Emblem

WORD OF THE DAY

emblem / noun / EM-blum 

Definition

1: a picture with a motto or set of verses intended as a moral lesson

2: an object or the figure of an object symbolizing and suggesting another object or an idea

3a: a symbolic object used as a heraldic device

3b: a device, symbol, or figure adopted and used as an identifying mark

Examples

"The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience." 

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

"The 1870 home was built by the city's first Presbyterian minister, Rev. Thomas Smith, who modeled it after his ancestral home in Scotland. A symbolic thistle—Scotland's national emblem—is sculpted onto the marble fireplace." 

— Sharon Roznik, The Reporter (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin), 18 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?

Both emblem and its synonym symbol trace back to the Greek verb bállein, meaning "to throw." 

Emblem arose from embállein, meaning "to insert," while symbol comes from symbállein, Greek for "to throw together." 

Bállein is also an ancestor of the words parable (from parabállein, "to compare"), metabolism (from metabállein, "to change"), and problem (from probállein, "to throw forward"). 

Another, somewhat surprising, bállein descendant is devil, which comes from Greek diabolos, literally meaning "slanderer." 

Diabolos in turn comes from diabállein, meaning "to throw across" or "to slander."

Disingenuous

WORD OF THE DAY

disingenuous / adjective / dis-in-JEN-yuh-wuss

Definition

1a: lacking in candor

1b: giving a false appearance of simple frankness 

1c: calculating

Examples

"There are plenty of ways to be passive aggressive toward someone on their birthday, including … making a disingenuous comment about whatever he is doing for his special day when you know you aren't invited…." 

— Sylvan Lane, Mashable, 27 June 2014

"We talked to some behavioural experts to understand why a colleague may be acting 'fake,' and how to work with it…. If someone seems disingenuous, it tends to come from a sense of inadequacy, and understanding that is the first step on the road to acceptance." 

— Isabella Krebet, ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 10 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?

A disingenuous remark might contain some superficial truth, but it is delivered with the intent to deceive or to serve some hidden purpose. 

Its base word ingenuous (derived from a Latin adjective meaning "native" or "freeborn") can describe someone who, like a child, is innocent or lacking guile or craftiness. 

English speakers began frequently joining the negative prefix dis- with ingenuous to create disingenuous during the 17th century.

Garnish

WORD OF THE DAY

garnish /verb / GAHR-nish 

Definition

1a: decorate, embellish

1b: to add decorative or savory touches to (food or drink)

2a: to equip with accessories 

2b: furnish

3: garnishee

Examples

"[Mariah] Carey pioneered featuring rappers on pop hits, and to date she has garnished 56 of her tracks with guest verses." 

— Billboard.com, 25 Apr. 2019

"Every day, problems that have fundamentally legal solutions—like a debt collector wrongfully garnishing hard-earned wages—derail the lives of people who are already struggling to make ends meet." 

— David Zapolsky, Fortune, 18 June 2019

Did You Know?

Although we now mostly garnish food, the general application of the "decorate" meaning is older. 

The link between embellishing an object or space and adding a little parsley to a plate isn't too hard to see, but how does the verb's sense of "garnishee," which refers to the taking of debtors' wages, fit in? 

The answer lies in the word's Anglo-French root, garnir, which means "to give notice, warning, or legal summons" in addition to "to equip or decorate." 

Before wages were garnished, the debtor would be served with a legal summons or warning. The legal sense of garnish now chiefly implies the taking of the wages, but it is rooted in the action of furnishing the warning.

Zephyr

WORD OF THE DAY

zephyr / noun / ZEFF-er 

Definition

1a: a breeze from the west

1b: a gentle breeze

2: any of various lightweight fabrics and articles of clothing

Examples

"There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds." 

— Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

"Thrown properly, with as little spin as possible, the only forces acting on a knuckleball are gravity and wind. That means any last-second zephyr can knock a knuckler off its path and into the virtual 'box' of a strike zone." 

— J. P. Hoornstra, The Los Angeles Daily News, 20 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?

For centuries, poets have eulogized Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind, and his "swete breeth" (in the words of Geoffrey Chaucer). 

Zephyrus, the personified west wind, eventually evolved into zephyr, a word for a breeze that is westerly or gentle, or both. Breezy zephyr blew into English with the help of poets and playwrights, including William Shakespeare, who used the word in his play Cymbeline: 

"Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st

In these two princely boys! They are as gentle  

As zephyrs blowing below the violet." 

Today, zephyr is also the sobriquet of a lightweight fabric and the clothing that is made from it.

