Podcasts about merriam webster

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 13, 2025 is: contrite • kun-TRYTE • adjective Contrite is a formal adjective used to describe someone who feels regret for their bad behavior, or something, such as an apology, that shows such regret. // Although the mayor appeared contrite about the most recent scandal plaguing city hall, many constituents remained unpersuaded. See the entry > Examples: “At the restaurant, late into the meal, ‘Honey, Honey,' from the ‘Mamma Mia' soundtrack began to play, with [Amanda] Seyfried's 22-year-old voice issuing through the restaurant's speakers. The waitress came over, contrite. The song was just part of the usual play list. ‘Listen, I love having a stake in pop culture,' Seyfried reassured her. ‘It's really nice.'” — Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, 11 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Props to Elton John: sorry really does seem to be the hardest word. But saying it (in something other than a nonapology, of course) is an important part of being contrite—that is, feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for one's bad behavior. Contrite traces back to the Latin verb conterere, meaning “to pound to pieces,” “to crush, “to wear out or down,” or “to exhaust mentally or physically.” In Medieval Latin—the Latin used in Medieval times especially for religious or literary purposes—conterere came to mean “to crush in spirit with a sense of one's sin,” or “to render contrite.” Anglo-French speakers borrowed a form of the verb conterere and made it the adjective contrit, which was in turn adopted into English in the 1300s.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 12, 2025 is: impunity • im-PYOO-nuh-tee • noun Impunity, usually used in the phrase "with impunity," refers to exemption or freedom from punishment, harm, or loss. // They mistakenly believe that they can break the camp's rules with impunity. See the entry > Examples: "For his part, [artist Adam] Leveille doesn't expect to see his painting again. ... Still, he feels compelled to speak out publicly about what happened and has asked on his Instagram account and on Reddit for anyone with information about the heist, or who might have seen his painting appear somewhere, to come forward. If anything, he just wants to let potential area art thieves know they can't steal from local artists with impunity." — Spencer Buell, The Boston Globe, 1 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Impunity, like the words pain, penal, and punish, traces to the Latin noun poena, meaning "punishment." Poena, in turn, came from the Greek poinē, meaning "payment" or "penalty." Impunity has been around since the 1500s; in 1660, Englishman Roger Coke wrote "This unlimited power of doing anything with impunity, will only beget a confidence in kings of doing what they [desire]." While royals may act with impunity more easily than others, the word impunity can be applied to beings great and small. Take, for example, this 2023 quote from the Sidmouth Herald in England: "The [yew tree] fruits are readily eaten by birds but they do not digest the seeds as they are poisonous. Only one bird, the rare and shy Hawfinch, is able to eat the seeds with impunity."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 11, 2025 is: rescind • rih-SIND • verb To rescind something, such as a law, contract, agreement, etc., is to end it officially. Rescind can also mean “to take back; to cancel.” // Given the appeal court's recent decision, it is likely that the law will be rescinded. // The company later rescinded its offer. See the entry > Examples: “A state environmental oversight board voted unanimously to rescind a controversial proposal that would have permitted California municipal landfills to accept contaminated soil that is currently required to be dumped at sites specifically designated and approved for hazardous waste.” — Tony Briscoe, The Los Angeles Times, 16 May 2025 Did you know? Rescind and the lesser-known words exscind and prescind all come from the Latin verb scindere, which means “to split, cleave, separate.” Rescind was adapted from its Latin predecessor rescindere in the 16th century, and prescind (from praescindere) and exscind (from exscindere) followed in the next century. Exscind means “to cut off” or “to excise,” and prescind means “to withdraw one's attention,” but of the three borrowings, only rescind established itself as a common English term. Today, rescind is most often heard in contexts having to do with the withdrawal of an offer, award, or privilege, or with invalidation of a law or policy.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 10, 2025 is: boffo • BAH-foh • adjective Boffo is an informal word that describes things that are extremely good or successful. // The most recent film in the long-running franchise has done boffo business at the box office, a testament to the series' enduring popularity. See the entry > Examples: “A strong showing at the Senior Bowl was followed by a boffo performance at the NFL combine, where the 6-foot-4, 214-pound [Isaac] TeSlaa zoomed through the 40-yard dash in 4.43 seconds …” — Rainer Sabin, The Detroit Free Press, 27 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Boffo made its print debut as a noun referring to something great: a solid joke or a good punch line. It did so right around the same time—the 1930s, at the dawn of Hollywood's golden age—as boff, a noun with an identical meaning thought to perhaps come from “box office.” Within a few years, boffo began to be applied adjectivally to things that, like a good joke, were a big hit: performances, all-star casts, movies. To this day it is used mostly in the context of performing arts, spectator sports, and other entertainments.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 9, 2025 is: simulacrum • sim-yuh-LAK-rum • noun A simulacrum is a superficial likeness of something, usually as an imitation, copy, or representation. The plural of simulacrum is either simulacrums or simulacra. // The surprise still succeeded, thanks to the simulacrum of confusion expressed by two guests when they were spotted before the big moment. See the entry > Examples: "Under the lid, there are no strings to move the air, but rather speakers that create an uncanny simulacrum of a grand piano." — Robert Ross, Robb Report, 17 July 2024 Did you know? There is more than a crumb of similarity between simulacrum and simulate: both words come from simulāre, a Latin verb meaning "to pretend, produce a fraudulent imitation of, imitate." At the root of simulāre is the Latin adjective similis, which means "having characteristics in common." Many "similar" words trace back to similis, hence the resemblance between simulacrum and familiar terms like simultaneous, simile, and of course similarity.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 8, 2025 is: exemplary • ig-ZEM-pluh-ree • adjective Something described as exemplary is extremely good and deserves to be admired and copied. // Our research team was awarded for our exemplary work on the project. See the entry > Examples: “[Director, Oliver] Hermanus again shows highly polished craftsmanship, adding the subtlest hint of sepia tones to evoke the period in the early sections, but never to the point where the characters compete with the settings. His direction of the actors is exemplary, even with characters seen only briefly ...” — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 May 2025 Did you know? It's usually not a good thing if someone wants to make an example of you, unless, of course, it's because you happen to be exemplary. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, someone or something may be deemed exemplary if they, by their example, are worthy of imitation. Like a few other English words beginning with ex—such as exceptional and extraordinary—exemplary describes that which is a cut above the rest. But though exemplary, which comes from the Latin noun exemplum (“example”), describes something “excellent,” it almost always carries the further suggestion that the thing described is an excellent model to follow.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 7, 2025 is: procrastinate • pruh-KRASS-tuh-nayt • verb To procrastinate is to be slow or late about doing something that should be done, or about doing or attending to things in general. // Tickets to the event are selling swiftly, so don't procrastinate—buy yours today. // Not one to procrastinate, Harry set to work on the project immediately. See the entry > Examples: "Researchers found that individuals who tend to procrastinate often do so because they fear not meeting their high standards or worry too much about failing. The study also showed that this fear of failure and the habit of overgeneralizing failures (like thinking one mistake means you're a failure) strongly connect perfectionism to procrastination." — Mark Travers, Forbes, 28 May 2025 Did you know? We won't put off telling you about the origins of procrastinate: it comes from the Latin prefix pro-, meaning "forward," and crastinus, meaning "of tomorrow." To procrastinate is to work or move slowly so as to fall behind; it implies blameworthy delay especially through laziness or apathy. English has other words with similar meanings, such as defer and postpone, but none places the blame so directly on the person responsible for choosing a later time to do something. Procrastinate is also a malleable word: English speakers have wasted no time creating clever variations, most of them delightfully self-explanatory. Don't let coinages like procrastibake, procrastinetflix, and procrasticlean pass you by; they may not meet our criteria for entry into the dictionary, but their potentials for use are undeniable.