically refers to something that occurs every two years or that lasts or continues for two years.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 16, 2025 is: biannual • bye-AN-yuh-wul • adjective Biannual is an adjective used to describe something that happens twice a year, or something that happens every two years. Biannual is always used before the noun it describes. // The art show is a biannual event that won't happen again for two more years. // The group holds biannual meetings in December and July. See the entry > Examples: “About 200 miles of trails make up The Alabama Coastal Birding Trail along Alabama's Gulf coast. These comprehensive trails span both Baldwin and Mobile counties, following the coastline, wetlands, and backwaters—all crucial stopover habitats for migratory birds. Visit in the fall or spring to see part of the beautiful biannual journey for yourself.” — Catherine Jessee, Southern Living, 8 Mar. 2025 Did you know? When we describe something as biannual, we can mean either that it occurs twice a year or that it occurs once every two years. So how does someone know which particular meaning we have in mind? Well, unless we provide them with a contextual clue, they don't. Some people prefer to use semiannual to refer to something that occurs twice a year, reserving biannual for things that occur once every two years. This practice is hardly universal among English speakers, however, and biannual remains a potentially ambiguous word. Fortunately, English also provides us with biennial, a word that specifically refers to something that occurs every two years or that lasts or continues for two years.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 15, 2025 is: coalesce • koh-uh-LESS • verb To coalesce is to come together to form one group or mass. // The club's community service projects provide students with a common goal to coalesce around. // The movie is full of beautifully written scenes but they never coalesce into a whole. See the entry > Examples: “... as Angola prepares for the final, the combination of personal perseverance, team cohesion, and national pride coalesces into something bigger than a game: a celebration of resilience, dedication, and the enduring spirit of basketball in Angola.” — Sindiswa Mabunda, Forbes, 24 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The meaning of many English words equals the sum of their parts, and coalesce is a fitting example. The word unites the prefix co- (“together”) and the Latin verb alescere, meaning “to grow.” Coalesce is one of a number of English verbs (along with mix, commingle, merge, and amalgamate) that refer to the act of combining parts into a whole. In particular, coalesce usually implies the merging of similar parts to form a cohesive unit, such as a political ideology, a fan-following, or (perish the thought) a Portuguese man-of-war, the body of which includes three types of zooids.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 14, 2025 is: utopia • yoo-TOH-pee-uh • noun Utopia refers to an imaginary place in which the government, laws, and social conditions are perfect; a utopia is a place of ideal perfection. // It's a nice place to live, but it's no utopia. See the entry > Examples: “Despite the rest of the group arguing with and (mostly) disagreeing with him for half the evening, my colleague stuck to his guns: it would be handy to have robots writing poetry for people. … But at the heart of my colleague's provocative position was a utopian ideal: of a future in which technology was advanced enough to ‘do everything,' even write poetry, so that no one needed to work. Yet this position wasn't convincing either. His utopia sounded more than a little dull, and nobody wants to be bored out of their minds.” — Surekha Davies, Humans: A Monstrous History, 2025 Did you know? There's quite literally no place like utopia. In 1516, English humanist Sir Thomas More published a book titled Utopia, which compared social and economic conditions in Europe with those of an ideal society on an imaginary island located off the coast of the Americas. More wanted to imply that the perfect conditions on his fictional island could never really exist, so he called it “Utopia,” a name he created by combining the Greek words ou (“not, no”) and topos (“place”). The earliest generic use of utopia was for an imaginary and indefinitely remote place. The current use of utopia, referring to an ideal place or society, was inspired by More's description of Utopia's perfection.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 13, 2025 is: penultimate • pih-NUL-tuh-mut • adjective Penultimate means "occurring immediately before the last one," or in other words, "next to last." A formal adjective, it is always used before the noun it modifies. // The penultimate episode of the TV series features some shocking plot twists that set up what will surely be a thrilling series finale. See the entry > Examples: "The high school soccer playoffs are down to their penultimate round with the state semifinals looming later this week after a select few regional champions were crowned on Tuesday." — Matt Welch, The Plano (Texas) Star Courier, 2 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Penultimate isn't the last word in words for things that are next to last. It has a pair of closely-related noun synonyms: penult and penultima. Although all three concern something that's next to last, penult and penultima are usually a bit more specific; they are used most often to identify the next to last syllable of a word. All three come from paenultima, the feminine of paenultimus, a Latin root from paene ("almost") and ultimus ("last"). You may occasionally hear the word penultimate used as an intensified version of ultimate, as in "a race they've called 'the penultimate challenge.'" This use isn't typically found in edited prose, however, or in dictionaries, as discussed in this video.

