Sinuous

 WORD OF THE DAY

sinuous / adjective / SIN-yuh-wus

Definition

1a: of a serpentine or wavy form 

1b: winding

1c: marked by strong lithe movements

2: intricate, complex

Examples

The hikers followed a sinuous path that curved around a lake and in between two small hills.

"The image, taken by NASA's Odyssey orbiter, showed a sinuous dried-up river channel leading into one side of the crater." 

— Kenneth Chang, The New York Times, 30 July 2020

Did You Know?

Although it probably makes you think more of snakes than head colds, sinuous is etymologically more like sinus than serpent. Sinuous and sinus both derive from the Latin noun sinus, which means "curve, fold, or hollow." 

Other sinus descendants include insinuate ("to impart or suggest in an artful or indirect way") and two terms you might remember from math class: sine and cosine. 

In English, sinus is the oldest of these words; it entered the language in the 1400s. Insinuate appeared next, in the early 1500s, and was followed by sinuous and sine in the latter half of the 1500s, and cosine in the 1600s. 

Serpent, by the way, entered English in the 13th century and comes from the Latin verb serpere, meaning "to creep."

Gauntlet

 WORD OF THE DAY

gauntlet / noun / GAWNT-lut

Definition
1: a glove worn with medieval armor to protect the hand
2: any of various protective gloves used especially in industry
3: an open challenge (as to combat) — used in phrases like throw down the gauntlet
4: a dress glove extending above the wrist

Examples
"No, Jack answered. He stared up at the advancing knight, and his hand wrapped itself tightly around the guitar-pick in his pocket. The spike-studded gauntlets came up toward the visor of its bird-helmet. They raised it."
— Stephen King and Peter Straub, The Talisman, 1984

"Last week, the California Teachers Association threw down the gauntlet and told Newsom and legislators that schools aren't ready to reopen, citing the short time frame and the recent surge of infections."
— Dan Walters, The Orange County (California) Register, 13 July 2020

Did You Know?
Gauntlet comes from Middle French gantelet, the diminutive of gant, meaning "glove." (The gauntlet that means "severe trial," "ordeal," or "double file of armed men" is a different word that originates from Swedish gata, meaning "lane" or "way.")
To throw down the gauntlet is to issue an open challenge, while to pick up the gauntlet is to accept an open challenge. These figurative phrases come from the conventions of medieval combat.
The gauntlet was the glove of a suit of armor. To challenge someone to combat, a knight would throw his glove at another knight's feet. The second knight would take it up if he intended to accept the challenge, in which case a jousting match might ensue.

Abstain

 WORD OF THE DAY

abstain /verb / ub-STAYN

Definition
1a: to choose not to do or have something
1b: to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice
2: to choose not to vote

Examples
"For more than a hundred and fifty days a year, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians abstain from animal products, in accordance with religious fasting."
— Hannah Goldfield, The New Yorker, 17 July 2020

"The school board Monday voted 5-1, with one abstaining, to approve guidelines for moving classes online that are less restrictive than those established by the state."
— Sarah Kay LeBlanc, The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, 11 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
If you abstain, you're consciously, and usually with effort, choosing to hold back from doing something that you would like to do. One may abstain from a vice, for example, or in parliamentary procedure, one might abstain from placing a vote.
So it's no surprise that abstain traces back through Middle English and Anglo-French to the Latin abstinēre, which combines the prefix ab- ("from, away, off") with tenēre, a Latin verb meaning "to hold."
Tenēre has many offspring in English—other descendants include contain, detain, maintain, obtain, pertain, retain, and sustain, as well as some words that don't end in -tain, such as tenacious. Abstain, like many of its cousins, has been used by English speakers since at least the 14th century.

