Numinous

WORD OF THE DAY

numinous / adjective / NOO-muh-nus

What It Means
1: supernatural, mysterious
2a: filled with a sense of the presence of divinity
2b: holy
3a: appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense
3b: spiritual

Examples
The book has less to do with heroic resistance than with something harder to put your finger on: the numinous, world-renewing potential that some Apache feel in Oak Flat.
— Max Norman, The New Yorker, 23 July 2021

Set in the fairy tale-like beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the film captures a numinous world that shimmers between the visionary and natural.
— BostonGlobe.com, 5 May 2021

Did You Know?
Numinous is from the Latin word numen, meaning "nod of the head" or "divine will" (the latter sense suggesting a figurative nod, of assent or of command, of the divine head).
English speakers have been using numen for centuries with the meaning "a spiritual force or influence."
The meanings of the adjective include "supernatural" or "mysterious" (as in "possessed of a numinous energy force"), "holy" ("the numinous atmosphere of the catacombs"), and "appealing to the aesthetic sense" ("the numinous nuances of her art").
There are also the nouns numinousness and numinosity, although these are rare. 

Hubris

 WORD OF THE DAY

hubris / noun / HYOO-bris

Definition

: exaggerated pride or self-confidence

Examples
When conceived it was a project of almost unimaginable boldness and foolhardiness, requiring great bravura, risking great hubris.
— Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman, 1998

If you were born Somewhere, hubris would come easy. But if you are Nowhere's child, hubris is an import, pride a thing you decide to acquire.
— Sarah Vowell, GQ, May 1998

Did You Know?
English picked up both the concept of hubris and the term for that particular brand of cockiness from the ancient Greeks, who considered hubris a dangerous character flaw capable of provoking the wrath of the gods.
In classical Greek tragedy, hubris was often a fatal shortcoming that brought about the fall of the tragic hero.
Typically, overconfidence led the hero to attempt to overstep the boundaries of human limitations and assume a godlike status, and the gods inevitably humbled the offender with a sharp reminder of their mortality.

Amenable

 WORD OF THE DAY

amenable / adjective / uh-MEE-nuh-bul

Definition
1a: liable to be brought to account
1b: answerable
2a: capable of submission (as to judgment or test)
2b: suited
2c: readily brought to yield, submit, or cooperate
2d: willing

Examples
Mr. Bush is in a position to make his party more amenable to minorities and especially blacks. He should seize the moment.
— Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal, 16 Jan. 2003

While no one yet knows how wide … margins can go, contracts establish royalty rates and project them far into the future. Many agents have thus pushed for a term of license of just a few years. Publishers, however, are not always amenable.
— Steven M. Zeitchik, Publishers Weekly, 14 June 1999

Did You Know?
Amenable is a legacy of Anglo-French and derives ultimately from Latin minari, meaning "to threaten."
Since 1596, English speakers have been using it in courtrooms and writings of law with the meaning "answerable," as in "citizens amenable to the law."
It later developed the meanings "suited" ("a simple function ... which is perfectly amenable to pencil-and-paper arithmetic"—Nature, April 1973) and "responsive" (as in "mental illnesses that are amenable to drug therapy").
It also came to be used of people with a general disposition to be agreeable or complaisant—like Mr. Dick in David Copperfield, who was "the most friendly and amenable creature in existence."
Nowadays, "amenable" is often used to describe someone who is favorably disposed to a particular named something.

Fugitive

 WORD OF THE DAY

fugitive / noun / FYOO-juh-tiv

Definition
1a: a person who flees or tries to escape
1b: a person who flees a country or location to escape danger (such as war) or persecution
1c: REFUGEE
1d: a person (such as a suspect, witness, or defendant) involved in a criminal case who tries to elude law enforcement especially by fleeing the jurisdiction
2: something elusive or hard to find

Examples
"Subsequent to Hopkins' arrest, an arrest warrant for his mother … was issued on July 9, 2021 for harboring a fugitive from justice."
— Kathleen Guill, The Frederick (Oklahoma) Press-Leader, 13 Jul. 2021

As he daydreamed, fugitive thoughts passed through his mind.

