Cognoscente

 WORD OF THE DAY

cognoscente / noun / kahn-yuh-SHEN-tee

Definition

1: a person who has expert knowledge in a subject 

2: a connoisseur

Examples

"Though he was recognized among certain cognoscenti during his most active years, [American photographer Todd] Webb … had plenty to distract him from the trifles of stardom—including time spent as a fire ranger for the U.S. Forestry Service, naval photographer in World War II, gold prospector in Panama, and resident of, in turn, Provence, France; Bath, England; and Portland, Maine." 

— David Foxley, Architectural Digest, 18 Apr. 2017

"Liz Goldwyn is, in fact, a film-world royal—her grandfather was the Hollywood kingpin Samuel Goldwyn—not to mention a fashion-world darling and an art-world cognoscente." 

— Peter Haldeman, The New York Times, 3 Jan. 2014

Did You Know?

Cognoscente and connoisseur are more than synonyms; they're also linguistic cousins. Both terms descend from the Latin verb cognōscere, meaning "to know," and they're not alone. 

You might guess that cognizance and cognition are members of the cognōscere clan. 

Do you also recognize a family resemblance in recognize? 

Can you see through the disguise of incognito? 

Did you have a premonition that we would mention precognition? 

Cognoscente itself came to English by way of Italian and has been a part of the language since the late 1700s.

Slipshod

 WORD OF THE DAY

slipshod / adjective / SLIP-SHAHD

Definition
1a: wearing loose shoes or slippers
1b: down at the heel
1c: shabby
2: careless, slovenly

Examples
"'What's worse is the rules about misinformation on social media are confusing and inconsistent, and enforcement of those policies is slipshod at best,' says Bill Fitzgerald, a privacy and technology researcher in CR's Digital Lab."
— Consumer Reports, 13 Aug. 2020

"But Ryan Day couldn't help but harp on a slipshod second half in which the Buckeyes were outscored by 10 points and outgained by 126 yards."
— Kyle Rowland, The Toledo (Ohio) Blade, 9 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?
The word shod is the past tense form of the verb shoe, meaning "to furnish with a shoe"; hence, we can speak of shoeing horses and horses that have been shod or shodden.
When the word slipshod was first used in the late 1500s, it meant "wearing loose shoes or slippers"—such slippers were once called slip-shoes—and later it was used to describe shoes that were falling apart.
By the early 1800s, slipshod was used more generally as a synonym for shabby—in 1818, Sir Walter Scott wrote about "the half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library."
The association with shabbiness then shifted to an association with sloppiness, and the word was used to mean "careless" or "slovenly."

Fathom

 WORD OF THE DAY

fathom / verb / FA-thum

Definition
1a : to make a searching exploratory investigation
1b: probe
2: to take soundings
3: to measure by a sounding line
4: to penetrate and come to understand

Examples
Even those close to him can't always fathom why he repeatedly risks his life to climb the world's tallest mountains.

"When the coronavirus pandemic struck, we expected the real estate business to hit a brick wall and never fathomed the possibility of 2020 becoming a record year for the Houston market."
— Richard Miranda, quoted in The Houston Agent Magazine, 14 Jan. 2021

Did You Know?
Fathom comes from Old English fæthm, meaning "outstretched arms."
The noun fathom, which now commonly refers to a measure (especially of depth) of six feet, was originally used for the distance, fingertip to fingertip, created by stretching one's arms straight out from the sides of the body.
In one of its earliest uses, the verb fathom was a synonym of our modern embrace: to fathom someone was to clasp the person in your arms.
By the 1600s fathom had taken to the seas, as the verb was used to mean "to measure by a sounding line."
At the same time, the verb also developed senses synonymous with probe or investigate, and it is now frequently used to refer to the act of getting to the bottom of something, figuratively speaking.