In this episode, we reveal results from our latest research analyzing the role of hen survival in turkey population dynamics.   Our lab is primarily funded by donations. If you would like to help support our work, please donate here: http://UFgive.to/UFGameLab   Resources:   Pre-Print: Lashley et al. (2025) Female Wild turkey survival meta-analysis   Byrne, M. E., et al. (2015). Potential density dependence in wild turkey productivity in the southeastern United States. In Proceedings of the National Wild Turkey Symposium (Vol. 11, pp. 329-351).    Johnson, V. M., et al. (2022). Nest site selection and survival of wild turkeys in Tennessee. Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 9, 134-143.   Lehman, C. P., et al. (2022). Factors influencing rate of decline in a Merriam's wild turkey population. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 86(6), e22240.    Londe, David W., et al. "Review of range‐wide vital rates quantifies eastern wild Turkey population trajectory." Ecology and Evolution 13.2 (2023): e9830.   Speake, Daniel W. "Predation on wild turkeys in Alabama." 4th National Wild Turkey Symposium. Little Rock, Arkansas (USA). 2-5 Mar 1980.. 1980.    Tyl, R. M., et al. (2023). Factors influencing survival of female eastern wild turkeys in northeastern South Dakota. Wildlif e Society Bulletin, 47(2), e1429.   Which vital rates are most important to turkey populations? | Ep 13 SD Research Update: Major constraints and BMPs | Ep 81   We've launched a comprehensive online wild turkey course featuring experts across multiple institutions that specialize in habitat management and population management for wild turkeys. Earn up to 20.5 CFE hours! Enroll Now!    Dr. Marcus Lashley @DrDisturbance, Publications Dr. Will Gulsby @dr_will_gulsby, Publications Turkeys for Tomorrow @turkeysfortomorrow  UF Game Lab @ufgamelab, YouTube   Donate to our wild turkey research: UF Turkey Donation Fund , Auburn Turkey Donation Fund    Want to help wild turkey conservation? Please take our quick survey to take part in our research!   Do you have a topic you'd like us to cover? Leave us a review or send us an email at wildturkeyscience@gmail.com!   Watch these podcasts on YouTube   Please help us by taking our (quick) listener survey - Thank you!    Check out the DrDisturbance YouTube channel! DrDisturbance YouTube   Want to help support the podcast? Our friends at Grounded Brand have an option to donate directly to Wild Turkey Science at checkout. Thank you in advance for your support!   Leave a podcast rating for a chance to win free gear!   This podcast is made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow, a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey. To learn more about TFT, go to turkeysfortomorrow.org.    Music by Artlist.io Produced & edited by Charlotte Nowak  

In this episode, we reveal results from our latest research analyzing the role of hen survival in turkey population dynamics.   Our lab is primarily funded by donations. If you would like to help support our work, please donate here: http://UFgive.to/UFGameLab   Resources:   Pre-Print: Lashley et al. (2025) Female Wild turkey survival meta-analysis   Byrne, M. E., et al. (2015). Potential density dependence in wild turkey productivity in the southeastern United States. In Proceedings of the National Wild Turkey Symposium (Vol. 11, pp. 329-351).    Johnson, V. M., et al. (2022). Nest site selection and survival of wild turkeys in Tennessee. Journal of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, 9, 134-143.   Lehman, C. P., et al. (2022). Factors influencing rate of decline in a Merriam's wild turkey population. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 86(6), e22240.    Londe, David W., et al. "Review of range‐wide vital rates quantifies eastern wild Turkey population trajectory." Ecology and Evolution 13.2 (2023): e9830.   Speake, Daniel W. "Predation on wild turkeys in Alabama." 4th National Wild Turkey Symposium. Little Rock, Arkansas (USA). 2-5 Mar 1980.. 1980.   Tyl, R. M., et al. (2023). Factors influencing survival of female eastern wild turkeys in northeastern South Dakota. Wildlif e Society Bulletin, 47(2), e1429.   We've launched a comprehensive online wild turkey course featuring experts across multiple institutions that specialize in habitat management and population management for wild turkeys. Earn up to 20.5 CFE hours! Enroll Now!    Dr. Marcus Lashley @DrDisturbance, Publications Dr. Will Gulsby @dr_will_gulsby, Publications Turkeys for Tomorrow @turkeysfortomorrow  UF Game Lab @ufgamelab, YouTube   Donate to our wild turkey research: UF Turkey Donation Fund , Auburn Turkey Donation Fund    Want to help wild turkey conservation? Please take our quick survey to take part in our research!   