Did You Know?
Fugitive was adopted into English as both a noun and an adjective in the 14th century. Both forms came to Middle English by way of Middle French from the Latin adjective fugitivus.
Fugitivus, in turn, comes from fugitus, the past participle of the verb fugere, meaning "to flee."
Since its adoption, the noun fugitive has been used to identify a motley group of individuals: runaway slaves and soldiers, on-the-run criminals, exiles, refugees, and vagabonds.
Eventually, it also developed a less commonly used extended sense for things which are difficult to find or pin down.

Ossify

 WORD OF THE DA Y

ossify / verb / AH-suh-fye

Definition
1: to change into bone
2: to become hardened or conventional and opposed to change
3: to change (a material, such as cartilage) into bone
4: to make rigidly conventional and opposed to change

Examples
"The cultural revolution was the product of Mao's fear, if not paranoia. He worried that the communist party was becoming ossified and selfish careerists were taking over."
— Michael Carey, The Alaska Dispatch News, 13 May 2021

For these writers, the ossified ideologies of the world, imbedded in the communal imagination, block vision, and as artists they respond not by criticism from without but by confrontation from within.
—Robert Coover, The New York Times Book Review, 18 Mar. 1984

Did You Know?
The skeletons of mammals originate as soft cartilage that gradually transforms into hard bone (in humans, the process begins in the womb and continues until late adolescence).
This bone-building process has been called ossification since the late 17th century, and the verb ossify arrived soon after the noun.
Both terms have come to refer to figurative types of hardening, such as that of the heart, mind, or soul.
The words come from the Latin root os, meaning "bone."
Os has also entered English as a synonym of bone in scientific contexts.

Cryptic

 WORD OF THE DAY

cryptic / adjective / KRIP-tik

Definition
1: secret, occult
2a: having or seeming to have a hidden or ambiguous meaning
2b: mysterious
2c: marked by an often perplexing brevity
3a: serving to conceal
3b: exhibiting cryptic coloration
4: not recognized
5: employing cipher or code

Examples

"Major League Baseball teased an upcoming announcement Tuesday with a cryptic tweet captioned: 'Big things coming.' At this point, no one really knows what this means, except that whatever MLB plans to announce Wednesday might possibly maybe have something to do with the moon, which, in the mysterious tweet, was edited to look like a baseball hovering over the date, 6.23.21."
— Michelle R. Martinelli, USA Today, 22 June 2021

Madden's Ikaris, for example, can fly and shoot rays of light from his eyes, while Hayek's Ajak has the ability to heal, Henry's Phastos is a brilliant inventor, and Keoghan's Druig is a cryptic loner who can manipulate others' thoughts.
— Devan Coggan, EW.com, 18 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?
The history of cryptic starts with kryptein, a Greek word meaning "to hide."
Can you uncover other kryptein relatives in English? Not surprisingly, crypt, meaning "underground chamber," is one.
The element krypton would be another correct guess, and so would apocrypha, which can mean "writings of dubious authenticity."
Kryptein also gave us several words having to do with secret codes, such as cryptogram ("a communication in cipher or code") and cryptography ("the coding and decoding of secret messages").
And cryptocurrency is currency that exists digitally and that relies on computer encryption (secret code) to prevent counterfeiting and fraud.

Emigrate

 WORD OF THE DAY

emigrate / verb / EM-uh-grayt

Definition
: to leave one's place of residence or country to live elsewhere

Examples
"Originally from Jamaica, Martin emigrated to the UK in 2002 and enrolled in an IT course at a college in East London."
 — The Caribbean Today, July 2021

But this representation did not prevent the ravages of the Great Famine of 1845-52, during which a million Irish people died of starvation or disease and another million were forced to emigrate.
— Michael F. Bishop, WSJ, 6 Aug. 2021

Wilfredo León, known as the Cristiano Ronaldo of volleyball, decided to leave his native Cuba in 2013 and emigrate to Poland.
— Georgi Kantchev, WSJ, 2 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?
Migrate, emigrate, and immigrate are all about being on the move.
All those terms come from the Latin word migrare, which means "to move from one place to another."
Emigrate and immigrate sound alike, and it is true that both involve leaving one location and entering another.
The subtle difference between them lies in point of view: emigrate stresses leaving the original place, while immigrate focuses on entering the new one.
You won't have trouble keeping them straight if you remember that the prefix e- means "away," as in eject, and the prefix im- or in- means "into," as in inject.