Habeaus Corpus

 WORD OF THE DAY

habeas corpus / noun / HAY-bee-us-KOR-pus

Definition
1a: any of several common-law writs issued to bring a party before a court or judge
1b: a writ for inquiring into the lawfulness of the restraint of a person who is imprisoned or detained in another's custody
2: the right of a citizen to obtain a writ of habeas corpus as a protection against illegal imprisonment

Examples
"Embraced by America's founders, the Great Writ, as [habeas corpus is] colloquially known, is enshrined in the Constitution, statutory law, and case law, where it guarantees certain rights to the detained. Habeas corpus entitles detainees convicted in state courts to appeal to federal courts if they believe their rights were violated at trial or during sentencing."
— Elizabeth Bruenig, The New York Times, 18 Jan. 2021

"[Assistant to the Solicitor General Vivek] Suri … underscored the availability of habeas corpus relief under Zadvydas v. Davis, a 2001 decision in which the Supreme Court recognized an opportunity for those detained under Section 1231 to seek judicial review once it appeared that there was no significant likelihood of removal."
— Gabriel Chin, SCOTUSblog, 12 Jan. 2021

Did You Know?
The literal meaning of habeas corpus is "you should have the body"—that is, the judge or court should (and must) have any person who is being detained brought forward so that the legality of that person's detention can be assessed.
In United States law, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (the full name of what habeas corpus typically refers to) is also called "the Great Writ," and it is not about a person's guilt or innocence, but about whether custody of that person is lawful under the U.S. Constitution.
Common grounds for relief under habeas corpus—"relief" in this case being a release from custody—include a conviction based on illegally obtained evidence; a denial of effective assistance of counsel; or a conviction by a jury that was improperly selected and impaneled.

Retarget

 WORD OF THE DAY

retarget / verb / ree-TAHR-gut

Definition
: to direct (something) toward a different target

Examples
"The beauty of retargeting is that computers do all the work. They figure out who you need to retarget and serve them the ad. If a person viewed your webpage but left without buying your product, donating to your charity, signing up for your newsletter, or doing whatever it is you need them to do, retargeting ads are a great way to direct them back to your site so you can close the deal."
— Entrepreneur, 4 June 2020

"NASA is retargeting launch of the next SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for November 14 amid ongoing reviews of recent engine problems with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the space agency announced Monday."
— William Harwood, CBS News, 26 Oct. 2020

Did You Know?
The verb retarget first appeared in 20th-century English with the basic meaning "to direct toward a different target."
In digital advertising, retargeting has to do with directing people who have left your website back to the site by displaying ads that remind them of your site on other sites they subsequently visit.
The base word target is from the early French noun targe, which was used for a light shield carried especially by footmen and archers. French targette, a diminutive form of targe, was taken into English as target in the early 15th century with its French sense.
In the 18th century, the word acquired the extended sense of "a shieldlike object to shoot at for practice." In the following century, the figurative senses referring to a thing or person that is marked for attack (especially of ridicule or criticism) begin to develop.
The sense of "a goal to be achieved" originated in the 20th century, often in connection with a quantity or date (as in "production targets" or "target dates").

Anodyne

 WORD OF THE DAY

anodyne / adjective / AN-uh-dyne

Definition
1: serving to alleviate pain
2a: not likely to offend or arouse tensions
2b: innocuous

Examples
"Since much of TikTok is wordless and anodyne, Tik-Tok seems the perfect corporate antidote to more pointed and politicized commentary on Twitter or Facebook."
— Elizabeth C. Tippett, Government Technology, 3 Dec. 2020

"He also voiced the donkey in the Shrek movies, talked to animals in the Dr. Dolittle movies, and goofed his way through an anodyne kiddie picture called Daddy Day Care. But this comeback, however well it served [Eddie] Murphy financially and spoke to his home life as a contented dad (of 10 children, as of now), was not the comic revival that his fans were rooting for."
— David Kamp, The Atlantic, December 2020

Did You Know?
Anodyne came to English via Latin from Greek anṓdynos (meaning "free from pain, causing no pain, harmless, allaying pain"), and it has been used as both an adjective and a noun ("something that soothes, calms, or comforts") since the 16th century.
It has sometimes been used of things that dull or lull the senses and render painful experiences less so. British statesman Edmund Burke used it this way, for example, in 1790 when he referred to flattery as an "anodyne draft of oblivion" that renders one (in this particular case, the deposed King Louis XVI) forgetful of the flatterer's true feelings.
Nowadays, in addition to describing things that dull pain, anodyne can also refer to that which doesn't cause discomfort in the first place.

Toady

 WORD OF THE DAY

toady / noun / TOH-dee

Definition

1: one who flatters in the hope of gaining favors 

2: sycophant

Examples

The editorial unfairly characterizes the appointee as one of the mayor's toadies, ignoring her long record of service to the community.

