Irrupt

WORD OF THE DAY
irrupt / verb / ih-RUPT 
 
Definition
1 : to rush in forcibly or violently
2 : (of a natural population) to undergo a sudden upsurge in numbers especially when natural ecological balances and checks are disturbed
3a: to become active or violent especially suddenly
3b: erupt


Examples
"Montaigne was attuned to the kind of 'involuntary' memory that would one day fascinate Proust: those blasts from the past that irrupt unexpectedly into the present, perhaps in response to a long-forgotten taste or smell."
— Sarah Bakewell, How to Live, 2010


"Purple finches and pine siskins both are expected to irrupt southward due to poor cone crops in the Northeast and Canada."
— James McCarthy, Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 3 Oct. 2016


Did You Know?
Irrupt and erupt have existed side-by-side since the former entered the English language in the 1800s (erupt had been a part of the language for over two centuries at that point).
Both are descendants of the Latin verb rumpere, which means "to break," but irrupt has affixed to it the prefix ir- (in the sense "into") while erupt begins with the prefix e- (meaning "out").
So "to irrupt" was originally to rush in, and "to erupt" was to burst out.
But it's sometimes hard to distinguish the precise direction of a violent rush, and irrupt came to be used as a synonym of erupt in the senses "to become active or violent especially suddenly" and "to break forth."

Tincture

WORD OF THE DAY
tincture / noun  / TINK-cher 
 
Definition
1: a solution of a medicinal substance in an alcoholic solvent
2a: a characteristic quality
2b: cast
2c: a slight admixture
2d: trace
3 : color, tint
4 : a heraldic metal, color, or fur


Examples
"You can find turmeric in powder culinary spice form and in its whole root form, as well as in tincture, tablets, and capsules."
— Aly Walansky, PopSugar, 21 Dec. 2017


"Yet, while there is nothing Roth despises more than the cheap turn of 'consolation'—the moments in a play or a book where everyone discovers love and feels better—the real arc of Roth's career, as he presents it here, has a tincture of hope."
— Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2017


Did You Know?
Tincture derives from the same root as tint and tinge—the Latin verb tingere, meaning "to moisten or dip." Tincture specifically derives via Middle English from the Latin tinctus, the past participle of tingere.
When the word first appeared in English in the 14th century, tincture referred to a coloring matter or dye, but by the 17th century the word had acquired a number of additional meanings, including "a slight infusion or trace of something."
Tinge and shade are two other words referring to color that can be used the same way. Tincture can also refer, among other things, to the colors used in a coat of arms or an herbal or medicinal solution.

Anthropomorphic

WORD OF THE DAY

anthropomorphic / adjective  /an-thruh-puh-MOR-fik

Definition

1: described or thought of as having a human form or human attributes

2: ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things

Examples

"This animated … comedy, about a depressed horse living among other anthropomorphic animals in a version of Hollywood, somehow explores the depth of human emotion in a way that few other shows do." 

— Bethonie Butler, The Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2017

"The program sees the magical anthropomorphic bear Brigsby doing battle with an evil wizard in the moon while also teaching multiplication." — David Sims, The Atlantic, 28 July 2017

Did You Know?

Anthropomorphic comes from the Late Latin word anthropomorphus, which itself traces to a Greek term birthed from the roots anthrōp- (meaning "human being") and -morphos (-morphous). 

Those ancient Greek roots have given form and personality to many English words. Anthrōp-relatives include anthropic ("relating to human beings or the period of their existence on earth"), anthropocentric("interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and experiences"), anthropoid ("an ape"), and anthropology ("the study of human beings and their ancestors"). 

Derivatives of -morphos often end in -morphism, as in polymorphism ("the quality or state of existing in or assuming different forms"), or -morphic, as in biomorphic("resembling the forms of living organisms").

Retrodict

WORD OF THE DAY
retrodict / verb  / ret-ruh-DIKT 
 
Definition
: to utilize present information or ideas to infer or explain (a past event or state of affairs)


Examples
Geologists have retrodicted the positions of the continents millions of years ago.


"PhD students in my lab are developing new ways to retrodict maize production through time, drawing on tree-ring data for climatic information…."
— Tim Kohler, quoted in an article at Laboratoryequipment.com, 7 Aug. 2014


Did You Know?
We predict that you will guess the correct origins of retrodict, and chances are we will not contradict you. English speakers had started using predict by at least the late 16th century; it's a word formed by combining prae- (meaning "before") and dicere (meaning "to say").
Since the rough translation of predict is "to say before," it's no surprise that when people in the early 20th century wanted a word for "predicting" the past, they created it by combining the prefix for "backward" (retro-) with the -dict of predict. Other dicere descendants in English include contradict, benediction, dictate, diction, and dictionary.