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 6, 2025 is: antic • AN-tik • noun Antic refers to an attention-drawing, often wildly playful or funny act or action. It is usually used in its plural form, and is often used disapprovingly. // It wasn't clear which students were ultimately responsible for the antics that unfolded in the cafeteria that day. See the entry > Examples: “A couple of adult gorillas, including one majestic silverback, lay indolently on the ground—seemingly reveling in the early morning sunshine, while a pair of young gorillas tumbled down from a mound and played together on the muddy earth. It was remarkable to see how similar they are to humans. They live in family groups and their movements, antics and expressions are so like ours. In fact, data shows that humans and gorillas differ in only 1.75 per cent of their DNA, far less than previously assumed. (Chimpanzees—our closest relatives—differ only 1.37 per cent from our genomes.)” — Zeineb Badawi, An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence, 2025 Did you know? When referring to one of the grotesques—the fanciful, often fantastical mural paintings found in the ruins of ancient Roman buildings—the Italian descendants of the ancient Romans used the word antico, meaning “ancient thing.” In 16th-century English, antico (itself a descendant of the Latin word for “ancient,” antiquus) became antic, and got applied as both a noun and an adjective in contexts related to decorative art—sculptures, painting, architecture, etc.—inspired by the original grotesques. Antic shifted in meaning over time, eventually gaining the senses we use more often today: antic as an adjective describes the absurd or whimsical, and antic as a usually plural noun refers to attention-grabbing, playful or funny acts and actions.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 5, 2025 is: cantankerous • kan-TANK-uh-rus • adjective A cantankerous person is often angry and annoyed, and a cantankerous animal or thing is difficult or irritating to deal with. // Although the former postman was regarded by some townspeople as a scowling, cantankerous old coot, he was beloved by neighborhood children, to whom he would regularly hand out butterscotch candies from his front stoop with a twinkle in his eye. See the entry > Examples: “The film ‘Hard Truths,' which opens in New York on Friday and nationwide in January, centers on [Marianne] Jean-Baptiste's Pansy, a cantankerous middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her dentist, among others.” — Simran Hans, The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2024 Did you know? A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown upside down, while a cantankerous mule/jalopy/etc. is difficult to deal with—it may not turn in your desired direction. It's been speculated that cantankerous is a product of the obsolete word contack, meaning “contention,” under the influence of a pair of “difficult” words still in use: rancorous and cankerous. Rancorous brings the anger and “bitter deep-seated ill will” (as rancor can be understood to mean), and cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, cankers.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 4, 2025 is: Yankee • YANG-kee • noun Yankee can refer broadly to anyone born or living in the U.S., more narrowly to only those in the northern U.S., or even more narrowly to only those in the states of New England. The broadest use is especially common outside the U.S. // It took the children some time to adjust to being the only Southerners in a classroom full of Yankees. // After years of international travel, he'd grown accustomed to living as a Yankee abroad. See the entry > Examples: "Anthony Pettaway's coworkers at Norfab Ducting have known for the past six years he was good at getting their deliveries to the right department. They also knew from his accent that the receivables department employee was a relocated Yankee." — Jill Doss-Raines, The Dispatch (Lexington, NC), 10 June 2025 Did you know? We don't know the origin of Yankee but we do know that it began as an insult. British General James Wolfe used the term in a 1758 letter to express his low opinion of the New England troops assigned to him, and from around the same time period there is a report of British troops using Yankee as a term of abuse for the citizens of Boston. In 1775, however, after the battles of Lexington and Concord showed that colonials could stand up to British regulars, Yankee was proudly adopted by colonials as a self-descriptor in defiance of the pejorative use. Both derisive and respectable uses have existed ever since.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 3, 2025 is: desultory • DEH-sul-tor-ee • adjective Desultory is a formal word used to describe something that lacks a plan or purpose, or that occurs without regularity. It can also describe something unconnected to a main subject, or something that is disappointing in progress, performance, or quality. // After graduation, I moved from job to job in a more or less desultory manner before finding work I liked. // The team failed to cohere over the course of the season, stumbling to a desultory fifth place finish. See the entry > Examples: “One other guy was in the waiting room when I walked in. As we sat there past the scheduled time of our appointments, we struck up a desultory conversation. Like me, he'd been in the hiring process for years, had driven down from Albuquerque the night before, and seemed nervous. He asked if I'd done any research on the polygraph. I said no, and asked him the same question. He said no. We were getting our first lies out of the way.” — Justin St. Germain, “The Memoirist and the Lie Detector,” New England Review, 2024 Did you know? The Latin adjective desultorius was used by the ancient Romans to describe a circus performer (called a desultor) whose trick was to leap from horse to horse without stopping. English speakers took the idea of the desultorius performer and coined the word desultory to describe that which figuratively “jumps” from one thing to another, without regularity, and showing no sign of a plan or purpose. (Both desultor and desultorius, by the way, come from the Latin verb salire, meaning “to leap.”) A desultory conversation leaps from one topic to another, and a desultory comment is one that jumps away from the topic at hand. Meanwhile a desultory performance is one resulting from an implied lack of steady, focused effort.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2025 is: galumph • guh-LUMF • verb To galumph is to move in a loud and clumsy way. // I could hear them galumphing around in the attic in search of old family photo albums. See the entry > Examples: “Dragons! Dragons roaring! Dragons squawking! Dragons sizing each other up! Dragons galumphing over the sand so awkwardly it reminds you that dragons are creatures of the air, not the earth.” — Glen Weldon, NPR, 28 July 2024 Did you know? Bump, thump, thud. There's no doubt about it—when someone or something galumphs onto the scene, ears take notice. Galumph first lumbered onto the English scene in 1872 when Lewis Carroll used the word to describe the actions of the vanquisher of the Jabberwock in Through the Looking Glass: “He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back.” Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing gallop and triumphant, as galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding. Other 19th-century writers must have liked the sound of galumph, because they began plying it in their own prose, and it has been clumping around our language ever since.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 1, 2025 is: verbose • ver-BOHSS • adjective Someone described as verbose tends to use many words to convey their point. Verbose can also describe something, such as a speech, that contains more words than necessary. // The article documenting their meeting presented an odd exchange between a verbose questioner and a laconic interviewee. See the entry > Examples: "The dense, verbose text—over which some actors stumbled, understandably, on opening night—created a dizzying journey through a war between gods and mortals fought across time and place." — Rosa Cartagena, The Philadelphia Daily News, 19 Feb. 2025 Did you know? There's no shortage of words to describe wordiness in English. Diffuse, long-winded, prolix, redundant, windy, repetitive, rambling, and circumlocutory are some that come to mind. Want to express the opposite idea? Try succinct, concise, brief, short, summary, terse, compact, or compendious. Verbose, which falls solidly into the first camp of words, comes from the Latin adjective verbōsus, from verbum, meaning "word." Other descendants of verbum include verb, adverb, proverb, verbal, and verbicide ("the deliberate distortion of the sense of a word").