"The series' characters were borrowed from its British parent—the buffoonish boss, the over-the-top toady, the everyman prankster and the sweet receptionist—but the delightful journeys of Michael, Dwight, Jim and Pam belonged entirely to the talent and appeal of the American writers and actors behind them." 

— Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 24 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?

We can thank old-time toadeaters for toady. In 17th-century Europe, a toadeater was a showman's assistant whose job was to make the boss look good. The 

toadeater would eat (or pretend to eat) what were supposed to be poisonous toads. 

The charlatan in charge would then "save" the toad-afflicted assistant by expelling the poison. 

It's little wonder that such assistants became symbolic of extreme subservience, and that toadeater became a word for any obsequious underling. By the early 1800s, it had been shortened and altered to toady, our current term for a servile self-seeker. 

By the mid-1800s, toady was also being used as a verb meaning "to engage in sycophancy."

Indissoluble

 WORD OF THE DAY

indissoluble / adjective / in-dih-SAHL-yuh-bul

Definition
1: not dissoluble
2: incapable of being annulled, undone, or broken
3: permanent

Examples
"He was the only soul aboard with whom I could speak openly, in an absolute sense; for that matter, he to me the same. We were locked together in an indissoluble embrace, its nature the most simple and straightforward first principle: that no hurt should reach the men that we could prohibit."
— William Brinkley, The Last Ship, 1988

"Pope Francis … has acknowledged the concerns of divorced Catholics. He has set in motion a high-level debate about whether and how the church could change its posture toward them without altering a doctrine that declares marriage to be permanent and indissoluble."
— Michael Paulson, The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2015

Did You Know?
Indissoluble and its antonym dissoluble ("capable of being dissolved or disintegrated") both date their first print appearances to the 16th century, and both owe a debt to Latin dissolubilis, which means "dissoluble; capable of being dissolved."
While the word dissolve in that gloss may call to mind the chemical process by which something mixed with a liquid becomes part of the liquid (as when salt or sugar dissolve in water), indissoluble primarily relates to other meanings of dissolve: "destroy" and "disintegrate," "terminate" and "annul."
Something indissoluble—such as a treaty, contract, or vow—is permanent.
The English word dissolve, in all its meanings, is a cousin to indissoluble and dissoluble.
Dissolubilis derives from Latin dissolvere (from dis- + solvere, "to loosen") the source of our word dissolve.

Prothalamion

 WORD OF THE DAY

prothalamion / noun / proh-thuh-LAY-mee-un

Definition
: a song in celebration of a marriage

Examples
"In that month Ghalib wrote a prothalamion on the occasion of the forthcoming marriage of the king's youngest son, Mirza Jawan Bakht."
— Ralph Russell, The Oxford India Ghalib, 2003

"The epilogue, in the form of a prothalamion on the marriage of the poet's sister Cecilia, was designed to bring the work to an optimistic close."
— Ian Ousby, The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Literature in English, 1996

Did You Know?
In 1595, the newly-wed Edmund Spenser wrote a poem to his young bride.
He gave this poem the title Epithalamion, borrowing a Greek word for a song or poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom.
Epithalamion, which eventually became established as an English word, can be traced to Greek words that mean "upon the bridal chamber."
A year later, Spencer was inspired to write another nuptial poem—this time in celebration of the marriages of the Earl of Worcester's two daughters.
But since the ceremonies had not yet taken place, he did not want to call it an epithalamion. After some reflection, Spencer decided to separate epi- from thalamion and wed the latter with pro- ("before"), inventing a word that would become established in the language with the meaning "a song in celebration of a marriage."

Underwhelm

WORD OF THE DAY

underwhelm / verb / un-der-WELM

Definition
: to fail to impress or stimulate

Examples
"Nesmith's short stints continue to underwhelm. During one four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter, he missed a 3-pointer by a wide margin and committed three fouls."
— Adam Himmelsbach, The Boston Globe, 4 Jan. 2021

"He underwhelmed in 2019, leveling out after a dynamic start in Detroit, which earned him All-Star honors. But Greene bounced back in 2020, posting a 2.60 ERA with a 21:9 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 28 games."
— Gabriel Burns, The Atlanta (Georgia) Journal-Constitution, 6 Jan. 2021

Did You Know?
Overwhelm and its rare synonym whelm have both been around since the Middle Ages, but underwhelm is a 20th-century coinage.
Both overwhelm and whelm are derived from the Middle English whelmen, which is perhaps an alteration of whelven ("to turn over" or "to cover up"). Underwhelm is a playful overturning of overwhelm well suited for describing the unimpressive.
More than one person claims the distinction of having invented underwhelm; several sources attribute it to the playwright George S. Kaufman, but sports columnist Red Smith is quoted as believing he coined the word himself, and still other sources cite other potential creators.
Chances are that the word was in fact coined by more than one inventive writer.