Mansuetude

WORD OF THE DAY
mansuetude / noun  / MAN-swih-tood 
 
Definition
1: the quality or state of being gentle
2: meekness, tameness


Examples
"… he espied over the plateau … the old brown villa itself, rich in memories of one after another of the family of the Antonines. As he approached it, such reminiscences crowded upon him, above all of the life there of the aged Antoninus Pius, in its wonderful mansuetude and calm."
— Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurian, 1885


"While Barbara was swimming to meet the dawn, Miltoun was bathing in those waters of mansuetude and truth which roll from wall to wall in the British House of Commons."
— John Galsworthy, The Patrician, 1911


Did You Know?
Mansuetude was first used in English in the 14th century, and it derives from the Latin verb mansuescere, which means "to tame."
Mansuescere itself comes from the noun manus (meaning "hand") and the verb suescere ("to accustom" or "to become accustomed").
Unlike manus, which has many English descendants (including manner, emancipate, and manicure), suescere has only a few English progeny. One of them is desuetude, which means "disuse" and comes to us by way of Latin desuescere ("to become unaccustomed").
Two others are custom and accustom, which derive via Anglo-French from Latin consuescere, meaning "to accustom."

Contrite

WORD OF THE DAY
contrite / adjective  / KAHN-tryte 
 
Definition
: feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming


Examples
"… York did in fact say he was sorry and was contrite about making that mistake."
— Mark Purdy, The San Jose Mercury News, 1 Jan. 2017


"… several lawmakers called for stronger rules that compel companies to meet minimum cybersecurity standards…. But, as in years past, these efforts have yet to produce any new laws. In the meantime, the average person can do little except monitor their credit reports and hope that contrite companies—shamed by security researchers—will learn from their mistakes."
— Hayley Tsukayama, The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington), 23 Dec. 2017


Did You Know?
A person who is contrite may have rubbed someone the wrong way and caused bruised feelings—and there is a hint about the origins of the word in that thought. Contrite came to English by way of Anglo-French from the Latin verb conterere, meaning "to grind" or "to bruise."
Conterere, in turn, was formed by combining the prefix com-, meaning "with" or "together," and terere, "to rub." If you've guessed that trite is a cousin of contrite (through terere), you are correct. Other terere descendants in English include detriment and very possibly the familiar verb try.

Synchronicity

WORD OF THE DAY
synchronicity / noun / sing-kruh-NISS-uh-tee 
 
Definition
1: the quality or fact of being synchronous
2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality — used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung


Examples
"Part of the beauty of this set lay in the way Paterson, Sample and Hall functioned as a single rhythmic organism, their long years of partnership evident in the imperturbable synchronicity of their work."
— Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune, 4 Dec. 2017


"Nolan always gets wonderful work from his casts and crews, but I'm not sure if I've ever seen this level of flawless synchronicity from start to finish in his films before Dunkirk."
— Mark Hughes, Forbes, 21 July 2017


Did You Know?
"It happens to everyone sooner or later: A certain number pops up wherever you go; an old friend you haven't seen in 20 years since high school appears the same day you're looking at her picture in a yearbook; you're singing a song and turn on the radio—and the same song is playing." Such coincidences, here described by Thomas Ropp in The Arizona Republic, March 29,1999, are examples of synchronicity.
The concept is linked to the psychology of Carl Jung. Jung didn't coin the word (the "simultaneousness" sense of synchronicity was already in use), but he gave it special importance in his writings. Jung believed that such "meaningful coincidences" play an important role in our lives. Today, some people even look to synchronicities for spiritual guidance.

Leonine

WORD OF THE DAY
leonine / adjective / LEE-uh-nyne 
 
Definition
: of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion


Examples
"Jamie has a leonine aspect, with a high clear brow and soft curls eddying over his ears and along his collar."
— Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Harper's, March 2009


"You're a kid; you want to escape. Maybe to Edwardian England, maybe to an island of dancing lemurs, maybe through the rear of a magical wardrobe into a land of snow and ice waiting for a leonine king to bring back the sun."
— Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer, 9 Mar. 2017


Did You Know?
Leonine derives from Latin leo, meaning "lion," which in turn comes from Greek leōn. Leōn gave us an interesting range of words:
leopard (which derives from leōn combined with pardos, a Greek word for a panther-like animal)
dandelion (which came by way of the Anglo-French phrase dent de lion—literally, "lion's tooth"); and chameleon (which combines leōn with the Greek chamai, meaning "on the ground");
Not to mention the names Leo, Leon, and Leonard.
However the dancer's and gymnast's leotard is not named for its wearer's cat-like movements. Rather, it was simply named after its inventor, Jules Leotard, a 19th-century French aerial gymnast.