Translucent

 WORD OF THE DAY

translucent / adjective / trans-LOO-sunt

Definition
1a: permitting the passage of light
1b: transmitting and diffusing light so that objects beyond cannot be seen clearly
1c: clear, transparent
2: free from disguise or falseness

Examples
"The dish starts with the gentle, slow sweating of diced onions. Once the onions are translucent, the minced garlic and jalapeno get added to the pot."
— Anita L. Arambula, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Aug. 2020

"Li's novel jumps from Lilia's life in the retirement home to her past and back to Roland's journals with an effortless ease that lulls readers into the translucent bond that tethers Lilia to Roland after decades of silence."
— TinaMarie Craven, The Ridgefield (Connecticut) Press, 11 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
Look closely and you will see the same group of three letters in translucent and elucidate, letting the family relationship between the two words shine through.
Both terms descend from the Latin word lucēre, meaning "to shine." (Translucent is from lucēre plus trans-, which means "through.")
When you elucidate something, you make it clear by explaining it in a way that can be easily understood—you shed light on it.
Lucēre is also the root of another bright and shining English word, lucid, which can mean either "bright with light" or "clear and easy to understand."

 

Ubiquitous

 WORD OF THE DAY

ubiquitous / adjective / yoo-BIK-wuh-tuss

Definition
1: existing or being everywhere at the same time
2: constantly encountered
3: widespread

Examples
"Within China, WeChat is ubiquitous, serving as an all-in-one app that's important for making payments and even for displaying someone's coronavirus test results."
— David Ingram, NBCNews.com, 7 Aug. 2020

"Without companies that developed front-facing smartphone cameras for luxury smartphones, we never would have had the now ubiquitous selfie camera."
— Shira Ovide, The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
Ubiquitous comes to us from the noun ubiquity, meaning "presence everywhere or in many places simultaneously."
Both words are ultimately derived from the Latin word for "everywhere," which is ubique.
Ubiquitous, which has often been used with a touch of exaggeration to describe those things that it seems like you can't go a day without encountering, has become a more widespread and popular word than ubiquity.
It may not quite be ubiquitous, but if you keep your eyes and ears open, you're apt to encounter the word ubiquitous quite a bit.

 

Crabwise

 WORD OF THE DAY

crabwise / adverb / KRAB-wyze

Definition
1: sideways
2: in a sidling or cautiously indirect manner

Examples
"Covered in river scum, hair hanging down his forehead like oily kelp, he found his way to the hold, clambering on hands and knees, inching crabwise over rough-hewn wooden boards, and picking his way past intriguing crates of explorer supplies to find the out-of-view spot he'd settled on during his reconnaissance mission nine days before."
— Laurie Gwen Shapiro, Outside, 24 Jan. 2018

"It's true that Tito's actions aren't really interrogated, and neither are the consequences of raising boys the way Lydia did—and does, with her grandson Alex. That's a conflict the show is sidling up to crabwise, and I really do wonder what will happen if and when it finally confronts machismo head-on."
— Lili Loofbourow, Slate, 14 Feb. 2019

Did You Know?
There's no reason to be indirect when explaining the etymology of crabwise—we'll get right to the point. As you might guess, the meaning of the word is directly related to that sidling sea creature, the crab.
If you have visited a beach near the sea, you have probably seen crabs scuttling along, often moving sideways. Though the behavior is surely above reproach to the crabs themselves, English speakers tend to be suspicious of what comes at them from the side, and the modern meanings of crabwise reflect this suspicion of the crab's lateral approach.
The word crept into English in the early 19th century and has been sidling into our sentences ever since.

Operose

 WORD OF THE DAY

operose / adjective / AH-puh-rohss

Definition
: tedious, wearisome

Examples

"Reading this biography reminded me that Lawrence's prose, though old-fashioned and a bit operose, is full of beautiful things."
— Matthew Walther, The Spectator, 11 Oct. 2014

"After several operose months of the tear-out and build-up process, Brandon Stupka, the one who has been working on the remodel project…, has finally opened his doors for business…."
— The McPherson (Kansas) Sentinel, 17 Apr. 2013

Did You Know?
Operose comes from the Latin operōsus, which has the meaning of "diligent," "painstaking" or "laborious."
That word combines opera, meaning "activity," "effort," or "work," with -ōsus—the Latin equivalent of the English -ose and -ous suffixes, meaning "full of" or "abounding in."
In its earliest uses, in the mid-16th century, the word was used to describe people who are industrious or painstaking in their efforts.
About a century later, the word was being applied as it more commonly is today: as an adjective describing tasks and undertakings requiring much time and effort.

Juncture

 WORD OF THE DAY

juncture / noun / JUNK-cher

Definition
1a: a point of time
1b: one made critical by a concurrence of circumstances
2: joint, connection
3a: an instance of joining
3b: junction

Examples
"At this juncture in the editing process," said Philip, "it is important that all facts have been double-checked and sources verified."