Do you have a topic you'd like us to cover? Leave us a review or send us an email at wildturkeyscience@gmail.com!   Watch these podcasts on YouTube   Please help us by taking our (quick) listener survey - Thank you!    Check out the DrDisturbance YouTube channel! DrDisturbance YouTube   Want to help support the podcast? Our friends at Grounded Brand have an option to donate directly to Wild Turkey Science at checkout. Thank you in advance for your support!   Leave a podcast rating for a chance to win free gear!   This podcast is made possible by Turkeys for Tomorrow, a grassroots organization dedicated to the wild turkey. To learn more about TFT, go to turkeysfortomorrow.org.    Music by Artlist.io Produced & edited by Charlotte Nowak  

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 12, 2025 is: imprimatur • im-pruh-MAH-toor • noun Imprimatur is a formal word that refers to explicit approval or permission. // Though not an official project of the theater, the drama festival has its imprimatur. See the entry > Examples: “It is not overstating to say that [Frederick] Douglass was a baseball man. He attended games, supported his sons' involvement, and even played catch with his grandchildren. Douglass's support gave Black baseball an imprimatur of race approval as an activity that uplifted the race. It was not frivolous for Black men to pursue this sport as an avocation, or even as a vocation.” — Gerald Early, Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America, 2025 Did you know? Imprimatur means “let it be printed” in New Latin (the Latin used since the end of the medieval period especially in science). It comes from Latin imprimere, meaning “to imprint or impress.” In the 1600s, the word appeared in the front matter of books, accompanied by the name of an official authorizing the book's printing. In time, English speakers began using imprimatur in the general sense of “official approval.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 11, 2025 is: languid • LANG-gwid • adjective Something described as languid shows or has very little energy, force, or activity. // We paddled at a languid pace, in no hurry to arrive at our picnic destination. See the entry > Examples: “The flat once belonged to 19th-century French writer George Sand, and is now a handsome apartment with sleek decor and elevated amenities that will make it easy to enjoy languid afternoons sipping on a glass of wine and perusing the owner's extensive literary collection.” — Elise Taylor, Nicole Kliest, and Elly Leavitt, Vogue, 8 Aug. 2025 Did you know? Lack, lack, lack. Languid is all about lack. Depending on its context, the word can suggest a lack of strength or force, a lack of energy, or a lack of activity. The lack-of-strength/force sense of languid describes the kind of sluggishness that often results from fatigue or weakness, as in “the illness left her feeling languid.” The lack-of-energy sense is synonymous with listless, and often describes someone's character or disposition as a result of dissatisfaction or sadness. Lastly, there's the lack-of-activity sense of languid, as in “investors are worried about the languid stock market.” So languid is a total bummer, right? Not so (ahem) fast! Sometimes it's a good thing to dillydally, and languid has also long been used to describe stretches of time—think afternoons, days, summers, etc.—that are relatively and perhaps pleasantly chill.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 10, 2025 is: obviate • AHB-vee-ayt • verb To obviate something (usually a need for something, or a necessity) is to anticipate and prevent it. A formal word, obviate can also mean "to make an action unnecessary." // The new medical treatment obviates the need for surgery. // Allowing workers flexibility should obviate any objections to the change. See the entry > Examples: "In 1987, a new kind of computer workstation debuted from Sun Microsystems. These workstations, as well as increasingly powerful desktop computers from IBM and Apple, obviated the need for specialized LISP machines. Within a year, the market for LISP machines evaporated." — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 3 Sept. 2025 Did you know? It's most often needs that get obviated. And a need that's obviated is a need that's been anticipated and prevented. That sentence may obviate your need to consult the definition again, for example. Obviate comes ultimately from the Latin adjective obviam, meaning "in the way," and obviating does often involve figuratively putting something in the way, as when an explanatory sentence placed just so blocks a need to consult a definition. (Obviam is also an ancestor of our adjective obvious.) Obviate has a number of synonyms in English, including prevent, preclude, and avert, which all can mean "to hinder or stop something." Preclude often implies that a degree of chance was involved in stopping an event, while avert always implies that a bad situation has been anticipated and prevented or deflected by the application of immediate and effective means. Obviate generally suggests the use of intelligence or forethought to ward off trouble.