Trammel

WORD OF THE DAY
trammel / noun  / TRAM-ul 
 
Definition
1: something impeding activity, progress, or freedom : restraint — usually used in plural
2a: a net for catching birds or fish
2b: trammel net
3: an adjustable pothook for a fireplace crane
4: a shackle used for making a horse amble
5a: ellipsograph
5b: beam compass


Examples
In her memoir, the singer asserts that her musicianship was ultimately hampered by the trammels of fame.


"We learn a good deal about [Doc] Holliday: his grief at the passing of his mother when he was a teenager, his early career as an Ivy League-trained dentist, his quickness on the draw, his self-reinvention as an adventurer-wanderer, his yearning to shed the trammels of the conventional life."
— Richard Bernstein, The New York Times, 22 Aug. 2001


Did You Know?
A trammel net traditionally has three layers, with the middle one finer-meshed and slack so that fish passing through the first net carry some of the center net through the coarser third net and are trapped.
Appropriately, trammel traces back through the Middle English tramayle and the Old French tramail to the Late Latin tremaculum, which comes from Latin tres, meaning "three," and macula, meaning "mesh."
Today, the plural trammels is synonymous with restraints, and trammel is also used as a verb meaning "to confine" or "to enmesh." You may also run across the adjective untrammeled, meaning "not confined or limited."

Homiletic

WORD OF THE DAY

homiletic / adjective / hah-muh-LET-ik

Definition

1: of, relating to, or resembling a homily

2a: of or relating to the art of preaching 

2b: preachy

Examples

"The first part is full of homiletic insight, the second replete with postmodern angst, the third quite beautiful in its claim to faith—even the somewhat attenuated faith of our present age." 

— Paul Lakeland, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2010

"Holbein was wonderfully fresh, but the concept stemmed from a 1280 poem, Le Dit des trois morts et les trois vifs, by Baudoin de Condé. Condé’s concept of a homiletic interchange between feckless living and ghastly dead transmuted swiftly into other languages and pictorial art across Europe." 

— Derek Turner, The New York Times, 5 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?

Homiletic came to us by way of Latin from Greek homilētikos, meaning "affable" or "social." Homilētikos came from homilein, meaning "to talk with," "to address," or "to make a speech," which in turn came from homilos, the Greek word for "crowd" or "assembly." 

Homilos and homilein also gave English, by way of Latin homilia and French omelie, the word homily, which is used for a short sermon, a lecture on a moral theme, and an inspirational catchphrase or platitude. Like homily, homiletic focuses on the morally instructive nature of a discourse. Homiletic can also be used derogatorily in the sense of "preachy."

Famish

WORD OF THE DAY

famish / verb / FAM-ish

Definition

1 : to cause to suffer severely from hunger

2 : to suffer for lack of something necessary

Examples

"At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion." 

— Herman Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener," 1853

"Eating healthy regularly is more important than famishing to shed a few pounds." 

— Emily Long, The Daily Vidette: Illinois State University, 23 Aug. 2017

Did You Know?

Famish likely developed as an alteration of Middle English famen, meaning "to starve." The Middle English word was borrowed from the Anglo-French verb afamer, which etymologists believe came from Vulgar Latin affamare. 

We say "believe" because, while no written evidence has yet been found for the Vulgar Latin word affamare, it would be the expected source for the Anglo-French verb based on the combination of the Latin prefix ad- ("to" or "toward") and the root noun fames ("hunger"). 

In contemporary English, the verb famish is still used on occasion, but it is considerably less common than the related adjective famished, which usually means "hungry" or "starving" but can also mean "needy" or "being in want."

Adapt

WORD OF THE DAY


adapt / verb / uh-DAPT 


Definition
: to make or become fit (as for a new use) often by modification


Examples
It took Rachel a while to adapt to her new school, but she is settling in well now.