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 30, 2025 is: expunge • ik-SPUNJ • verb To expunge something is to remove it completely, whether by obliterating it, striking it out, or marking it for deletion. Expunge is most commonly applied in cases in which documentation of something is removed from an official record. // Due to an error, the charges were expunged from their record. See the entry > Examples: “... Bland et al. found that an offer to expunge a criminal record after participation in a rehabilitation program reduced crime as well as the measure of harm. This appears to indicate that motivation drives rehabilitation—which is important to consider in judging character in the present.” — Wendy L. Patrick, Psychology Today, 1 Dec. 2024 Did you know? In medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, a series of dots was used to mark mistakes or to label material that should be deleted from a text, and those deletion dots—known as puncta delentia—can help you remember the history of expunge. Puncta comes from the Latin verb pungere, which can be translated as “to prick or sting” (and you can imagine that a scribe may have felt stung when their mistakes were so punctuated in a manuscript). Pungere is also an ancestor of expunge, as well as a parent of other dotted, pointed, or stinging terms such as punctuate, compunction, poignant, puncture, and pungent.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 29, 2025 is: impetus • IM-puh-tus • noun Impetus refers to a force or impulse that causes something (such as a process or activity) to be done or to become more active. It is often used with for and sometimes with to. // Her work provided the major impetus behind the movement. // The tragic accident became an impetus for changing the safety regulations. // The high salary and generous benefits package were impetus enough to apply for the job. See the entry > Examples: “... using the many tools now available, I built a family tree with over twelve hundred names of people living in some two dozen countries. If there is anything approaching a single story of humanity, it is surely one of movement, whatever the impetus.” — Diana McCaulay, LitHub.com, 27 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Impetus provides the “why” for something: it can be understood as a driving force (as when winning a competition is the impetus for training), an incentive (as when increased skills serve as an impetus for taking a class), or encouragement (as when difficulties are the impetus for improvements). But its root packs more of a wallop: Latin impetus means “assault” as well as “impetus,” and it comes from impetere meaning “to attack.” (Impetere itself comes from petere, meaning “to go to, seek.”) If these origins seem a tad aggressive for such a genteel-sounding word as impetus, consider phrases and idioms like light a fire under someone and push comes to shove, both used when a strong impetus is provided for someone to act, decide, or accomplish something.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2025 is: restive • RES-tiv • adjective Restive can describe a person or group feeling impatience or uneasiness, or it can describe someone who is stubbornly resistant to control. // The audience grew increasingly restive as the speaker droned on and on. // The school's focus on artistic expression helps restive youths stay engaged in their learning. See the entry > Examples: "One of the most important triggers for industrial revolution in England was the draining of the population from the rural areas into the cities. ... [T]his meant that there was a growing shortage of agricultural workers and a concomitant fall in food production both in terms of quality and quantity. The immediate consequence was that available food not only became more expensive but increasingly so with time. Under these circumstances, the workers became restive, demanding the provision of the food they needed to save themselves from starvation." — Adebayo Lamikanra, The Nation (Nigeria), 13 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Restive is descended from the Anglo-French verb rester, meaning "to stop, resist, or remain." Its initial meaning in the 15th century was "stubbornly resisting control or guidance; obstinate in refusal," and for some time the word was primarily applied to animals such as horses. Over the next few centuries, restive gained additional, closely related meanings (such as "inflexible," "sluggish," and "persistent") and the word often described people as well as animals. In the 19th century this semantic drift extended to encompass the meaning "marked by impatience or uneasiness." Although the original "balky" sense of restive hasn't died out completely, it is overshadowed by this more recent "fidgety or impatient" one. Some usage guides still recommend against using restive in this modern sense, despite well over a century and a half of skilled writers employing it. If you're among the restive (earlier meaning) ones who balk at new meanings of words, we apologize if this news makes you feel restive (newer one).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2025 is: oblige • uh-BLYJE • verb To oblige a person or entity to do something is to require or force them to do it, either because of a law or rule, or because it is necessary. To simply oblige someone is to do them a favor. // The law obliges the government to release certain documents to the public. // When my friend said he needed someone to taste test his new recipe for the cooking competition, I was happy to oblige. See the entry > Examples: “I was irked 30 years ago when our neighbor said she intended to install a free-standing fence between our driveways. … It seemed unneighborly to humans and wildlife alike. We were a family who spent more time outdoors than in, always nearby when our neighbor pulled into her driveway. Once the fence was up, she was no longer obliged to speak to us.” — Margaret Renkl, New York Times, 2 June 2025 Did you know? If you are obliged by a rule or law you are metaphorically bound by it—that is, you are required to obey it. The idea of binding links the word to its Latin source, ligāre, meaning “to fasten, bind.” But in other common uses, the idea of binding is somewhat masked: it is applied when someone is bound by a debt for some favor or service, as in “We're much obliged to you for the help,” but in the phrase “happy to oblige” it simply expresses a willingness to do someone a favor, as in “They needed a ride and we were happy to oblige.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2025 is: sumptuous • SUMP-shuh-wus • adjective Sumptuous is used to describe things that are very expensive, rich, luxurious, or magnificent. // The celebratory meal was a sumptuous feast of dishes from our host's homeland. See the entry > Examples: “With comfy living areas with bistro tables, sumptuous marble bathrooms, and large private lanais with sweeping views of the ocean, mountain, or gardens, guests have ample room to spread out, relax, and really make themselves at home.” — Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens may be a few of your favorite things, but are they sumptuous? Alas, though the best things in life are often free, sumptuous is a child of the Latin word sumptus, meaning “expense,” and it typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense. A sumptuous lifestyle, for example, is more likely to involve silver-white bling than a silver-white winter that melts into spring. Sumptus has another English relation, this one tied even more closely to conspicuous consumption: sumptuary laws are largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds. (The sump in consumption is coincidental; that word comes from consume, which has its roots in Latin sumere meaning “to take up, take.”)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2025 is: sumptuous • SUMP-shuh-wus • adjective Sumptuous is used to describe things that are very expensive, rich, luxurious, or magnificent. // The celebratory meal was a sumptuous feast of dishes from our host's homeland. See the entry > Examples: “With comfy living areas with bistro tables, sumptuous marble bathrooms, and large private lanais with sweeping views of the ocean, mountain, or gardens, guests have ample room to spread out, relax, and really make themselves at home.” — Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes, 20 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens may be a few of your favorite things, but are they sumptuous? Alas, though the best things in life are often free, sumptuous is a child of the Latin word sumptus, meaning “expense,” and it typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense. A sumptuous lifestyle, for example, is more likely to involve silver-white bling than a silver-white winter that melts into spring. Sumptus has another English relation, this one tied even more closely to conspicuous consumption: sumptuary laws are largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds. (The sump is consumption is coincidental; that word comes from consume, which has its roots in Latin sumere meaning “to take up, take.”)