Nebula

 WORD OF THE DAY

nebula / noun / NEB-yuh-luh

Definition
1 : any of numerous clouds of gas or dust in interstellar space
2: galaxy; especially a galaxy other than the Milky Way

Examples
"Many nebulae are today known and loved by their numbers in [the New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars]: NGC 6822 is a faint nearby irregular galaxy, NGC 7027 is a planetary nebula, NGC 6960 is a supernova remnant…."
— Frederick R. Chromey, To Measure the Sky, 2010

"[Edwin] Hubble determined M31 was millions of light years away, and was actually another galaxy, rather than a nebula in our own galaxy."
— Marcy Curran, The Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Cheyenne, Wyoming), 30 Oct. 2020

Did You Know?
The history of today's word is not lost in the mists of time, although its history does get misty at points. Nebula comes to us from Latin, where it means "mist" or "cloud." 

In its earliest English uses in the 1600s, nebula was chiefly a medical term that could refer either to a cloudy formation in urine or to a cloudy speck or film on the eye that caused vision problems.
It was first applied to great interstellar clouds of gas and dust in the early 1700s.
The adjective nebulous comes from the same Latin root as nebula, and it is considerably older, being first used as a synonym of cloudy or foggy as early as the 1300s.
Like nebula, however, this adjective was not used in an astronomical sense until the mid-1600s.

Voracious

 WORD OF THE DAY

voracious / adjective / vaw-RAY-shus

Definition
1a: having a huge appetite
1b: ravenous
2a: excessively eager
2b: insatiable

Examples
"The Green Tiger Beetle (Cicindela campestris) is a voracious creature both in the larval stage and when it becomes a perfect insect. It inhabits bare banks and sandy heaths, preying indiscriminately on other insects, often mounting upon the wing with the rapidity of a blue-bottle fly."
— C. S. Cooper and W. Percival Westell, Trees & Shrubs of the British Isles, 1909

"A voracious reader, Walker planned on making it through the novel 'The Alchemist' by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho for the second time. That pursuit got sidetracked when coach Gregg Popovich gave him a stack of books to read, including the latest memoir of former President Barack Obama."
— Jeff McDonald, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News, 23 Dec. 2020

Did You Know?
Voracious is one of several English words that derive from the Latin verb vorare, which means "to eat greedily" or "to devour." 

Vorare is also an ancestor of devour and of the -ivorous words, which describe the diets of various animals. These include carnivorous ("meat-eating"), herbivorous ("plant-eating"), omnivorous ("feeding on both animals and plants"), frugivorous ("fruit-eating"), graminivorous ("feeding on grass"), and piscivorous ("fish-eating").

Caveat

 WORD OF THE DAY

caveat / noun / KAV-ee-aht

Definition
1a: a warning enjoining one from certain acts or practices
1b: an explanation to prevent misinterpretation
1c: a modifying or cautionary detail to be considered when evaluating, interpreting, or doing something
2: a legal warning to a judicial officer to suspend a proceeding until the opposition has a hearing

Examples
"Hospitality worker and workers' rights advocate Chloe Ann-King said raising the minimum wage was crucial for the already low-wage industry. While she welcomed the increase, it came with a caveat as business owners would hire fewer staff, putting increased pressure on existing workers."
— Anuja Nadkarni, Stuff (Wellington, New Zealand), 8 Jan. 2021

"The report details the percentage of students who graduate within four years from when they first enroll in ninth grade. Still, there are caveats to the numbers. For one, students who leave the district after their freshman year to be home-schooled or enroll in private schools aren't included in the calculation."
— Sommer Brugal, The Treasure Coast News (Palm Beach, Florida), 7 Jan. 2021

Did You Know?
You may be familiar with the old saying caveat emptor, nowadays loosely translated as "let the buyer beware."
In the 16th century, this adage was imparted as a safeguard for the seller: allow the buyer to examine the item (for example, a horse) before the sale is completed, so the seller can't be blamed if the item turns out to be unsatisfactory.
Caveat in Latin means "let him beware" and comes from the verb cavēre, meaning "to be on guard." Perhaps you've also heard caveat lector: "let the reader beware," a warning to take what one reads with a grain of salt.
English retained caveat itself as a noun for something that serves to warn, explain, or caution.
The word caution is another descendant of cavēre.