"'Palm Springs' further cements [Andy] Samberg as one of the funniest talents in comedy today. From cult-classics such as 'Hot Rod' and 'Popstar' to the hit sitcom, 'Brooklyn-Nine-Nine,' his comedic chops are hall-of-fame-level at this juncture."
— Austin Ellis, The Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, Iowa), 17 July 2020

Did You Know?
Juncture has many relatives—both obvious and obscure—in English. Juncture derives from the Latin verb jungere ("to join"), which gave us not only join and junction but also conjugal ("relating to marriage") and junta ("a group of persons controlling a government").
Jungere also has distant etymological connections to joust, jugular, juxtapose, yoga, and yoke. The use of juncture in English dates back to the 14th century.
Originally, the word meant "a place where two or more things are joined," but by the 17th century it could also be used of an important point in time or of a stage in a process or activity.

Delve

 WORD OF THE DAY

delve / verb / DELV

Definition
1:  to dig or labor with or as if with a spade
2a: to make a careful or detailed search for information
2b: to examine a subject in detail

Examples
"'My brother and I,' said he, 'were, as you may imagine, much excited as to the treasure which my father had spoken of. For weeks and for months we dug and delved in every part of the garden, without discovering its whereabouts.'"
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, 1890

"They'll soon release a second short, Climate Crisis, and Why We Should Panic. It will be voiced by Kiera Knightley, and delves into the cause of climate change and why governments must enter crisis mode to handle the issue."
— Angie Martoccio, Rolling Stone, 13 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
We must dig deep into the English language's past to find the origins of delve.
The verb traces to the early Old English word delfan and is related to the Old High German word telban, meaning "to dig."
For centuries, there was only delving—no digging—because dig didn't exist until much later; it appears in early Middle English.
Is the phrase "dig and delve" (as in the line "eleven, twelve, dig and delve," from the nursery rhyme that begins "one, two, buckle my shoe") redundant? Not necessarily.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in some local uses, dig was the term for working with a mattock (a tool similar to an adze or a pick), while delve was reserved for work done using a spade.

Limpid

 WORD OF THE DAY

limpid / adjective / LIM-pid

Definition
1a: marked by transparency
1b: pellucid
1c: clear and simple in style
2: absolutely serene and untroubled

Examples
"She leaned toward him, entreaty in her eyes, and as he looked at her delicate face and into her pure, limpid eyes, as of old he was struck with his own unworthiness."
— Jack London, Martin Eden, 1909

"Last summer, the edges of the Greenland ice sheet experienced up to three extra months of melting weather. Limpid blue pools formed on its surface; floods of melt gushed off the edge of the continent…."
— Madeleine Stone, National Geographic, 7 July 2020

Did You Know?
Since around 1600, limpid has been used in English to describe things that have the soft clearness of pure water.
The aquatic connection is not incidental; language scholars believe that limpid probably traces to lympha, a Latin word meaning "water."
That same Latin root is also the source of the word lymph, the English name for the pale liquid that helps maintain the body's fluid balance and that removes bacteria from tissues.

Cronyism

 WORD OF THE DAY

cronyism / noun / KROH-nee-iz-um

Definition
: partiality to cronies especially as evidenced in the appointment of political hangers-on to office without regard to their qualifications

Examples
"From the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the New Deal, America's national parties retained their incoherence because most of the important political power was at the state and local level…. Some states and cities were better governed than others, and there was plenty of cronyism and corruption throughout the country, but the stakes of national elections were lower than today."
— Lee Drutman, The Cato Policy Report (The Cato Institute), July/August 2020

"Civil service regulations attempted to eliminate cronyism by setting strict rules governing hiring, firing and promotions within professional government services…. Under the system used in Idaho Falls, promotions rely heavily on scores from written, oral and other tests."
— Bryan Clark, The Idaho Falls Post Register, 4 Apr. 2017

Did You Know?
"Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him" (Ecclesiasticus 9:10).
Practitioners of cronyism would probably agree. The word cronyism evolved in the 19th century as a spin-off of crony, meaning "friend" or "pal."
Crony originated in England in the 17th century, perhaps as a play on the Greek word chronios, meaning "long-lasting," from chronos, meaning "time."
Nineteenth-century cronyism was simply friendship, or the ability to make friends. The word didn't turn bad until the next century, when Americans starting using cronyism to refer to the act of playing political favorites. 