"Hydroponics and aeroponics require vigilant monitoring of nutrient solution. While this can be time consuming, Tiger Corner Farms has fully automated this process by adapting warehouse management software to adjust nutrient levels, pH and other environmental parameters."
— Tony Bertauski, The Post & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), 29 Nov. 2017


Did You Know?
Rooted in the origins of adapt is the idea of becoming specifically fit for something. English speakers adapted adapt in the 15th century from the Middle French adapter, which was borrowed, in turn, from the Latin adaptāre ,a combination of the Latin prefix ad- ("to, toward") and the verb aptāre, meaning "to put into position, bring to bear, make ready."
Aptāre is a verbal derivative of aptus, meaning "fit" or "apt." Other descendants of aptus in English include aptitude, inept, and of course apt itself, as well as unapt and inapt.

Intrepid

WORD OF THE DAY

intrepid / in-TREP-id / adjective

Definition

: characterized by resolute fearlessness, fortitude, and endurance

Examples

"An intrepid engineer is on the edge of fulfilling his dream of conquering the world's toughest mountaineering challenge. Peter Sunnucks, 35, will be joined by his wife Elizabeth Wood when he heads to Antarctica in two weeks' time to try to scale the last of seven of the earth's highest peaks." 

— Russell Blackstock, The Sunday Post (Dundee, Scotland), 14 Nov. 2017

"A series of disappearances echoes events from 33 years before, and an intrepid teenager, Jonas (Louis Hofmann, steady at the center of the large cast), sets off into the caverns under the plant to solve the mystery." 

— Mike Hale, The New York Times, 5 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?

You need not be afraid to find out the origins of today's word, although its history does include fear. Intrepid derives from the Latin word intrepidus, itself formed by the combination of the prefix in- (meaning "not") and trepidus, meaning "alarmed." 

Other relatives of trepidus in English include trepidation and trepidatious, as well as trepid (which actually predates intrepid and means "fearful"). 

Synonyms for intrepid include courageous, valiant, fearless, valorous, and simply brave. Intrepid aptly describes anyone—from explorers to reporters—who ventures bravely into unknown territory, though often you'll see the word loaded with irony, as in "an intrepid volunteer sampled the entries at the pie bake-off."

Reprehensible

WORD OF THE DAY

reprehensible / adjective / rep-rih-HEN-suh-bul

Definition

1: worthy of or deserving reprehension, blame, or censure 

2: culpable

Examples

The newspaper's most recent editorial calls for the mayor's resignation, citing the recent accusations of bribery as both plausible and reprehensible.

"As a practical matter, successful hostile environment lawsuits involve two distinct components. Harassment is only the first. The second is the company's failure to respond effectively after learning about it, which is what turns reprehensible on-the-job behavior into job discrimination." 

— Joel Jacobsen, The Albuquerque Journal, 11 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?

Reprehensible, blameworthy, blamable, guilty, and culpable mean deserving reproach or punishment. Reprehensible is a strong word describing behavior that should evoke severe criticism. 

Blameworthy and blamable apply to any kind of act, practice, or condition considered to be wrong in any degree ("conduct adjudged blameworthy"; "an accident for which no one is blamable"). 

Guilty implies responsibility for or consciousness of crime, sin, or, at the least, grave error or misdoing ("guilty of a breach of etiquette"). Culpable is weaker than guilty and is likely to connote malfeasance or errors of ignorance, omission, or negligence ("culpable neglect").

Placate

WORD OF THE DAY

placate / PLAY-kayt / verb

Definition

1: to soothe or mollify especially by concessions 

2: appease

Examples

"Laughlin can placate even the most skittish of horses, coaxing them into his trailer with sugar cubes…." 

— Lizzie Johnson, The San Francisco Chronicle, 7 Dec. 2017

"While reviews from riders have been generally positive, there have been complaints about boats running late and being so full that they leave people behind. City officials said they hope to placate riders by next summer with a bigger fleet." 

— Patrick McGeehan, The New York Times, 29 Nov. 2017

Did You Know?

The earliest documented uses of the verb placate in English date from the late 17th century. The word is derived from Latin placatus, the past participle of placare, and placate still carries the basic meaning of its Latin ancestor: "to soothe" or "to appease." 

Other placare descendants in English are implacable (meaning "not easily soothed or satisfied") and placation ("the act of soothing or appeasing"). Even please itself, derived from Latin placēre ("to please"), is a distant relative of placate.