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 25, 2025 is: flotsam • FLAHT-sum • noun Flotsam refers to the floating pieces that remain after a shipwreck, or more broadly to any floating debris or wreckage. It is also used figuratively to refer to miscellaneous or unimportant material, often in the phrase "flotsam and jetsam." // Driftwood and other flotsam washed onto the beach. // Their apartment was adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of thrift stores and yard sales. See the entry > Examples: "The Vancouver multidisciplinary artist and educator [Alex Tedlie-Stursberg] works in various mediums, using found objects and natural materials scavenged from the ocean's edge and the landscape of the city. Detritus and flotsam become parts of beautiful sculptures, tableaus and assemblages in this artist's hands." — Dana Gee, The Vancouver (British Columbia) Sun, 23 Nov. 2024 Did you know? English speakers started using flotsam, jetsam, and lagan as legal terms in the 16th and 17th centuries, with flotsam itself dating to the first years of the 17th. The three words were used to establish claims of ownership of the three types of seaborne, vessel-originated goods they named. Flotsam was anything from a shipwreck (the word comes from Anglo-French floter, meaning "to float"), and jetsam and lagan were items thrown overboard to reduce the cargo weight of a ship. Lagan was distinguished from jetsam by having a buoy attached so the goods could be found if they sank. In the 19th century, when flotsam and jetsam took on extended meanings, they developed synonymous applications and are today often paired, lagan having mostly been left at sea.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 24, 2025 is: noisome • NOY-sum • adjective Noisome is a formal and literary word used to describe things that are very unpleasant or disgusting; it is used especially to describe offensive smells. Noisome can also mean “highly obnoxious or objectionable” as in “we were put off by their noisome habits.” // The noisome odor of a trash can in the alley was so strong that even diners seated inside the adjacent restaurant complained to staff. See the entry > Examples: “During the fourteenth century, the bubonic plague outbreak that came to be known as the Black Death claimed thousands of victims, condemning them to a rapid and painful end. As the sufferers deteriorated, the disease tainted them with a tell-tale, repellent stench, which seemed to confirm smell as the root cause of the illness. ... Noisome dwellings were set right by fumigation, while rooms were doused with strong-smelling substances like vinegar and turpentine—anything to keep at bay the dreaded miasma.” — Ashley Ward, Where We Meet the World: The Story of the Senses, 2023 Did you know? Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy, but it's not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome, which combines the suffix -some, meaning “characterized by a specified thing,” and the noun noy, meaning “annoyance.” Noisy, incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea, meaning “nausea.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 23, 2025 is: wherewithal • WAIR-wih-thawl • noun Wherewithal refers to the means, skills, resources, or money that is needed to get or do something. // The company does not have the financial wherewithal to expand into other markets at this time. See the entry > Examples: "... it is heartening to know that there are people of real influence who have the will and wherewithal to help lift the city out of the doldrums." — Scott Wright, The Herald (Scotland), 15 May 2025 Did you know? If wherewithal sounds like three words smashed together, that's because it is—sort of. Wherewithal combines where and withal, an adverb from Middle English that is itself a combination of with and all. In the past, wherewithal was used as a conjunction meaning "with or by means of which" and as a pronoun meaning "that with or by which." Today, however, it is almost always used as a noun to refer to the means or resources a person or entity has at their disposal. It refers especially to financial resources, but other means such as social influence, ability, and emotional capacity may also be termed as "wherewithal."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2025 is: bemuse • bih-MYOOZ • verb If you are bemused by something, you are confused or bewildered by it, and often also somewhat amused. // The contestant seemed somewhat bemused by the question, but gave the correct answer. See the entry > Examples: “The duck touched down on the surface of Raymond James Stadium just minutes before the Bucs scored their own touchdown. ... Many of the staff not assigned to work on the field were bemused by the sight of Anchor carrying a duck out of the stadium. They held cellphones and took pictures.” — Rick Stroud, The Tampa Bay (Florida) Times, 1 Jan. 2025 Did you know? In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by “a parson much bemus'd in beer.” The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who pestered Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant that the parson had found his muse—his inspiration—in beer. That use of bemused harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of “Poets … irrecoverably Be-mus'd.” In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to allude to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted “bemus'd in beer” as meaning “left confused by beer,” and their confusion gave rise to the “bewilder” sense of bemuse. The newer (and very common) use of bemuse to mean “to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement” is a topic of some dispute, as discussed here.

Daniel: Patterns of Praying to God - Week 2Daniel 9:1-14Cause and effect: the principle of causation; the direct relationship between an action or event and its consequence or result (Merriam Webster).When we put water into a freezer, we are not surprised when it comes back out as a solid block of ice. When we then put the block of ice out in the summer sun, we are not surprised when it returns to its liquid state. We call these events cause and effect, and they make sense.What about when God commands His people to do something and says there will be severe consequences when they disobey? Does that throw us into an uproar of anger and confusion? Or are we able to say, “Yes Lord, you are right. You said this would happen.”? Tomorrow morning, we will look further into how we respond to God through prayer.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 21, 2025 is: litmus test • LIT-mus-TEST • noun A litmus test is something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that is used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable. // At our family's Thanksgiving dinner, the litmus test for good mac and cheese is whether or not it is baked. See the entry > Examples: “The audience in a Broadway show can be intoxicating, and it's like a litmus test. If a joke doesn't land one night, you tell it differently the next night. It's terrifying, on set, to have no idea if something is working.” — Erika Henningsen, quoted in The Hollywood Reporter, 1 May 2025 Did you know? It was in the 14th century that scientists discovered that litmus, a mixture of colored organic compounds obtained from lichen, turns red in acid solutions and blue in alkaline solutions and, thus, can be used as an acid-base indicator. Six centuries later, people began using litmus test figuratively. It can now refer to any single factor that establishes the true character of something or causes something to be assigned to one category or another. Often it refers to something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that can be used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable or not.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 20, 2025 is: convivial • kun-VIV-ee-ul • adjective Convivial means "relating to, occupied with, or fond of feasting, drinking, and good company." // A convivial atmosphere filled the gallery, with good food in abundance, and wine and conversation both flowing freely. // The guests' convivial chatter filled the hall. See the entry > Examples: "For Chrissy Metz, whose childhood upbringing was modest, she says, this house signifies more than just its aesthetic beauty. 