Undulant

 WORD OF THE DAY

undulant / adjective / UN-juh-lunt

Definition:
1: rising and falling in waves
2: having a wavy form, outline, or surface

Examples
"Gilliam broke ranks with the movement—or extended it—in the mid-sixties, when he began draping vast unstretched paint-stained and -spattered canvases from walls and ceilings, creating undulant environments that drenched the eye in effulgent color."
— Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2020

The pool deck looks out on the undulant topography of Beverly Hills, with the steeple tops of pine trees etched in the distance.
— Barrett Swanson, Harper's Magazine, 25 May 2021

Michael Maloney reads this extraordinary book in gentle undulant tones for the most part, picking up speed and urgency as danger threatens, above all the otter hunt.
— Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2020

Did You Know?
Unda, Latin for "wave," is the root of undulant, as well as words such as abound, inundate, redound, surround, and the verb undulate, which means "to form or move in waves."
The meaning of undulant is now broad enough that it could describe things as disparate as a snake’s movement and a fever that waxes and wanes.

Winnow

WORD OF THE DAY

winnow / verb / WIN-oh

Definition
1a: to remove (something, such as chaff) by a current of air
1b: to get rid of (something undesirable or unwanted)
1c: remove —often used with out
1d: separate, sift
2a: select
2b: to treat (something, such as grain) by exposure to a current of air so that waste matter is eliminated
2c: to free of unwanted or inferior elements
2d: pare, narrow, reduce
3: to blow on, fan
4: to separate chaff from grain by fanning
5: to separate desirable and undesirable elements

Examples
"Cast members apply for the positions. The field is winnowed down through interviews until the final two are selected."
— Dewayne Bevil, The Orlando (Florida) Sentinel, 30 June 2021

Newton will hold a citywide Sept. 14 primary to winnow down a three-way race for the next mayor ahead of the city’s municipal election in November, as Ruthanne Fuller campaigns for a second four-year term amid challenges by and Albert Cecchinelli.
— BostonGlobe.com, 28 July 2021

Trump and other Cheney critics worry that a splintered field gives her a clear shot at winning the nomination and reelection, and are looking for a way to winnow the field.
— Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2021

Did You Know?
Beginning as windwian in Old English, winnow first referred to the removal of chaff from grain by a current of air.
This use was soon extended to describe the removal of anything undesirable or unwanted (a current example of this sense would be "winnowing out sensitive material").
People then began using the word for the selection of the most desirable elements (as in "winnowing out the qualified applicants").
The association of winnow with the movement of air also led to the meanings "to brandish" and "to beat with or as if with wings," but those uses are now rare.
The last meanings blew in around the beginning of the 19th century: they are "to blow on" and "to blow in gusts." 

Defenestration

 WORD OF THE DAY

defenestration / noun / dee-fen-uh-STRAY-shun

Definition
1: a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
2: a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)

Examples
"And now, in spite of its electoral success, the supposedly more orthodox and settled Johnson administration that followed the defenestration of Cummings and Cain looks increasingly unstable."
— Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 13 May 2021

"Cheney's defenestration and Stefanik's subsequent ascent were an anticlimax, and not just because the switch-a-roo had been choreographed for weeks."
— Gregory Krieg, CNN, 15 May 2021

Did You Know?
These days defenestration—from the Latin fenestra, meaning "window"—is often used to describe the forceful removal of someone from public office or from some other advantageous position.
History's most famous defenestration, however, was one in which the tossing out the window was quite literal.
On May 23, 1618, two imperial regents were found guilty of violating certain guarantees of religious freedom and were thrown out the window of Prague Castle.
The men survived the 50-foot tumble into the moat, but the incident marked the beginning of the Bohemian resistance to Hapsburg rule that eventually led to the Thirty Years' War and came to be known as the Defenestration of Prague (it was the third such historical defenestration in Prague, but the first known to be referred to as such by English speakers).