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 9, 2025 is: duress • dur-RESS • noun Duress, which is typically used with under, refers to force or threats meant to make someone do something. It is used especially of unlawful coercion. // The defense asserts that the defendant's confession was made under duress. See the entry > Examples: “Did you know that Toni [Morrison] also edited poetry? (What couldn't she do!) Despite inexperience with the medium, Morrison was an early champion of the poet June Jordan. She published one of her earliest collections, Things I Do in the Dark, in 1977. In a 1975 letter, Morrison told Jordan that Random House would publish her work, but only under duress. ‘The answer they gave was “we would prefer her prose—will do poetry if we must,”' she wrote. ‘Now I would tell them to shove it if that were me…'” — Brittany Allen, LitHub.com, 24 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Duress is most often paired with the word under to refer to force or threats meant to make someone do something. For example, someone forced to sign a document signs it “under duress,” and a person held “under duress” is not free to leave but is being constrained, usually unlawfully. (Do not confuse being “under duress” with being “under stress,” which is a much more common occurrence.) Duress comes ultimately from the Latin adjective durus, meaning “hard,” source too of durable and endure.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 8, 2025 is: finicky • FIN-ih-kee • adjective Finicky describes someone who is very hard to please, or something that requires a lot of care, precision, or attentive effort. // Although she was a finicky eater as a child, she grew up to become a world-renowned chef famous for her encyclopedic knowledge of global ingredients. // The latest game in the series boasts amazing graphics but the controls are a little finicky. See the entry > Examples: "Stardom is a fleeting concept, one that we've seen play out with the biggest of stars over time. Even without outright missteps, artists often find themselves scrutinized by the masses for reasons entirely unrelated to their work. More often than not, this pressure either drives them to prove their worth to a finicky fanbase—one that will jump ship the second something else catches their attention—or pushes them back into obscurity." — Aron A., HotNewHipHop.com, 22 Aug. 2025 Did you know? If you're a reader of a certain age (say, a Boomer, Gen Xer, or even a Xennial) you may remember cheeky television commercials featuring Morris, a finicky housecat who only eats a certain brand of cat food. (Morris is still featured on product labels.) Morris's tastes in cuisine are not only very particular, but very fine as well, and that's appropriate given the origin of finicky. The word came about in the early 19th century as an alteration of finicking, itself a 17th century alteration of another adjective, finical, which in turn is a late 16th century coinage likely derived from the adjective fine.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 7, 2025 is: candor • KAN-der • noun Candor refers to the quality of being open, sincere, and honest. // During the interview, the comedian spoke with candor about the nervousness she feels every time she takes the stage. See the entry > Examples: “When Malika Andrews sat down to chat with ESSENCE, she was seated in her car. There was no rush in her voice, just an ease that showed how thoughtful and open she was to the experience. That balance of composure and candor is exactly what's made her one of the most respected names in sports journalism.” — Diona Ballard, Essence, 7 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The Latin verb candēre, meaning “to shine or glow,” has illuminated the English lexicon for centuries. It's given us familiar words such as candle, candid, and candidate, as well as less common terms like candela (a unit of luminous intensity) and candescent (“glowing or dazzling from or as if from great heat”). Candor, another candēre descendant, arrived in English in the 14th century. Its earliest uses referred to brightness or unstained purity and innocence; today, you're most likely to encounter candor as a word for unquestionably honest expression.