'To have a home that I can invite people to and entertain is so important to me,' the actor confides, adding that she always invites people over when she's in town. ... The front sitting room, for example, which doubles as a game room, is the scene of many convivial game nights." — Ariel Foxman, Architectural Digest, 9 Sept. 2024 Did you know? Convivial is a cheerful word that typically suggests a mood of full-bellied delight in good food, good drink, and good company, which Charles Dickens aptly captures in his novel David Copperfield: "We had a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney-end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge, and a pudding. There was wine, and there was strong ale. ... Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial. I never saw him such good company. He made his face shine with the punch, so that it looked as if it had been varnished all over. He got cheerfully sentimental about the town, and proposed success to it." Convivial traces back to the Latin word convivium, meaning "banquet," which in turn comes from the verb vivere, meaning "to live." The word is in good company, as vivere has breathed plenty of life into the English language; other common descendants include survive, revive, vivid, and vivacious.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 19, 2025 is: emancipation • ih-man-suh-PAY-shun • noun Emancipation refers to the act of freeing someone from the restraint, control, or power of another. It is used especially for the act of freeing someone from slavery. // Jomo Kenyatta played a key role in the emancipation of Kenya from European rule in the 1960s and became the first president of the newly independent nation. See the entry > Examples: “Rappahannock County's calming beauty and rolling hills hold stories from the Civil War era waiting to be told. Howard Lambert, a Culpeper native and the first African American president of the Brandy Station Foundation, has worked tirelessly to bring these stories to life, especially those of Black Civil War soldiers. ... He also has a personal connection to the Civil War. His great-great-uncle, Fielding Turner, served in the 20th United States Colored Troops (USCT) Infantry Regiment, fighting in pivotal battles and helping to announce emancipation in Texas now commemorated as Juneteenth.” — Ayana SummerlinRosa, The Culpeper (Virginia) Star-Exponent, 11 Mar. 2025 Did you know? To emancipate someone (including oneself) is to free them from restraint, control, or the power of another, and especially to free them from bondage or enslavement. It follows that the noun emancipation refers to the act or practice of emancipating. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, for example, ordered that enslaved people living in the Confederate states be released from the bonds of ownership and made free people. It took more than two years for news of the proclamation to reach the enslaved communities in the distant state of Texas. The arrival of the news on June 19 (of 1865) is now celebrated as a national holiday—Juneteenth or Emancipation Day.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 18, 2025 is: jeopardize • JEP-er-dyze • verb To jeopardize something or someone is to put them at risk or in danger. // The wrong decision could seriously jeopardize the success of the project. See the entry > Examples: “To keep the cub from forming bonds with people that could jeopardize his return to the wild, staff members charged with his care are dressing up in bear costumes, including a mask, fur coat and leather gloves.” — Summer Lin, The Los Angeles Times, 24 May 2025 Did you know? Imagine you're a contestant on a game show, and your task is to provide a question as a response to this statement from the host: “This word was once controversial, and in 1870 a grammarian called it ‘a foolish and intolerable word,' a view shared by many 19th-century critics.” If you answered, “What is jeopardize?,” you might be going home with some money! The preferred word back then was jeopard, which first appeared in print in the 14th century. The upstart jeopardize didn't arrive until the late 16th century, and took a while to catch on. In 1828, Noah Webster himself declared jeopardize to be “a modern word, used by respectable writers in America, but synonymous with jeopard, and therefore useless.” Unfortunately for the champions of jeopard, increased usage of jeopardize ultimately put the former word in jeopardy. Jeopard is now only rarely heard.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 17, 2025 is: apologia • ap-uh-LOH-jee-uh • noun An apologia is a defense especially of one's opinions, position, or actions. // The opinion piece reads like an apologia for the industry's reckless behavior. See the entry > Examples: "Yes, Barbie is a polarizing toy ... but [Greta] Gerwig leaped right to what else Barbie is: a potent, complicated, contradictory symbol that stands near the center of a decades-long and still-running argument about how to be a woman. ... The movie is a celebration of Barbie and a subterranean apologia for Barbie." — Willa Paskin, The New York Times, 11 July 2023 Did you know? As you might expect, apologia is a close relative of apology. Both words come from Late Latin; apologia came to English as a direct borrowing while apology traveled through Middle French. The Latin apologia can be traced back to the Greek verb apologeîsthai, meaning "to speak in defense; defend oneself." In their earliest English uses, apologia and apology meant basically the same thing: a formal defense or justification of one's actions or opinions. Nowadays, however, the two are distinct. The modern apology generally involves an admission of wrongdoing and an expression of regret for past actions, while an apologia typically focuses on explaining, justifying, or making clear the grounds for some course of action, belief, or position.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 16, 2025 is: garrulous • GAIR-uh-lus • adjective Someone described as garrulous is very talkative. When garrulous is used to describe a piece of language (such as a speech), it means “containing many and often too many words; wordy.” // One of the dinner party guests was a garrulous poet whose stories kept most of us in stitches. // We tried our best to stay awake during the principal's garrulous speech. See the entry > Examples: “Verbosity [in Academy Awards acceptance speeches] became more of a problem with the advent of television coverage in the 1950s. As millions of viewers watched from around the world, actors and directors—also cinematographers, sound editors and costume designers—often lingered in the spotlight. The academy eventually instituted a 45-second time limit and directed the orchestra to play garrulous winners off stage.” — David Wharton, The Los Angeles Times, 8 Mar. 2024 Did you know? We all know someone who blabs, gabs, or even confabs a little longer than necessary. You might refer to such a person as a chatty Cathy, but “garrulous Gary” would also make a perfectly apt nom de guerre. Garrulous, after all, is a 17th century Latin borrowing that has its origin in garrīre, meaning “to chatter, talk rapidly.” That Latin root is probably imitative in origin—that is, it was coined to imitate what it refers to. English has a number of words that are imitative in origin, among them several others that can describe the actions of that one friend who does all the talking, such as babble and chatter.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 15, 2025 is: progeny • PRAH-juh-nee • noun Progeny refers to the child or descendant of a particular parent or family. Progeny can also refer to the offspring of an animal or plant, or broadly to something that is the product of something else. The plural of progeny is progeny. // Many Americans are the progeny of immigrants. // The champion thoroughbred passed on his speed, endurance, and calm temperament to his progeny, many of whom became successful racehorses themselves. // This landmark study is the progeny of many earlier efforts to explore the phenomenon. See the entry > Examples: “‘I am (We are) our ancestors' wildest dreams.' The phrase originated from New Orleans visual artist, activist, and filmmaker Brandan Odums, and was popularized by influential Black figures like Ava Duvernay, who used the phrase in tribute to the ancestors of First Lady Michelle Obama. Melvinia Shields, who was born a slave in 1844, would be survived by five generations of progeny, ultimately leading to her great-great-great granddaughter—Michelle Obama ...” — Christopher J. Schell, “Hope for the Wild in Afrofuturism,” 2024 Did you know? Progeny is the progeny of the Latin verb prōgignere, meaning “to beget.” That Latin word is itself an offspring of the prefix prō-, meaning “forth,” and gignere, which can mean “to beget” or “to bring forth.” Gignere has produced a large family of English descendants, including benign, engine, genius, germ, indigenous, and genuine. Gignere even paired up with prō- again to produce a close relative of progeny: the noun progenitor can mean “an ancestor in the direct line,” “a biologically ancestral form,” or “a precursor or originator.