Tousle

 WORD OF THE DAY

tousle / verb / TOW-zul

Definition:

1a: Scotland - rough dalliance 

1b: tussle

2: a tangled mass (of hair)

Examples

"Mr. Sliwa grinned as he touseled a Shih Tzu named Sonnyboy, calling him a 'puffball.'" — Nate Schweber, The New York Times, 22 June 2021

In front of him was a woman with her face thrown up to the sky, her hands rising as if to tousle her hair.

— Amanda Hess, New York Times, 11 May 2020

 

Did You Know?

Tousle is a word that has been through what linguists call a "functional shift." That's a fancy way of saying it was originally one part of speech, then gradually came to have an additional function. Tousle started out as a verb back in the 15th century and, after a few centuries of grooming, debuted as a noun referring to a tangled mass (also often used to talk about messy hair). Etymologists connect tousle to an Old High German word meaning "to pull to pieces."

Bromide

 WORD OF THE DAY

bromide / noun / BROH-myde

Definition:
1: a binary compound of bromine with another element or a radical including some (such as potassium bromide) used as sedatives
2a: a commonplace or tiresome person
2b: bore
2c: a commonplace or hackneyed statement or notion.

Examples
"A banal bromide like 'trust the science' helps neither science nor the public in the long run. The key is effective communication: neither proselytizing nor bland recitation of the facts."
— Cory Franklin, The Wyoming County (Pennsylvania) Press Examiner, 9 Dec. 2020

Bromine arrives as sodium bromide, usually powdered, with specific instructions for the right amount to use for your pool size.
— Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 6 May 2021

Did You Know?
After bromine was discovered in 1827, chemists could not resist experimenting with the new element.
It didn't take long before they found uses for its compounds, in particular potassium bromide, which was used as a sedative to treat everything from epilepsy to sleeplessness.
By the 20th century, bromide was being used figuratively to apply to anything or anyone that might put one to sleep because of commonness or just plain dullness.

Kvell

 WORD OF THE DAY

kvell / verb / KVEL

Definition:
1: to be extraordinarily proud
2: rejoice

Examples
"[Norman Lear] had no reason to think he would be a comedy icon with some 120 million people watching his shows each week. How his Russian-born Jewish grandparents would have kvelled."
— Sybil Adelman Sage, The Forward, 17 Sep. 2020

The parents kvelled over their daughter's dance solo.

Did You Know?
Kvell comes from Yiddish kveln, meaning "to be delighted," which, in turn, comes from the Middle High German word quellen, meaning "to well, gush, or swell."
Yiddish has been a wellspring of creativity for English, giving us such delightful words as meister ("one who is knowledgeable about something"), maven ("expert"), and shtick ("one's special activity"), just to name a few.
The date for the appearance of kvell in the English language is tricky to pinpoint exactly.
The earliest known printed evidence for the word in an English source is found in a 1952 handbook of Jewish words and expressions.

Berate

 WORD OF THE DAY

berate / verb / bih-RAYT

Definition
: to scold or condemn vehemently and at length

Examples
"Don't berate yourself over canceling plans," the lifestyle expert said. "It is sometimes more important that you allow for time to take care of yourself."

"During Russell's tirade Wednesday, he didn't shout at any particular player, but his team as a whole. 'I would never single someone out and berate them,' Russell said."
— Shaun Goodwin, The Kansas City Star, 17 June 2021

Did You Know?
Berate and rate can both mean "to rebuke angrily or violently."
This sense of rate was first recorded in the 14th century, centuries before the familiar (and etymologically unrelated) rate meaning "to estimate the value of."
We know that berate was probably formed by combining the prefix be- and the older rate, but the origins of this particular rate itself are somewhat more obscure.

Nimrod

 WORD OF THE DAY

nimrod / noun / NIM-rahd

Definition
1: hunter
2: idiot, jerk

Examples
"The hunting season is now in full blast. Several nimrods, both veteran and amateur, are shouldering the gun and marching to the woods and marshes."
— Gary Pullano, The Holland (Michigan) Sentinel, 13 Dec. 2015

"The stereotypical cast for the film-within-the-film cleverly overacts and paints their obnoxious characters as helpless nimrods." 
— Alex Pelham, The Daily Texan (University of Texas), 14 Mar. 2015

Did You Know?
The word nimrod gets its start in the Bible: Nimrod was king of a country known as Shinar, and he's described in Genesis as "the first on earth to be a mighty man" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord."
English speakers of the 16th century didn't think Nimrod was particularly benevolent; they used his name as a synonym of tyrant—a meaning that is now obsolete.
In the 17th century, English speakers began using nimrod as a generic term for any hunter. That meaning is not especially common today but it's still encountered occasionally, especially in hunting and fishing journalism.
The legendary Nimrod is also sometimes associated with the attempt to build "the tower of Babel," which resulted in the wrath of the Lord, proved a disastrous idea, and gave nimrod yet another meaning: "a stupid person."