Arboreal

WORD OF THE DAY

arboreal /adjective / ahr-BOR-ee-ul 

Definition

1a: of or relating to a tree 

1b: resembling a tree

2: inhabiting or frequenting trees

Examples

"[The hammocks] are relatively indestructible, mimic the arboreal nests used by orangutans, and provide a resting area for the gibbons as they swing among the treetops." 

— Jim Redden, The Portland (Oregon) Tribune, 25 Aug. 2014

"In the wild, they're arboreal and live in tropical rainforests. And as their name implies, sloths move slowly. So slowly, in fact, that they have a metabolic rate of about 40 percent to 45 percent of 'what would be expected for their body weight,' according to zoo experts." 

— Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?

Arbor, the Latin word for "tree," has been a rich source of tree-related words in English, though a few are fairly rare. 

Some arbor descendants are generally synonymous with arboreal: arboraceous, arborary, arboreous, and arborous. 

Others are primarily synonymous with arboreal in the sense of "relating to or resembling a tree": arborescent, arboresque, arborical, and arboriform. And one, arboricole, is a synonym of arboreal in its sense of "inhabiting trees." 

The verb arborize means "to branch freely," and arborvitae is the name of a shrub that means literally "tree of life." 

There's also arboretum, a place where trees are cultivated, and arboriculture, the cultivation of trees. 

And we can't forget Arbor Day, which since 1872 has named a day set aside by various states (and the national government) for planting trees. 

Despite its spelling, however, the English word arbor, in the sense of a "bower," does not have its roots in the Latin arbor. Instead, it arises by way of the Anglo-French herbe from the Latin herba, meaning "herb" or "grass."

Facilitate

WORD OF THE DAY

facilitate / verb / fuh-SIL-uh-tayt 

Definition

1: to make easier 

2: help bring about

Examples

"The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 freed most of America's important waterways from private ownership and thereby facilitated the uninterrupted movement of American commerce." 

— Mark R. Brown, Cleveland.com, 11 Mar. 2020

"She imagined he was thinking a similar set of thoughts beside her, even if they too went unexpressed. Silence facilitated blame, she would decide later. In the absence of another person's account, the story you invented for yourself went unchallenged." 

— Laura van den Berg, The Third Hotel, 2018

Did You Know?

As with so many English words, it's easy to find a Latin origin for facilitate. It traces back to the Latin adjective facilis, meaning "easy." 

Other descendants of facilis in English include facile ("easy to do"), facility ("the quality of being easily performed"), faculty ("ability"), and difficult (from dis- plus facilis, which equals "not easy"). 

Facilis in turn comes from facere, a Latin verb meaning "to make or do." 

Facere has played a role in the development of dozens of English words, ranging from affect to surfeit.

Obstinate

WORD OF THE DAY

obstinate / adjective / AHB-stuh-nut

Definition

1: perversely adhering to an opinion, purpose, or course in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion

2: not easily subdued, remedied, or removed

Examples

The project that had been the group's main focus for weeks was temporarily stymied by one member's obstinate refusal to compromise.

"With a permanent frown, Mr. Gnome has an obstinate attachment to the word no. 'Say hello to the readers, Mr. Gnome,' the narrator requests. 'No,' says Mr. Gnome, arms crossed in front of his belly." 

— Publisher's Weekly Review, 2 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?

If you're obstinate, you're just plain stubborn. 

Obstinate, dogged, stubborn, and mulish all mean that someone is unwilling to change course or give up a belief or plan. Obstinate suggests an unreasonable persistence; it's often a negative word. 

Dogged implies that someone goes after something without ever tiring or quitting; it can be more positive. 

Stubborn indicates a resistance to change, which may or may not be admirable. 

Someone who displays a really unreasonable degree of stubbornness could accurately be described as mulish.

Colloquy

WORD OF THE DAY

colloquy /noun / KAH-luh-kwee 

Definition

1: conversation, dialogue

2a: a high-level serious discussion 

2b: conference

Examples

The company's employees worried and speculated as the executive team remained closeted in an intense colloquy for the entire morning.

"He has a pitch-perfect ear for the cutesy euphemisms parents devise for their little kids ('Don't be a pane of glass') and for their snarky colloquies with precocious teenagers ('That's not the tone you take with your grandmother.' 'I'm not taking a tone, I'm making an argument.' 'Your argument has a tone')." 

— Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?

Colloquy may make you think of colloquial, and there is indeed a connection between the two words. 