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 14, 2025 is: vexillology • vek-suh-LAH-luh-jee • noun Vexillology is the study of flags. // An expert in vexillology, Cynthia has an impressive collection of flags displayed in her home. See the entry > Examples: "... flags should have simple elements, a limited number of colors, and no words. One of the tenets of vexillology is that the elements of the flag should be simple enough to be easily drawn by a child." — The Toledo (Ohio) Blade, 9 Jan. 2025 Did you know? "The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history." Woodrow Wilson was speaking of the U.S. flag when he made that statement in an address in June of 1915, but those who engage in vexillology—that is, vexillologists—would likely find the comment applicable to any national banner. Vexillologists undertake scholarly investigations of flags, producing papers with titles such as "A Review of the Changing Proportions of Rectangular Flags since Medieval Times, and Some Suggestions for the Future." In the late 1950s, they coined vexillology as a name for their field of research, basing it on vexillum, the Latin term for a square flag or banner of the ancient Roman cavalry. The adjectives vexillologic and vexillological and the noun vexillologist followed soon thereafter.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 13, 2025 is: rambunctious • ram-BUNK-shuss • adjective Rambunctious describes someone or something showing uncontrolled exuberance. // On my first day of student teaching, I was tasked with managing a class of rambunctious youngsters. See the entry > Examples: "To juvenile loggerhead sea turtles, a tasty squid might as well be a disco ball. When they sense food—or even think some might be nearby—these reptiles break into an excited dance. ... Researchers recently used this distinctive behavior to test whether loggerheads could identify the specific magnetic field signatures of places where they had eaten in the past. The results, published in Nature, reveal that these rambunctious reptiles dance when they encounter magnetic conditions they associate with food." — Jack Tamisiea, Scientific American, 12 Feb. 2025 Did you know? Rambunctious first appeared in print in the early half of the 19th century, at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optimism and exuberance. Rip-roaring, scalawag, scrumptious, hornswoggle, and skedaddle are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British rumbustious because it sounded, well, British? That could be. Rumbustious, which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on robustious, a much older adjective meaning both "robust" and "boisterous."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 12, 2025 is: impute • im-PYOOT • verb To impute something, such as a motive, act, or emotion, to a person or thing is to assert that the person or thing is guilty of that motive, act, emotion, etc. // It is shocking that they would impute such awful motives to me. See the entry > Examples: “California is about to ease into the 2026 race for governor, and if you can pick any of the current candidates from a police lineup, either you work in Sacramento, have an unhealthy obsession with state politics, or both. That's not to impute criminality on the part of any of those running to succeed the term-limited Gavin Newsom. ... Rather, those bidding to become California's 41st governor aren't exactly a collection of name-in-lights celebrities.” — Mark Z. Barabak, The Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Impute is a formal word typically used in contexts in which a motive, act, or emotion is credited or ascribed to someone, especially falsely or unfairly. For example, if you impute dishonesty to someone you're asserting that they're not telling the truth. And if you impute selfish motives to someone's actions you're asserting that they were motivated by selfishness. In the form imputed the word is often paired with income: imputed income is income calculated from the supposed value of intangible or non-cash sources, such as use of a company car, or an employee discount. What's the connection between these meanings? Both involve considering someone or something in a particular way, tying each meaning to the word's Latin ancestor: putare means “to consider.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 11, 2025 is: debilitating • dih-BILL-uh-tay-ting • adjective Debilitating is a formal word used to describe things that seriously impair strength or the ability to function. // She suffers from debilitating migraines. // The class helped him conquer his debilitating fear of public speaking. See the entry > Examples: "Worry is such a debilitating thing that robs you of your energy ..." — Georgia Nicols, The Denver Post, 3 Apr. 2025 Did you know? Debilitating describes things that cause serious impairment of strength or ability to function. The word appears in both medical and general contexts; someone can suffer from debilitating nausea or debilitating stage fright. An adjective that takes the form of a verb, debilitating dates to the mid-17th century, making it the youngest of a trio: its source, the verb debilitate ("to impair the strength of"), dates to the early 16th century, and the noun debility ("weakness, infirmity") has been in use since the 15th century. All come from the Latin word for "weak," debilis. Polyglots may recognize the influence of debilis in words from Spanish, Russian, Czech, Turkish, Danish, and many other languages as well.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 10, 2025 is: minutia • muh-NOO-shee-uh • noun Minutia refers to a small or minor detail. It is usually used in its plural form minutiae. // Unaccustomed to legalese, I was bewildered by the contract's minutiae. See the entry > Examples: “The novel is an intricate thatch of corkscrew twists, vivid characters, dead-on colloquial dialogue, and lawyerly minutiae that culminates in a courtroom showdown worthy of Dominick Dunne.” — David Friend, Vanity Fair, 1 Apr. 2025 Did you know? We'll try not to bore you with the minor details of minutia, though some things are worth noting about the word's history and usage. It'll only take a minute! Minutia was borrowed into English in the 18th century from the Latin plural noun minutiae, meaning “trifles” or “details,” which comes from the singular noun minutia, meaning “smallness.” In English, minutia is most often used in the plural as either minutiae (pronounced muh-NOO-shee-ee) or, on occasion, as simply minutia. The Latin minutia, incidentally, comes from minutus (also the ancestor of the familiar English word minute), an adjective meaning “small” that was created from the verb minuere, meaning “to lessen.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 9, 2025 is: eloquent • EL-uh-kwunt • adjective An eloquent speaker or writer expresses ideas forcefully and fluently; an eloquent speech or piece of writing likewise expresses ideas in such a way. Eloquent can also describe something that is vividly or movingly expressive. // She received high marks for her eloquent essay about gardening with her grandmother. // Their success serves as an eloquent reminder of the value of hard work. See the entry > Examples: "Her [author Michelle Cusolito's] concise yet eloquent text immerses young people in the watery setting, letting them feel the whales' clicks as they 'tingle' and 'vibrate' and emphasizing the strength of these animals' social bonds." — Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2025 Did you know? Words are powerful, especially when strung together in just the right sequence. A well-crafted sentence (or one who crafts it) might be described as eloquent, a word that comes from the Latin verb loquī, meaning "to talk or speak." (The adjective loquacious is another loquī descendent; it describes a person who is skilled at or has an affinity for talking.) Words are not alone in conveying emotion, and eloquent is also used to describe what we find vividly or movingly expressive, as when novelist and poet Thomas Hardy wrote of "a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more eloquent than the applause."