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 6, 2025 is: embarrass • im-BAIR-us • verb To embarrass someone is to make them feel confused and foolish in front of other people. // Unexpected laughter embarrassed the speaker. See the entry > Examples: “Going public creates accountability and makes backing out harder. Every creator wishes they'd started sooner. Don't let future-you have the same regret. Get okay with the idea that in the future, your past work will embarrass you. This means growth.” — Jodie Cook, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2025 Did you know? If you've ever felt frozen, unable to move, or like a deer in the proverbial headlights when embarrassed by something, then the origins of the verb embarrass will make a great deal of sense. When embarrass first entered English from French in the late 16th century, it was used for the action of hampering or impeding the progress of someone or something—figuratively tying them up. No wonder then that embarrass comes ultimately from the Portuguese verb embaraçar, which adds the prefix em- to the noun baraça, meaning “noose” or “rope.” This “hampering” sense of embarrass, and others related to restricting, impairing, or burdening of one sort or other, are still in use today, but they're less common than the “to make someone feel confused and foolish in front of other people” sense is.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 5, 2025 is: sonorous • SAH-nuh-rus • adjective Sonorous is an adjective used in formal speech and writing to describe something that has a deep, loud, and pleasant sound. Sonorous can also mean “producing sound (when struck)” and “imposing or impressive in effect or style.” // The baritone's deep, sonorous voice cut through the din of the crowd, the voices immediately halting their conversations to listen more intently. See the entry > Examples: “The sonorous notes of a modern pipe organ were the soundtrack to my tour, enhancing the sense of reverence the cathedral inspires.” — Tracey Teo, The Chicago Tribune, 11 Sept. 2024 Did you know? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, is it sonorous? Don't be thrown off by the subtle tweak in this classic conundrum—which usually ends with “does it make a sound?”—it's still the same question. Sonorous, in its oldest sense, simply describes things that make a sound when struck (the word's Latin ancestor, sonorus, is related to sonus, meaning “sound”). By this definition, felled firs, windblown willows, etc., are all sonorous. A desktop tapped by a pencil eraser wouldn't normally be described as sonorous, however. The word is usually reserved for things that make a deep, loud, booming, or echoing sound—think timpanis (or toppling timber), not tables. Sonorous is also frequently used to describe sounds themselves, as well as voices, that are deep, loud, and pleasant. And as sonorous sounds often cause one to sit up and take notice, sonorous can also mean “imposing or impressive in effect or style,” as when describing particularly affecting speech or prose.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 4, 2025 is: repertoire • REP-er-twahr • noun Repertoire typically refers to a list or supply of plays, songs, dances, etc. that a company or person is prepared to perform,. Repertoire may also refer to a supply of skills or devices, or more broadly to an amount or supply. // The band's repertoire includes both classic and modern jazz. // The couple enrolled in a cooking class to expand their culinary repertoire. // His fashion repertoire includes a rotation of vibrant floral tops. See the entry > Examples: "[Rebecca] Roudman is best known as the frontwoman for Dirty Cello, a hard-working band that has honed a rollicking repertoire of rock anthems, bluegrass standards and Americana originals." — Andrew Gilbert, The Mercury News (San Jose, California), 21 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The Late Latin noun repertorium, meaning "list," has given English two words related to the broad range of things that someone or something can do. One is repertory, perhaps most commonly known as a word for a company that presents several different plays, operas, or other works at one theater, as well as the theater where such works are performed. Repertoire, which comes from repertorium via French, once meant the same thing as repertory but later came to refer to the works a company performs, or, in extended use, to a range of skills that a person has, such as the different pitches a baseball pitcher can throw or the particular dishes that are a chef's specialty.