Cohort

WORD OF THE DAY
cohort \ KOH-hort \ noun
 
Definition
1: companion, colleague
2a: band, group
2b: a group of individuals having a statistical factor (such as age or class membership) in common in a demographic study
2c: one of 10 divisions of an ancient Roman legion
2d: a group of warriors or soldiers


Examples
"A cohort of chambermaids would descend twice daily with mops, brooms, and fresh towels in tow."
— Doone Beale, Gourmet, April 1989


"But among those aged 65 to 74 years old, more than three-quarters had registered and 70 percent voted—a proportion that dropped only slightly in older cohorts."
— Paula Span, The New York Times, 28 Nov. 2017


Did You Know?
In ancient times, a cohort was a military unit, one of ten divisions in a Roman legion. The term passed into English in the 15th century, when it was used in translations and writings about Roman history. Once cohort became established in our language, its meaning was extended, first to refer to any body of troops, then to any group of individuals with something in common, and later to a single companion.
Some usage commentators have objected to this last sense because it can be hard to tell whether the plural refers to different individuals or different groups. The "companion" sense is well established in standard use, however, and its meaning is clear enough in such sentences as "her cohorts came along with her to the game."

Officinal

WORD OF THE DAY

officinal / uh-FISS-uh-nul / adjective

Definition

1: tending or used to cure disease or relieve pain 

2:medicinal

Examples

The plant turned out to have officinal properties and could be used to make an anti-itch ointment.

"Europe's mania for rhubarb in the second half of the eighteenth century energized the drive to find the plant in its native habitat. Was this plant … the very same one that for so long had provided the officinal root for European pharmacies? 

— Clifford M. Foust, Rhubarb: The Wondrous Drug, 1992

Did You Know?

Officinal is a word applied in medicine to plants and herbs that are used in medicinal preparations. For most of the 19th century, it was the standard word used by the United States Pharmacopeia to refer to the drugs, chemicals, and medicinal preparations that they recognized, but by the 1870s it was replaced by official in this context. 

Despite this supersession, you still can find a healthy dose of officinal in the pharmaceutical field, where it is used today as a word describing preparations that are regularly kept in stock at pharmacies. 

Officinal was derived from the Medieval Latin noun officina, a word for the storeroom of a monastery in which provisions and medicines were kept. In Latin, officinameans "workshop."

Mutatis Mutandis

WORD OF THE DAY
mutatis mutandis / myoo-TAH-tis-myoo-TAHN-dis \ adverb
 
Definition
1 : with the necessary changes having been made
2 : with the respective differences having been considered


Examples
"I know nothing more contemptible in a writer than the character of a plagiary; which he here fixes at a venture, and this not for a passage but a whole discourse taken out from another book, only mutatis mutandis."
— Jonathan Swift, The Tale of a Tub, 1704


"And Knausgaard's abandonment of literary conceit is itself a literary conceit…. A given sentence may or may not shine, but in its riverine accumulations, 'My Struggle' is as purposefully shaped, as beautifully patterned and, yes, as artfully compressed as any novel in recent memory. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, of 'Autumn.'"
— Garth Risk Hallberg, The New York Times, 1 Oct. 2017


Did You Know?
Unlike most English terms with Latin parentage, mutatis mutandis (which translates literally as "things having been changed that have to be changed") maintains its Latinate aspect entirely. It doesn't look like an English phrase, which is perhaps why it remains rather uncommon despite having functioned in English since the 16th century.
Although the phrase is used in the specialized fields of law, philosophy, and economics when analogous situations are discussed, it appears in other contexts, too, where analogy occurs, as this quote from Henry James' The American demonstrates: "Roderick made an admirable bust of her at the beginning of the winter, and a dozen women came rushing to him to be done, mutatis mutandis, in the same style."

Spiel

WORD OF THE DAY
spiel \ SPEEL \ noun
 
Definition
1: a voluble line of often extravagant talk
2: a speech delivered especially to sell or promote something


Examples
We let the time-share salesman give us his opening spiel, but when he got to the high-pressure sales tactics, we cut him short and made it clear that we were not interested.


"Instead of the usual spiel about what equipment to purchase or what software to install, I find that it is critical that people … have the right mindset when communicating with those who are on the front lines of preventing cyber attacks."
— William H. Saito, Forbes, 8 Aug. 2017


Did You Know?
There's more than one spiel. Today's featured noun sense is well-known, and many of our readers may also be aware that spiel can be used as a verb for the act of talking extravagantly. But did you know that the verb can also mean "to play music"?
That, in fact, is the word's original meaning—one it shares with its German root, spielen. (Spiel is also found in glockenspiel, a musical instrument similar to the xylophone.)
In Scottish English, spiel is also sometimes used as a shortened form of bonspiel, a name for a match or tournament of the icy game of curling.