Belie

 WORD OF THE DAY

belie / verb / bih-LYE

Definition
1a: to give a false impression of
1b: to present an appearance not in agreement with
2a: to show (something) to be false or wrong
2b: to run counter to
2c: contradict
3a: to obscure the existence or true state or character of
3b: disguise

Examples
Martin's easy banter and relaxed attitude belied his nervousness.

"But his humble presence belies the adventurous life that brought him through World War II and multiple attempts at sailing around the world."
— Alejandra Garcia, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 21 Dec. 2020

Did You Know?
"What is a lie?" asked Lord Byron in Don Juan. He then answered himself:
"'Tis but the truth in masquerade...."
The history of belie illustrates a certain connection between lying and disguising.
In Old English, belie meant "to deceive by lying," and, in time, was used to mean "to tell lies about," taking on a sense similar to that of the modern word slander.
Eventually, its meaning softened, shifting from an act of outright lying to one of mere misrepresentation, and by the early 1700s, the word was being used in the sense "to disguise or conceal."
Nowadays, belie suggests giving an impression at variance with the facts rather than telling an intentional untruth.

Febrile

 WORD OF THE DAY

febrile / adjective / FEB-ryle

Definition
1: marked or caused by fever
2: feverish

Examples
"The best news, [Michael Schwab] said, is his daughter is healthy…. Her pediatrician later said she probably had roseola, a common childhood viral infection marked by a sudden fever accompanied by a febrile seizure that is typically harmless."
— Jenny Deam, The Houston (Texas) Chronicle, 27 Nov. 2020

"Continually, young men, singly or in groups, came from the doorway, wiping their lips with sidelong gestures of the hand. The whole place exhaled the febrile bustle of the saloon on a holiday morning."
— Frank Norris, The Octopus, 1901

Did You Know?
Not too surprisingly, febrile originated in the field of medicine.
We note its first use in the work of the 17th-century medical reformer Noah Biggs. Biggs used it in admonishing physicians to care for their "febrile patients" properly.
Both feverish and febrile are from the Latin word for "fever," which is febris.
Nowadays, febrile is used in medicine in a variety of ways, including references to such things as "the febrile phase" of an illness. And, like feverish, it also has an extended sense, as in "a febrile emotional state."

Absolve

 WORD OF THE DAY

absolve / verb / ub-ZAHLV

Definition
1: to set (someone) free from an obligation or the consequences of guilt
2: to pardon or forgive a sin usually as a sacrament

Examples
"Hugh almost blurted out his belief that the Bishop would be sure to absolve Bran, for his contrition was beyond doubting and the greatest guilt lay with Guy, but he stopped just in time, knowing that Bran blamed no one but himself."
— Sharon Kay Penman, The Reckoning, 1991

"If descendants cannot be found, the church is hopeful that courts will legally absolve them from having to do so, and the land transfer can move forward."
— Kenneth C. Crowe II, The Albany (New York) Times Union, 26 Oct. 2020

Did You Know?
The act of absolving can be seen as releasing someone from blame or sin, or "loosening" the hold that responsibility has on a person, which provides a hint about the word's origins.
Absolve was adopted into Middle English in the 15th century from the Latin verb absolvere, formed by combining the prefix ab- ("from, away, off") with solvere, meaning "to loosen."
Absolve also once had additional senses of "to finish or accomplish" and "to resolve or explain," but these are now obsolete.
Solvere is also the ancestor of the English words solve, dissolve, resolve, solvent, and solution.