As a matter of fact, colloquy is the parent word from which colloquial was coined in the mid-18th century. Colloquy itself, though now the less common of the two words, has been a part of the English language since the 15th century. 

It is a descendant of Latin loquī, meaning "to speak." 

Other descendants of loquī in English include eloquent, loquacious, ventriloquism, and soliloquy, as well as elocution and interlocutor.

Peccant

WORD OF THE DAY

peccant /adjective / PEK-unt 

Definition

1a: guilty of a moral offense 

1b: sinning

2a: violating a principle or rule 

2b: faulty

Examples

"Cavil at Dylan Thomas's overdoings; praise this bit and dispraise that bit; but there he was, there he is, an emblem of poetry, which is Being itself…. And the world honored him for it, while chopping him to pieces…. It's the loony, peccant villagers of Under Milk Wood…. It’s Auntie Hannah in 'A Child's Christmas in Wales,' who liked port, and who stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush.'" 

— James Parker, The Atlantic, December 2014

"The book stands for all the right things, and is peccant only in two minor but irritating ways. That there are occasional errors—'deprecatingly' for 'depreciatingly,' 'a bookstore which' for 'a bookstore that,' a couple of faulty agreements and a captious attack on the useful word 'demythify'—is not so much Newman as human." 

— John Simon, Paradigms Lost, 1980

Did You Know?

Peccant comes from the Latin verb peccare, which means "to sin," "to commit a fault," or "to stumble," and is related to the better-known English word peccadillo ("a slight offense"). 

Etymologists have suggested that peccare might be related to Latin ped- or pes, meaning "foot," by way of an unattested adjective, peccus, which may have been used to mean "having an injured foot" or "stumbling." 

Whether or not a connection truly exists between peccant and peccus, peccant itself involves stumbling of a figurative kind—making errors, for example, or falling into immoral, corrupt, or sinful behavior.

Vanilla

WORD OF THE DAY

vanilla / adjective / vuh-NILL-uh

Definition

1: flavored with the extract of the vanilla bean

2a: lacking distinction 

2b: plain, ordinary, conventional

Examples

"Training for sales, marketing and installation staff takes place in a series of small conference rooms on one side of the floor.… They're rather vanilla, but the company plans to enliven them by hiring graffiti artists to paint colorful murals on the parapet wall outside the windows." 

— Sandy Smith, Philadelphia Magazine, 14 Feb. 2019

"Joanna is frustrated that she's forbidden from sending more personal replies and breaks the rules at a certain point, with unexpected consequences. But apart from this tiny transgression, she's too vanilla to be a very compelling character." 

— Peter DeBruge, Variety, 20 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?

How did vanilla get such a bad rap? The flavor with that name certainly has enough fans, with the bean of the Vanilla genus of orchids finding its way into products ranging from ice cream to coffee to perfumes to air fresheners. 

Vanilla's unfortunate reputation arose due to its being regarded as the "basic" flavor among ice-cream selections, particularly as more complex flavors emerged on the market. (Its somewhat beigey color probably didn't help.) From there, people began using the adjective to describe anything plain, ordinary, or conventional.

Caduceus

WORD OF THE DAY

caduceus / noun / kuh-DOO-see-us

Definition

1: the symbolic staff of a herald, a representation of a staff with two entwined snakes and two wings at the top

2: a medical insignia bearing a representation of a staff with two entwined snakes and two wings at the top, one sometimes used to symbolize a physician but often considered to be an erroneous representation as well as the emblem of a medical corps or a department of the armed services (as of the United States Army)

Examples

"The tattoo starts at Harry Crider's left shoulder…. It's a caduceus—a long staff, wrapped by intertwining snakes and topped with a pair of wings." 

— Zach Osterman, The Indianapolis Star, 20 Sept. 2019

"Symbols commonly associated with the medical or pharmaceutical professions would also be prohibited from being used by cultivation facilities or dispensaries under SB441. Items specifically mentioned include a cross of any color, a caduceus, 'or any symbol that is commonly associated with the practice of medicine, the practice of pharmacy, or health care in general.'" 

— Scott Liles, The Baxter Bulletin (Mountain Home, Arkansas), 28 Feb. 2019

Did You Know?

The Greek god Hermes, who served as herald and messenger to the other gods, carried a winged staff entwined with two snakes. 

The staff of Aesculapius, the god of healing, had one snake and no wings. The word caduceus, from Latin, is a modification of Greek karykeion, from karyx, meaning "herald." 