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 3, 2025 is: gibbous • JIB-us • adjective Gibbous is most often used to describe the moon or a planet when it is seen with more than half but not all of the apparent disk illuminated. // The waxing gibbous moon provided the perfect lighting for a night of spooky storytelling around the campfire. See the entry > Examples: “At 3:30 a.m. the gibbous moon is high in the south and Perseus is nearly overhead. Set up a comfortable lawn chair facing away from any bright lights, ideally looking toward the northeast with the moon to your back. Have insect repellent handy along with hot chocolate, tea or coffee and enjoy the show.” — Tim Hunter, The Arizona Daily Star, 7 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The adjective gibbous has its origins in the Latin noun gibbus, meaning “hump.” It was adopted into Middle English to describe rounded, convex things. While it has been used to describe the rounded body parts of humans and animals (such as the back of a camel) and to describe the shape of certain flowers (such as snapdragons), the term is most often used to describe the moon: a gibbous moon is one that is between half full and full.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 3, 2025 is: gibbous • JIB-us • adjective Gibbous is most often used to describe the moon or a planet when it is seen with more than half but not all of the apparent disk illuminated. // The waxing gibbous moon provided the perfect lighting for a night of spooky storytelling around the campfire. See the entry > Examples: “At 3:30 a.m. the gibbous moon is high in the south and Perseus is nearly overhead. Set up a comfortable lawn chair facing away from any bright lights, ideally looking toward the northeast with the moon to your back. Have insect repellent handy along with hot chocolate, tea or coffee and enjoy the show.” — Tim Hunter, The Arizona Daily Star, 7 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The adjective gibbous has its origins in the Latin noun gibbus, meaning “hump.” It was adopted into Middle English to describe rounded, convex things. While it has been used to describe the rounded body parts of humans and animals (such as the back of a camel) and to describe the shape of certain flowers (such as snapdragons), the term is most often used to describe the moon: a gibbous moon is one that is between half full and full.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 2, 2025 is: atone • uh-TOHN • verb To atone for something is to make amends for it—that is, to do something good as a way of showing that you are sorry about, or have remorse for, a mistake, bad behavior, etc. // The novel opens with an act of cruelty and then traces the thoughts and actions of those responsible as they try to atone for it. See the entry > Examples: “... the catcher atoned for his earlier miscue by hitting a game-tying solo homer to straightaway center field.” — Mac Cerullo, The Boston Herald, 24 July 2025 Did you know? Atone has its roots in the idea of reconciliation and harmony. It grew out of the Middle English phrase at on meaning “in harmony,” a phrase echoed in current expressions like “feeling at one with nature.” When atone joined modern English in the 16th century, it meant “to reconcile,” and suggested the restoration of a peaceful and harmonious state between people or groups. Today, atone specifically implies addressing the damage—or disharmony—caused by one's own behavior.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 1, 2025 is: preternatural • pree-ter-NATCH-uh-rul • adjective Preternatural is a formal adjective used to describe things that are very unusual in a way that does not seem natural. // He has a preternatural knack for imitating birdcalls. // There was an eerie, preternatural quiet in the house. See the entry > Examples: "Beyond his physical and mental attributes, [Jayden] Daniels has a preternatural calm in the most pivotal moments of a drive, a game, and a season that makes you wonder if he's somehow been in the NFL for 10 years." — Doug Farrar, The Guardian (London), 21 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Preternatural comes from the Latin phrase praeter naturam, meaning "beyond nature." Medieval Latin scholars rendered this as praeternaturalis, and that form inspired the modern English word. Things beyond nature—i.e., very unusual things—can be alarming, and in its earliest documented uses in the late 1500s, preternatural was applied to strange, ominous, or abnormal phenomena, from works of God to signs of illness and disease. But by the 1800s things were looking up for preternatural, with the word describing remarkable abilities of exceptional humans, as it most often does today.