Foment

 WORD OF THE DAY

foment / verb / FOH-ment

Definition
1: to promote the growth or development of
2: rouse, incite

Examples
Rumors that the will was a fake fomented a lot of bitterness between the two families.

"Last year, the country leaked personal information of an American official in Hong Kong, accusing her of fomenting unrest...."
— Shibani Mahtani, The Washington Post, 22 May 2020

Did You Know?
If you had sore muscles in the 1600s, your doctor might have advised you to foment the injury, perhaps with heated lotions or warm wax. Does this sound like an odd prescription?
Not if you know that foment traces to the Latin verb fovēre, which means "to heat or warm" or "to soothe."
The earliest documented English uses of foment appear in medical texts offering advice on how to soothe various aches and pains by the application of moist heat.
In time, the idea of applying heat became a metaphor for stimulating or rousing to action.
Foment then started being used in political contexts to mean "to stir up" or "to call to action."

Purport

 WORD OF THE DAY

purport / verb / per-PORT

Definition
1a: to have the often specious appearance of being, intending, or claiming (something implied or inferred)
1b: claim
2: intend, purpose

Examples
"One study at M.I.T. purported to show that the subway was a superspreader early in the pandemic, but its methodology was widely disputed."
— Christina Goldbaum, The New York Times, 2 Aug. 2020

"To support his applications, Hayford provided lenders with fraudulent payroll documentation purporting to establish payroll expenses that were, in fact, nonexistent."
— editorial, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 7 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
The verb purport may be more familiar nowadays, but purport exists as a noun that passed into English from Anglo-French in the 15th century as a synonym of gist.
Sir Walter Scott provides us with an example from his 19th-century novel Rob Roy: "I was a good deal mortified at the purport of this letter."
Anglo-French also has the verb purporter (meaning both "to carry" and "to mean"), which combines the prefix pur- ("thoroughly") and the verb porter ("to carry").
In its original English use, the verb purport meant "to signify"; the "to profess or claim" sense familiar to modern English speakers didn't appear until the 17th century.

Ruddy

 WORD OF THE DAY

ruddy / adjective / RUDD-ee

Definition
1: having a healthy reddish color
2: red, reddish
3 (British) used as an intensive

Examples
"There was a stout man with a ruddy complexion, a merchant probably, half asleep."
— Elif Shafak, The Architect’s Apprentice, 2014

"Lichen green and the reds of fired brick exude a splash of ruddy color on the exterior of Manchester State Park's enclosed picnic area…."
— Bob Smith, The Kitsap Daily News, 5 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?
In Old English, there were two related words referring to red coloring: rēad and rudu.
Rēad evolved into our present-day red. Rudu evolved into rud (a word now encountered only in dialect or archaic usage) and ruddy.
Most often, ruddy is applied to the face when it has the red glow of good health or is red from a suffusion of blood from exercise or excitement. It is also used in the names of some birds, such as the American ruddy duck.
In British English, ruddy is also used as a colorful euphemism for the sometimes offensive intensive bloody, as 20th-century English writer Sir Kingsley Amis illustrates in The Riverside Villas Murder: "Ruddy marvelous, the way these coppers' minds work.... I take a swing at Chris Inman in public means I probably done him in."

Encumber

 WORD OF THE DAY

encumber verb / in-KUM-ber

Definition
1: weigh down, burden
2a: to impede or hamper the function or activity of
2b: hinder
3: to burden with a legal claim (such as a mortgage)

Examples
"Those who do handle radioactive material must first don protective suits that are inherently cumbersome and are further encumbered by the air hoses needed to allow the wearer to breathe."
— The Economist, 20 June 2019

"'The water reservoir is absolutely needed in Vernon Hills,' said David Brown, Vernon Hills' public works director/village engineer. While supportive, the village thinks there are 'some other viable locations in town,' he added. So does the park district, which owns the land but is encumbered by an easement…."
— Mick Zawislak, The Chicago Daily Herald, 1 Aug. 2020

Did You Know?
In Old French, the noun combre meant a defensive obstacle formed by felled trees with sharpened branches facing the enemy.
Later, in Middle French, combre referred to a barrier, similar to a dam or weir, constructed in the bed of a river to hold back fish or protect the banks.
That notion of holding back is what informs our verb encumber. One can be physically encumbered (as by a heavy load or severe weather) or figuratively (as by bureaucratic restrictions).
Combre also gives us the adjectives cumbersome and cumbrous, both meaning "awkward or difficult to handle."