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 8, 2025 is: cataract • KAT-uh-rakt • noun Cataract refers to a clouding of the lens of the eye, or of its surrounding transparent membrane, that obstructs the passage of light. Cataract is also used, often in literature, to refer to a waterfall, steep rapids in a river, or to a downpour or flood. // Cataracts are common but can be corrected with surgery. // The roaring cataract is one of the park's most majestic sights. See the entry > Examples: “I became a grandmother at the beginning of the decade and again at the end. I decided what kind of grandmother I wanted to be. I came to accept my identity as a writer. I retired from teaching after twenty years. I continue to work as a social work consultant. I had cataract surgery and can see better than I have in years.” — Lyn Slater, How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon, 2024 Did you know? The ocular meaning of cataract that English users are most familiar with is also the oldest. It dates to the 14th century and comes from the Latin word cataracta, meaning “portcullis,” probably because a cataract in one's eye obstructs vision much like a portcullis's heavy iron grating obstructs passage into a fortress or castle. Cataracta has another meaning, however—“waterfall”—and that meaning gave English the water-related meanings that came in later centuries. The connection between the two Latin meanings can be seen in katarassein, the Greek source of cataracta. It means “to dash down,” describing the action of both the slamming portcullis and the cascading waterfall.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 7, 2025 is: abstruse • ub-STROOSS • adjective Abstruse is a formal word used to describe something that is hard to understand. // I avoided taking this class in past semesters because the subject matter is so abstruse, but the professor does a good job explaining the concepts as clearly as possible. See the entry > Examples: “The EP's lyrics are suitably abstruse. The title ‘Marry Me Maia' sounds forthright in its intentions, but the song instead offers cryptic references and obfuscation. The result is like peeping in on a private conversation: fascinating and impassioned but fundamentally obscure.” — Ben Cardew, Pitchfork, 31 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Look closely at the following Latin verbs, all of which come from the verb trūdere (“to push, thrust”): extrudere, intrudere, obtrudere, protrudere. Remove the last two letters of each of these and you get an English descendant whose meaning involves pushing or thrusting. Another trūdere offspring, abstrūdere, meaning “to conceal,” gave English abstrude, meaning “to thrust away,” but that 17th-century borrowing has fallen out of use. An abstrūdere descendant that has survived is abstruse, an adjective that recalls the meaning of its Latin parent abstrūsus, meaning “concealed.” Like the similar-sounding obtuse, abstruse describes something difficult to understand—that is, something that has a “concealed” meaning.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2025 is: festoon • fess-TOON • verb Festoon usually means "to cover or decorate (something) with many small objects, pieces of paper, etc.," or "to appear here and there on the surface of." It can also mean "to hang decorative chains or strips on." // Tiny wildflowers festooned the meadow. // We festooned the halls with ribbons and garland. See the entry > Examples: "The road was lined with ancient trees festooned with Spanish moss." — Tayari Jones, Travel + Leisure, 14 Apr. 2025 Did you know? The noun festoon first appeared in the 1600s when it was used, as it still is today, to refer to decorative chains or strips hung between two points. (It can also refer to a carved, molded, or painted ornament representing such a chain.) After a century's worth of festoon-adorning, the verb festoon made an entrance, and people began to festoon with their festoons—that is, they draped and adorned with them. The verb form of festoon has since acquired additional, more general senses related not only to decorating, but to appearing on the surface of something, as in "a sweater festooned with unicorns." Perhaps unsurprisingly, this celebratory-sounding and party-associated word traces back (by way of French and Italian) to Latin festa, the plural of festum, meaning "festival."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 5, 2025 is: sea change • SEE-CHAYNJ • noun Sea change refers to a big and sudden change or transformation. // The early 2000s witnessed a sea change in public opinion about smoking in public places. See the entry > Examples: “Over the course of my grandmother's lifetime, gender expectations for women underwent a sea change. My grandmother ended up pursuing an education and becoming a doctor, leading an independent life that made her mother proud.” — Wendy Chen, LitHub.com, 20 May 2024 Did you know? In The Tempest, William Shakespeare's final play, sea change refers to a change brought about by the sea: the sprite Ariel, who aims to make Ferdinand believe that his father the king has perished in a shipwreck, sings within earshot of the prince, “Full fathom five thy father lies...; / Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / into something rich and strange.” This is the original, now-archaic meaning of sea change. Today the term is used for a distinctive change or transformation. Long after sea change gained this figurative meaning, however, writers continued to allude to Shakespeare's literal one; Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, and P.G. Wodehouse all used the term as an object of the verb suffer, but now a sea change is just as likely to be undergone or experienced.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 4, 2025 is: bogus • BOH-gus • adjective Bogus is an informal word used to describe something that is not real or genuine, making it a synonym of such words as fake, false, and counterfeit. // We were disappointed to find out that the purses we bought were bogus. // The company was investigated over several bogus claims that their products could guarantee better health for their customers. See the entry > Examples: “A former West Covina resident admitted to selling at least $250,000 in bogus sports and entertainment memorabilia, including forged photos and signatures of the ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians' stars.” — Noah Goldberg, The Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2025 Did you know? In her 1840 novel A New Home—Who'll Follow?, author Carolina Kirkland wrote about a scandal affecting the fictitious frontier town of Tinkerville, whose bank vaults were discovered to contain “a heavy charge of broken glass and tenpenny nails, covered above and below with half-dollars, principally ‘bogus.' Alas! for Tinkerville, and alas, for poor Michigan!” Alas indeed. Bogus (an apparent U.S. coinage) was first used in the argot of wildcat banks (like the one in Tinkerville) as a noun referring to counterfeit money. It later branched out into adjective use meaning “counterfeit or forged.” Although the noun is now obsolete, the adjective is still used today with the same meaning, and is applied not only to phony currency but to anything that is less than genuine, making it part of a treasury of similar words ranging from the very old (sham) to the fairly new (fugazi).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 3, 2025 is: tutelage • TOO-tuh-lij • noun Tutelage is a formal word that refers to the instruction or guidance especially of an individual student by a teacher. Tutelage may also refer to an act or process of serving as guardian or protector. // Under the tutelage of his high school swim coach, Luis has greatly improved his times at meets. // The company is relying on the expert tutelage of its new director to increase profits. See the entry > Examples: "[Hercules] Mulligan helped with [Alexander] Hamilton's education, including placing him under the tutelage of William Livingston of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), who was a leading local American revolutionary. ... Mulligan is said to have deeply influenced Hamilton towards engagement in revolutionary activity." — Brian Maye, The Irish Times, 2 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Tutelage comes from the Latin verb tueri, meaning "to look at" or "to guard." When it first appeared in English at the turn of the 17th century, this word was used mainly in the protective sense of tueri; writers would describe serfs and peasants of earlier eras as being "under the tutelage of their lord." Over time, however, the word's meaning shifted away from guardianship and toward instruction. This pattern of meaning can also be seen in the related nouns tutor, which shifted from "a guardian" to "a private teacher," and tuition, which now typically refers to the cost of instruction but which originally referred to the protection, care, or custody by a parent or guardian over a child or ward.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 2, 2025 is: Herculean • her-kyuh-LEE-un • adjective Something described as Herculean (often uncapitalized as herculean) is characterized by extraordinary power, extent, intensity, or difficulty. // Although starting a garden sounded fun in theory, the constant weeding and pest control turned it into a herculean task. See the entry > Examples: “Strong doesn't even properly describe [Ashton] Jeanty's Herculean, how-is-he-doing-that kind of strength. Before his sophomore year of college, he squatted 575 pounds. [Coach James] Montgomery thought that Jeanty had maxed out. He was wrong. Now Jeanty easily squats 605 pounds ‘like a hot knife through butter,' Montgomery says.” — Mirin Fader, The Ringer, 5 Dec. 2024 Did you know? The hero Hercules, son of the god Zeus by a human mother, was famous for his superhuman strength. As penance for a madness-induced murder spree (the victims were his family), he was forced to perform twelve enormously difficult tasks, or “labors.” These ranged from descending into the underworld to bring back the terrifying dog that guarded its entrance to destroying the many-headed monster called the Hydra. The feats he accomplished explain how Herculean in the 16th century came to be used for any job or task that's extremely difficult or calls for enormous strength.