Prepossessing

 WORD OF THE DAY

prepossessing / adjective / pree-puh-ZESS-ing

Definition
1 (archaic): creating prejudice
2a: tending to create a favorable impression
2b: attractive

Examples
"When she left a while later, with Jeff, Annie turned at the door to look for Graham. She found him—he was so tall, so prepossessing, that he was easy to spot."
— Sue Miller, Monogamy, 2020

"However, as psychoanalysis has taught us, it is the least prepossessing dreams, disguised as such to put us off the scent, that sometimes bear the most important messages from inner life."
— Janet Malcom, The New York Review of Books, 28 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?
If you've heard of the word unprepossessing, it probably comes as no surprise to you that there's also a prepossessing.
You may not know, however, that both derive from the verb prepossess, which is also still used in English, although it's quite rare.
When prepossess first appeared in print in English in the early 17th century it meant "to take previous possession of," but that sense is now obsolete.
The adjective prepossessing came into use later in that century and is based on a later sense, "to influence favorably beforehand."
Someone or something that is prepossessing, therefore, makes a good first impression.

Quisling

WORD OF THE DAY

quisling / noun / KWIZ-ling

Definition
1: one who commits treason
2: traitor, collaborator

Examples
"Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the 'quisling' to the resistance of the patriot."
— J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," 1947

"The episode centres around a fictitious scene in which Mountbatten confronts Prince Charles over his pursuit of married Camilla Parker Bowles. During the robust exchange with Mountbatten, the Prince of Wales hits back, describing him as a 'quisling'…."
— Rodney Edwards, The Independent (Ireland), 22 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?
Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian army officer who in 1933 founded Norway's fascist party. In December 1939, he met with Adolf Hitler and urged him to occupy Norway.
Following the German invasion of April 1940, Quisling served as a figurehead in the puppet government set up by the German occupation forces, and his linguistic fate was sealed.
Before the end of 1940, quisling was being used generically in English to refer to any traitor.
Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and H. G. Wells used it in their wartime writings.
Quisling lived to see his name thus immortalized, but not much longer. He was executed for treason soon after the liberation of Norway in 1945.

Esoteric

 WORD OF THE DAY

esoteric / adjective / ess-uh-TAIR-ik

Definition
1a: designed for or understood by those with specific knowledge or training
1b: difficult to understand
2a: limited to a small circle
2b: private, confidential
3: of special, rare, or unusual interest

Examples
The judge's decisions were difficult to parse because they were loaded with esoteric legal terminology.

"It turned out Sanford probably knew more about jai alai … than he did coaching football. But give him credit for guiding the Rebels to 5-7 finishes in 2008 and 2009—and for making a young beat writer's day by acknowledging his esoteric reference to a nearly forgotten game."
— Ron Kantowski, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 19 Dec. 2020

Did You Know?
The opposite of esoteric is exoteric, which means "suitable to be imparted to the public."
According to one account, those who were deemed worthy to attend the Greek philosopher Aristotle's learned discussions were known as his "esoterics," his confidants, while those who merely attended his popular evening lectures were called his "exoterics."
Since material that is geared toward a target audience is often not as easily comprehensible to outside observers, esoteric acquired an extended meaning of "difficult to understand."
Both esoteric and exoteric started appearing in English in the 17th century; esoteric traces back to ancient Greek by way of the Late Latin esotericus. The Greek esōterikos is based on the comparative form of esō, which means "within."

Gadabout

 WORD OF THE DAY

gadabout / noun / GAD-uh-bout

Definition
: a person who goes from place to place in social activity

Examples
"He always thought death was just around the corner. He had no time to waste. As a young man he had been a gadabout, without focus. 'Where some in his situation would have found God, Stephen [Hawking] found physics,' says Mlodinow."
— Marcus Berkmann, The Daily Mail (UK), 24 Sept. 2020

"Here's where [Bill] Murray enters the picture as Laura's father, Felix, a semi-retired art dealer and jet-setting gadabout who returns to town just in time to be the devil on his daughter's shoulder."
— Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, 30 Sept. 2020

Did You Know?
If you had to pick the insect most closely related to a gadabout, you might wryly guess the "social butterfly."
But there's another bug that's commonly heard buzzing around discussions of the gadabout: the gadfly. Gadfly is a term used for any of a number of winged pests (such as horseflies) that bite or annoy livestock.
Since gadflies are known for their nasty bite, it's not surprising that they are named after a sharp chisel or pointed bar used by miners to loosen rock and ore called a "gad."
But, although a gadabout's gossip can bite, gadfly doesn't have any clear etymological relation to gadabout, which traces back to the Middle English verb gadden, whose etymology etymologists are still trying to catch.