 

Bunkum

 WORD OF THE DAY

bunkum / noun / BUNG-kum

Definition
1: insincere or foolish talk
2: nonsense

Examples
I hesitated to voice my opinions, fearful that my companions would deride my views as bunkum.

"Out on social media, people are reposting and retweeting and emailing myths, hurling them across the internet with the kind of speed attainable only by pure bunkum."
— Heather Yakin, The Times Herald-Record, 17 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?
Some words in the English language have more colorful histories than others, but in the case of bunkum, you could almost say it was an act of Congress that brought the word into being.
Back in 1820 Felix Walker, who represented Buncombe County, North Carolina, in the U.S. House of Representatives, was determined that his voice be heard on his constituents' behalf, even though the matter up for debate was irrelevant to Walker's district and he had little to contribute.
To the exasperation of his colleagues, Walker insisted on delivering a long and wearisome "speech for Buncombe." His persistent—if insignificant—harangue made buncombe (later respelled bunkum) a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense.

Colloquial

WORD OF THE DAY

colloquial / adjective / kuh-LOH-kwee-ul

Definition

1a: used in or characteristic of familiar and informal conversation

1b: unacceptably informal

1c: using conversational style

2a: of or relating to conversation 

2b: conversational

Examples

The author can switch from formal academic language to a charmingly colloquial style, depending on the audience and subject of her writing.

"The [show's] dialogue is often colloquial and rapid-fire, however, and you may need to switch on the English subtitles fairly frequently. On the other hand, you'll know exactly how to say 'What an idiot!' in French after an episode or two." 

— Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, 11 May 2020

Did You Know?

The noun colloquy (see earlier posting from 21 April) was first used in English to refer to a conversation or dialogue, and when the adjective colloquial was formed from colloquy it had a similar focus. 

Over time, however, colloquial developed a more specific meaning related to language that is most suited to informal conversation—and it ultimately garnered an additional, disparaging implication of a style that seems too informal for a situation. 

Colloquy and colloquial trace back to the Latin verb colloqui, meaning "to converse." 

Colloqui in turn was formed by combining the prefix com- ("with") and loqui ("to speak"). Other conversational descendants of loqui in English include circumlocution, eloquent, loquacious, soliloquy, and ventriloquism.

Plaudit

 WORD OF THE DAY

plaudit / noun / PLAW-dit

Definition

1: an act or round of applause

2: enthusiastic approval — usually used in plural

Examples

"For all of the accolades, and two Grammys she's won, this might be the song and album that finally earns McKenna the plaudits her vocals also richly deserve." 

— Jay N. Miller, The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), 22 July 2020

"Long before he was collecting headlines and plaudits for his work, Babcock was quietly creating a functioning farm to give people in his South Dallas neighborhood a real hand in improving their lives, through working on the farm or from being nourished by its fruits." 

— editorial, The Dallas Morning News, 8 July 2020

Did You Know?

You earn plaudits for your etymological knowledge if you can connect plaudit to words besides the familiar applaud and applause. 

A word coined by shortening Latin plaudite, meaning "applaud," plaudit had gained approval status in English by the first years of the 17th century. 

Latin plaudite is a form of the verb plaudere, meaning "to applaud"; plaudere, in turn, is ancestor to explode, plausible, and the archaic displode (a synonym of explode).

Docile

 WORD OF THE DAY

docile / adjective / DAH-sul

Definition

1: easily taught

2: easily led or managed 

2b: tractable

Examples

"The zoo has one bearded dragon, dubbed Six because that number was painted on its back when it arrived…. Six is not on public exhibit but because it's friendly and docile, the bearded dragon is an ambassador in the zoo's Wild Connections animal encounter program." 

— Meg Jones, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 Feb. 2020

"I hate the idea that we have to be polite as women, or we have to be docile. It's good to be kind, of course, but that we have to be agreeable, and if we're anything else we're labeled difficult." 