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 2, 2025 is: Herculean • her-kyuh-LEE-un • adjective Something described as Herculean (often uncapitalized as herculean) is characterized by extraordinary power, extent, intensity, or difficulty. // Although starting a garden sounded fun in theory, the constant weeding and pest control turned it into a herculean task. See the entry > Examples: “Strong doesn't even properly describe [Ashton] Jeanty's Herculean, how-is-he-doing-that kind of strength. Before his sophomore year of college, he squatted 575 pounds. [Coach James] Montgomery thought that Jeanty had maxed out. He was wrong. Now Jeanty easily squats 605 pounds ‘like a hot knife through butter,' Montgomery says.” — Mirin Fader, The Ringer, 5 Dec. 2024 Did you know? The hero Hercules, son of the god Zeus by a human mother, was famous for his superhuman strength. To pacify the wrath of the god Apollo, he was forced to perform twelve enormously difficult tasks, or “labors.” These ranged from descending into the underworld to bring back the terrifying dog that guarded its entrance to destroying the many-headed monster called the Hydra. The feats he accomplished explain how Herculean in the 16th century came to be used for any job or task that's extremely difficult or calls for enormous strength.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 2, 2025 is: Herculean • her-kyuh-LEE-un • adjective Something described as Herculean (often uncapitalized as herculean) is characterized by extraordinary power, extent, intensity, or difficulty. // Although starting a garden sounded fun in theory, the constant weeding and pest control turned it into a herculean task. See the entry > Examples: “Strong doesn't even properly describe [Ashton] Jeanty's Herculean, how-is-he-doing-that kind of strength. Before his sophomore year of college, he squatted 575 pounds. [Coach James] Montgomery thought that Jeanty had maxed out. He was wrong. Now Jeanty easily squats 605 pounds ‘like a hot knife through butter,' Montgomery says.” — Mirin Fader, The Ringer, 5 Dec. 2024 Did you know? The hero Hercules, son of the god Zeus by a human mother, was famous for his superhuman strength. To pacify the wrath of the god Apollo, he was forced to perform twelve enormously difficult tasks, or “labors.” These ranged from descending into the underworld to bring back the terrifying dog that guarded its entrance to destroying the many-headed monster called the Hydra. The feats he accomplished explain how Herculean in the 16th century came to be used for any job or task that's extremely difficult or calls for enormous strength.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 1, 2025 is: proscribe • proh-SCRYBE • verb Proscribe is a formal word meaning “to condemn or forbid something as harmful or unlawful.” More broadly, it can mean simply “to not allow something.” // The town has passed an ordinance that proscribes the ownership of snakes and other exotic pets. See the entry > Examples: “While the order proscribes new drilling along most of both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the order does not affect active drilling permits and carves out the most important areas of offshore production such as the western Gulf of Mexico near Texas and Louisiana.” — Jeff Young, Newsweek, 6 Jan. 2025 Did you know? Signs, signs, everywhere, signs: some prescribe (“do this”) and others proscribe (“don't do that”). Don't take it as a bad sign if you have difficulty telling prescribe and proscribe apart, however; you've got plenty of company, and a good excuse. Proscribe and prescribe both come from Latin words that combine a prefix meaning “before” with the verb scribere, meaning “to write.” Yet the two words have very distinct, often nearly opposite meanings, hints of which emerge upon a closer look at their origins. Prescribe comes from praescribere, meaning “to dictate, order”—clear enough for a word used when making rules and giving orders. Proscribe has a more complex history: proscribere means both “to publish” and, more specifically, “to publish the name of someone who is condemned to death and whose property is now forfeited to the state.” This narrower meaning is the one proscribe carried into English when it was first used in the 15th century. By the early 17th century, the word had expanded from merely signaling condemnation to actual condemning or prohibiting.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 31, 2025 is: opportune • ah-per-TOON • adjective Opportune describes something that is suitable or convenient for a particular situation, or that is done or happening at an appropriate time. // They chose an opportune time to invest in real estate. // She is waiting for an opportune moment to ask for a raise. See the entry > Examples: “It [the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut] was constructed on the site of an 1830s shipyard built by three mariner brothers, George, Clark, and Thomas Greenman. They, like other entrepreneurs in the booming seafaring community of Mystic, took over low-lying and marshy lands whose gently sloping banks and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean were opportune for shipbuilding.” — Annabel Keenan, The New York Times, 22 Apr. 2025 Did you know? If you've never had the opportunity to learn the history behind opportune, now's your chance. Both opportune and opportunity come from Latin opportūnus, which can mean “favoring one's needs,” “serviceable,” or “convenient.” Opportūnus itself, constructed from the prefix ob-, meaning “to,” portu- (stem of the noun portus, meaning “port” or “harbor”), and the adjective suffix -nus, suggests the value of any port available when a storm is brewing or raging. Portus has dropped anchor in other English words as well, including portal, passport, and of course port. Its footprint is also scattered across our maps in coastal place names, from Newport to Puerto Rico to Porto Alegre.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 30, 2025 is: gust • GUST • noun Gust refers to a sudden strong wind. It is also used figuratively for a sudden outburst of something, such as a feeling. // Today's weather will be windy, with gusts of up to 40 miles per hour. See the entry > Examples: “This subversive comedy is now a posh panto, directed by Max Webster. It gets gusts of laughter but can feel rather forced, and the joyous language is left to fend for itself.” — Robert Gore-Langton, The Mail on Sunday (London), 8 Dec. 2024 Did you know? You're no doubt familiar with the breezy gust meaning “a brief burst of wind.” But about a century and a half before that word first appeared in print in the late 16th century, a different gust blew onto the scene. The windy gust likely comes from a synonymous Old Norse word, gustr, whereas the older gust, which refers to the sensation of taste as well as to a feeling of enthusiastic delight, comes ultimately from gustus, the Latin word for “taste.” English speakers eventually mostly dropped that older gust, replacing it in the early 17th century with a similar gustus word borrowed from Italian: gusto is now the go-to word when you want to refer to enthusiastic and vigorous enjoyment or appreciation. You can use it with gusto.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 29, 2025 is: nascent • NASS-unt • adjective Nascent is a formal word used to describe something that is just beginning to exist, or in other words, is recently formed or developed. // The actress is now focused on her nascent singing career. See the entry > Examples: “I asked my father, recently, if I might borrow one of his old journals as research for a nascent writing project. It felt like there might be something there—in the poetry of varietal names (Beedy's Camden Kale, Ruby Perfection Cabbage), or the steady plotless attention to the natural world.” — Fiona Warnick, LitHub.com, 9 May 2024 Did you know? Nascent descends from the Latin verb nasci, meaning “to be born,” as does many an English word, from nation and nature to innate and renaissance. But rather than describing the birth of literal babies—as in pups, kits, hoglets, et al.—nascent is applied to things (such as careers or technologies) that have recently formed or come into existence, as when scholar Danille K. Taylor-Guthrie wrote of Toni Morrison being “an integral part of a nascent group of black women writers who would alter the course of African American, American, and world literature.”