Strictly speaking, caduceus should refer only to the staff of the herald-god Hermes (Mercury to the Romans), but in practice, the word is often applied to the one-snake staff as well. You might logically expect the staff of Aesculapius to be the symbol of the medical profession—and indeed, that is the symbol used by the American Medical Association. But you will also quite frequently see the true caduceus used as a medical symbol.

Deflagrate

Word of the Day : April 15, 2020

deflagrate / verb / DEF-luh-grayt

Definition

1: to burn rapidly with intense heat and sparks being given off

2: to cause (something) to burn in such a manner

Examples

Certain materials, such as black powder, will deflagrate rather than cause a violent explosion when they are ignited.

"Classification of substances by their sensitivity to impact and friction is particularly important for the handling of explosives. Some explosives are known to detonate on impact, whereas others will only deflagrate." — Jacqueline Akhavan, The Chemistry of Explosives, 2004

Did You Know?

Deflagrate combines the Latin verb flagrare, meaning "to burn," with the Latin prefix de-, meaning "down" or "away." 

Flagrare is also an ancestor of such words as conflagration and flagrant and is distantly related to fulgent and flame. 

In the field of explosives, deflagrate is used to describe the burning of fuel accelerated by the expansion of gasses under the pressure of containment, which causes the containing vessel to break apart. 

In comparison, the term detonate (from the Latin tonare, meaning "to thunder") refers to an instant, violent explosion that results when shock waves pass through molecules and displace them at supersonic speed. 

Deflagrate has been making sparks in English since about 1727, and detonate burst onto the scene at around the same time.

Umbra

WORD OF THE DAY

umbra / noun / UM-bruh

Definition

1a: a conical shadow excluding all light from a given source 

1b: the conical part of the shadow of a celestial body excluding all light from the primary source

1c: the central dark part of a sunspot

2: a shaded area

Examples

"Thus far, though, no one on the ISS has managed to 'thread the needle,' with a view passing through the narrow umbra of a total solar eclipse." 

— David Dickinson, Sky & Telescope, 4 Aug. 2017

"A penumbral lunar eclipse is scheduled for Friday (Jan. 10). No part of the moon enters Earth's much darker umbra, as happens during a partial or total lunar eclipse. But on Jan 10-11 (depending on your location), just about the best penumbral eclipse possible will occur." 

— Joe Rao, Space.com, 9 Jan. 2020

Did You Know?

The Latin word umbra ("shade, shadow") has given English a range of words in addition to umbra itself. An umbrella can provide us with shade from the sun. So can an umbrageous tree. (In this case, umbrageous means "affording shade.") 

The connection to shade or shadow in other umbra words is less obvious. When we say someone takes umbrage, we mean they take offense, but in times past people used the word as a synonym of shade or shadow. 

These two senses of umbrage influenced umbrageous, which can mean "inclined to take offense easily" as well as "affording shade."

Hypnagogic

WORD OF THE DAY

hypnagogic / adjective / hip-nuh-GAH-jik

Definition

: of, relating to, or occurring in the period of drowsiness immediately preceding sleep

Examples

"Many of us have experienced hypnagogic hallucinations, the often terrifying perceptions … that occur as we hover between sleep and wakefulness. Hallucinations tend to comprise shadowy figures nearby, often perceived as intruders." 

— Devon Frye, Psychology Today, 15 Aug. 2019

"Contrary to popular belief, clients don't usually lose consciousness and are in fact consciously aware throughout the hypnosis therapy session, although they may experience their attention drifts off as if in a hynagogic or dreamlike state." 

— Tim Dunton, quoted in The Express (UK), 16 July 2019

Did You Know?

"The hypnagogic state is that heady lull between wakefulness and sleep when thoughts and images flutter, melt, and transform into wild things," wrote Boston Globe correspondent Cate McQuaid (October 1, 1998). 

Some scientists have attributed alien-abduction stories to this state, but for most people these "half-dreams" are entirely innocuous. Perhaps the most famous hypnagogic dream is that of the German chemist Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz, who was inspired with the concept of the benzene ring by a vision of a snake biting its own tail. 

You're not dreaming if the Greek root hypn-, meaning "sleep," seems familiar—you've seen it in hypnotize. The root -agogic is from the Greek -agōgos, meaning "inducing," from agein meaning "to lead." We borrowed hypnagogic (also spelled hypnogogic) from French hypnagogique in the late 19th century.