Hornswaggle

WORD OF THE DAY

hornswoggle / HORN-swah-gul / verb

Definition

1: bamboozle

2: hoax

Examples

"Grass-fed is an unregulated term with no standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This can add to the confusion for home cooks already trying to avoid getting hornswoggled by advertising claims (look what happened to the heavily abused word 'natural')." 

— Jennifer Rude Klett, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 19 Apr. 2017

"An unsuccessful indie actress … tries to hornswoggle a celebrity into appearing in the film she's making as a last-ditch attempt to rescue her career." 

— Dave Kehr, The New York Times, 5 May 2013

Did You Know?

Hornswoggle is a slang word of some considerable mystery, at least where its etymology is concerned. The word appears to have originated in the southern United States in the early 19th century. The earliest known written record comes from an 1829 issue of The Virginia Literary Magazine in its glossary of Americanisms. The magazine states that hornswogglecame from Kentucky, and its oddness matches nicely with other 19th-century Americanisms, such as sockdolager, absquatulate, callithump, slumgullion, and skedaddle. While the exact point at which hornswoggle entered our language, and the way in which it was formed, may remain unknown, it is a charming addition to our language, joining bamboozle and honeyfuggle as colorful ways to say "to deceive."

Sacerdotal

WORD OF THE DAY
sacerdotal / sass-er-DOH-tul / adjective
 
Definition
1a: of or relating to priests or a priesthood
1b: priestly
2: of, relating to, or suggesting religious belief emphasizing the powers of priests as essential mediators between God and humankind


Examples
The priest gives a homily after reciting the Gospel as part of his sacerdotal duties.


"… as they approached, the priest, dressed in his sacerdotal garments, made his appearance…."
— Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward, 1823


Did You Know?
Sacerdotal is one of a host of English words derived from the Latin adjective sacer, meaning "sacred." Other words derived from sacer include desecrate, sacrifice, sacrilege, consecrate, sacrament, and even execrable (developed from the Latin word exsecrari, meaning "to put under a curse").
One surprising sacer descendant is sacrum, referring to the series of five vertebrae in the lower back connected to the pelvis. In Latin this bone was called the os sacrum, or "holy bone," a translation of the Greek hieron osteon.

Accentuate

WORD OF THE DAY
accentuate / ak-SEN-shu-wayt / verb 


Definition
1: accent, emphasize
2: intensify


Examples
"But his voice is so singular in aura that nothing appears to be missing.… He hints at the style of a balladeer, or even of a cabaret singer—an effect accentuated by the pointed use of rolled 'r's."
— Alexander M. Ross, The New Yorker, 21 Aug. 2017


"Gradually, television coverage accentuated spectacle; the use of slow motion, instant replay, and pre- and post-game shows turned the football contest into high drama, and heightened attention to the celebrity status of individual players."
— USA Today, 1 Sept. 2017


Did You Know?
When you accentuate something, you put an "accent" (or emphasis) on it. So it will come as no surprise to learn that etymologists have traced accentuate back to accentus, the Latin word for accent.
Accentus, in turn, combines the prefix ad- with cantus, meaning "song." Other descendants of accentus in English include accent itself, as well as accentual ("of, relating to, or characterized by accent").

Fete

WORD OF THE DAY
fete / FAYT / noun 
 
Definition
1: festival
2a: a lavish often outdoor entertainment
2b: a large elaborate party


Examples
To celebrate her parents' 50th wedding anniversary, Eileen threw an evening fete to which she invited all their friends and family members.


"Proceeds from the fete will help build specially adapted smart homes for our nation's most catastrophically injured service members."
— Carol Ann Benanti, The Staten Island (New York) Advance, 11 Nov. 2017


Did You Know?
Fete is a word worth celebrating. It's been around since Middle English, when it was used in a manuscript to refer to "fetes, spectacles and other worldly vanytees."
Since the 19th century, fete has been doing double duty, also serving as a verb meaning "to honor or commemorate with a fete." You can honor fete by remembering that it entered English from Middle French, and that it derives ultimately from the Old French feste, meaning "festival"—a root that, not surprisingly, also gave English the word feast.
Because of its French ties, you will sometimes see fete spelled with a circumflex above the first e (fête), as that's how it appears in that language.