— Elisabeth Moss, quoted in Elle, 8 July 2020

Did You Know?

Docile students can make teaching a lot easier. Nowadays, calling students "docile" indicates they aren't trouble-makers; however, there's more than just good behavior connecting docility to teachability. 

The original meaning of docile is more to the point: "readily absorbing something taught." "The docile mind may soon thy precepts know," rendered Ben Jonson, for example, in a 17th-century translation of the Roman poet Horace. 

Docile comes from Latin docēre, which means "to teach." Other descendants of docēre include doctrine (which can mean "something that is taught"), document (an early meaning of which was "instruction"), and doctor and docent (both of which can refer to college teachers).

Matriculate

 WORD OF THE DAY

matriculate / verb / muh-TRIK-yuh-layt

Definition
1: to enroll as a member of a body and especially of a college or university
2: to be enrolled at a college or university

Examples
A spokesperson for the college said the school is expected to matriculate approximately 1,000 students for the fall semester.

"Vince Carter, the player who would come to be known as 'Half-Man, Half-Amazing,' matriculated at the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1995."
— Ben Golliver, The Washington Post, 28 June 2020

Did You Know?
Anybody who has had basic Latin knows that alma mater, a fancy term for the school you attended, comes from a phrase that means "fostering mother."
If mater is mother, then matriculate probably has something to do with a school nurturing you just like good old mom, right? Not exactly.
If you go back far enough, matriculate is distantly related to the Latin mater, but its maternal associations were lost long ago—even in terms of Latin history. It is more closely related to Late Latin matricula, which means "public roll or register."
Matricula has more to do with being enrolled than being mothered, but it is the diminutive form of the Latin matrix, which in Late Latin was used in the sense of "list" or "register" and earlier referred to female animals kept for the purposes of breeding.

Pediculous

 WORD OF THE DAY

pediculous / adjective / pih-DIK-yuh-lus

Definition
1: infested with lice
2: lousy

Examples
All of the campers in the cabin had to be checked for lice when one boy’s sleeping bag was discovered to be pediculous.

"They say pediculous humors and flyborne air are culprits of plague, so the townsmen make a pyre of flowers and brush, attar and spikenard, by way of purging the air of offense."
— Fiona Maazel, Last Last Chance, 2008

Did You Know?
Count on the English language's Latin lexical options to pretty up the unpleasant.
You can have an entire conversation about lice and avoid the l-word entirely using pediculous and its relatives.
None of the words (from pediculus, meaning "louse") is remotely common, but they're all available to you should you feel the need for them.
There's pediculosis, meaning "infestation with lice," pedicular, "of or relating to lice," and pediculoid, "resembling or related to the common lice."
Pediculid names a particular kind of louse—one of the family Pediculidae.
And if you'd like to put an end to all of this you might require a pediculicide—defined as "an agent for destroying lice."

Allusion

 WORD OF THE DAY

allusion / noun / uh-LOO-zhun

Definition
1a: an implied or indirect reference especially in literature
1b: the use of such references
2a: the act of making an indirect reference to something
2b: the act of alluding to something

Examples
"The learning by rote and the endeavours to remember the complex prosodic structures of Shakespearean verses also stretch the muscles of the mind. The speeches are all dramatic, full of emotional appeal and inclusive of several allusions to Greco-Roman mythology. One thinks of these allusions and wonders about their meanings or metaphoric resonances."
— Sophie Barry, Business World, 17 June 2020

"Other than a bunch of cryptic allusions to a masterplan scattered throughout the season, her plan was never made clear. It didn't help that she seemed to vacillate between cold-blooded killer and teary-eyed sentimentalist several times an episode."
— Sean T. Collins, Rolling Stone, 3 May 2020

Did You Know?
Allusion was borrowed into English in the 16th century. It derives from the Latin verb alludere, meaning "to play with," "to jest," or "to refer to," as does its cousin allude, meaning "to make indirect reference" or "to refer."
Alludere, in turn, derives from a combination of the prefix ad- ("to or toward") and ludere ("to play").
Ludere is a Latin word that English speakers have enjoyed playing with over the years, creating collude, delude, elude, and prelude, just to name a few.