Permeate

WORD OF THE DAY

permeate / verb / PER-mee-ayt

Definition

1: to diffuse through or penetrate something

2: to spread or diffuse through

3: to pass through the pores or interstices of

Examples

"As social media continues to permeate daily life, artists are also met with increasing demand from fans for content. Their enthusiasm is good for artists—but also challenging to satisfy." 

— Tatiana Cirisano, Billboard, 15 Mar. 2019

"Anna Talvi … has constructed her flesh-hugging clothing to act as a sort of 'wearable gym' to counter the muscle-wasting and bone loss caused by living in low gravity. She has also tried to tackle the serious psychological challenges of space exploration by permeating her fabrics with comforting scents." — Simon Ings, New Scientist, 18 Oct. 2019

Did You Know?

It's no surprise that permeate means "to pass through something"—it was borrowed into English in the 17th century from Latin permeatus, which comes from the prefix per- ("through") and the verb meare, meaning "to go" or "to pass." 

Meare itself comes from an ancient root that may have also led to Middle Welsh and Czech words meaning "to go" and "to pass," respectively. 

Other descendants of meare in English include permeative, permeable, meatus ("a natural body passage"), and the relatively rare irremeable ("offering no possibility of return").

Seder

WORD OF THE DAY

seder /  noun /  SAY-der

Definition

: a Jewish home or community service including a ceremonial dinner held on the first or first and second evenings of the Passover in commemoration of the exodus from Egypt

Examples

Ari enjoys the stories, songs, and rituals that accompany dinner on the night of the seder.

"In the private classes, the group will get to choose among three menus for their lesson. The first includes seder dishes such as tri-colored matzo ball soup, tomato leek California beef roast, … date-honey roasted vegetables and chocolate souffles." 

— Rebecca King, NorthJersey.com, 17 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?

Order and ritual are very important in the seder—so important that they are even reflected in its name: the English word seder is a transliteration of a Hebrew word (sēdher) that means "order." 

The courses in the meal, as well as blessings, prayers, stories, and songs, are recorded in the Haggadah, a book that lays out the order of the Passover feast and recounts the story of the Exodus. 

Each food consumed as part of the seder recalls an aspect of the Exodus. For instance, matzo (unleavened bread) represents the haste with which the Israelites fled ancient Egypt: 

maror (a mix of bitter herbs) recalls the bitterness of life as a slave 

a mixture of fruits and nuts called haroseth (or haroset/haroses or charoseth/charoset/charoses) symbolizes the clay or mortar the Israelites worked with as slaves.

Berserk

WORD OF THE DAY

berserk / adjective / ber-SERK

Definition

: frenzied, crazed — usually used in the phrase go berserk

Examples

The dog inevitably goes berserk whenever he hears the doorbell.

"It was the first costume exhibit I had ever seen in my life. I didn't know such a thing even existed. And I was so excited and I went berserk.... So much of what was in the exhibit, I already owned." 

— Sandy Schreier, quoted in The Washington Post, 13 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?

Berserk comes from Old Norse berserkr, which combines ber- ("bear") and serkr ("shirt"). 

According to Norse legend, berserkrs were warriors who wore bearskin coverings and worked themselves into such frenzies during combat that they became immune to the effects of steel and fire. 

Berserk was borrowed into English (first as a noun and later as an adjective) in the 19th century, when interest in Scandinavian myth and history was high. 

It was considered a slang term at first, but it has since gained broader acceptance.

Maverick

WORD OF THE DAY

maverick / noun / MAV-rik

Definition

1a: an unbranded range animal 

1b: a motherless calf
2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party

Examples

"'My record company wanted more of "The River & The Thread" but I couldn't do it,' she said. 'It seemed false. So I went in another direction.' It's not surprising for [Rosanne] Cash, who has been a maverick during her lengthy career, to go another way." 

— Ed Condran, The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), 6 Feb. 2020

"Audubon, a naturalist, artist, hunter, showman, and conservationist, was a maverick in his day, and his legacy has come to mean the very heart of bird conservation." 

— The Pontiac (Illinois) Daily Leader, 8 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?

When a client gave Samuel A. Maverick 400 cattle to settle a $1,200 debt, the 19th-century south Texas lawyer had no use for them, so he left the cattle unbranded and allowed them to roam freely (supposedly under the supervision of one of his employees). 

Neighboring stockmen recognized their opportunity and seized it, branding and herding the stray cattle as their own. 

Maverick eventually recognized the folly of the situation and sold what was left of his depleted herd, but not before his name became synonymous with such unbranded livestock. 

By the end of the 19th century, the term maverick was being used to refer to individuals who prefer to blaze their own trails.