Resilience

 WORD OF THE DAY

resilience / noun / rih-ZIL-yunss

Definition
1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

Examples
Cold temperatures caused the material to lose resilience.

"Luis Rojas has long preached the gospel of resilience. He talks about it when the Mets come from behind, or when yet another player goes down with an injury."
— Laura Albanese, Newsday (New York), 2 July 2021

Did You Know?
In physics, resilience is the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape.
The recovery that occurs in this phenomenon can be viewed as analogous to a person's ability to bounce back after a jarring setback.
The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil."
The base of resilire is salire, a verb meaning "to leap" that also pops up in the etymologies of such sprightly words as sally and somersault.

Abject

 WORD OF THE DAY

abject / adjective / AB-jekt

1a: sunk to or existing in a low state or condition
1b: very bad or severe
2a: cast down in spirit
2b: servile, spiritless
2c: showing hopelessness or resignation
3: expressing or offered in a humble and often ingratiating spirit

Examples
The youth offered an abject apology for his misdeed.

"We tend not to dwell on the provenance of cheap gizmos. Periodically, we're moved to outrage, even boycott, by revelations of the abject conditions in which certain items are produced; then we move on."
— Stephen Phillips, Datebook (The San Francisco Chronicle), 26 Jan. 2021

Did You Know?
Abject comes from the Latin abjectus (meaning "downcast," "humble," or "sordid"), the past participle of the Latin verb abicere, meaning "to cast off."
Its original meaning in English was "cast off" or "rejected," but it is now used to refer more broadly to things in a low state or condition.
Abject shares with mean, ignoble, and sordid the sense of being below the normal standards of human decency and dignity.

Moot

 WORD OF THE DAY

moot / adjective / MOOT

Definition
1a: open to question
1b: debatable
1c: subjected to discussion
1d: disputed
2a: deprived of practical significance
2b: made abstract or purely academic

Examples
We thought of containers for anyone who wanted to bring home cookies, but it's a moot point now since they have all been eaten.

"As Austin voters address the city's controversial homeless camping policies, a parallel debate is playing out at the Texas Legislature that could render the outcome largely moot."
— Ryan Autullo, The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, 26 Apr. 2021

Did You Know?
Moot derives from gemōt, an Old English name for a judicial court.
Originally, moot referred to either the court itself or an argument that might be debated by one.
By the 16th century, the legal role of judicial moots had diminished, and the only remnant of them were moot courts, academic mock courts in which law students could try hypothetical cases for practice.
Back then, moot was used as a synonym of debatable, but because the cases students tried in moot courts were simply academic exercises, the word gained the additional sense "deprived of practical significance."
Some commentators still frown on using moot to mean "purely academic," but most editors now accept both senses as standard.

Dally

 WORD OF THE DAY

dally / verb / DAL-ee

Definition
1a: to act playfully
1b: to play amorously
1c: to deal lightly
1d: toy
2a: to waste time
2b: linger, dawdle

Examples
Alton has been dallying with the idea of starting a bakery.

"Just as businesses that dallied too long before moving into the era of computing lost ground and eventually faded away, companies that delay in adopting the technologies of the future will find it impossible to keep up with those that take the necessary steps quickly.”
— Pritom Das, Entrepreneur, 21 May 2021

Did You Know?
English speakers have been playing with dally since the 14th century. They first started using the word with the meaning "to chat," which was also the meaning of the Anglo-French word from which it was derived, but that meaning fell into disuse.
Next, dalliers were amusing themselves by acting playfully with each other especially in amorous and flirtatious ways.
Apparently, some dalliers were also a bit derisive, leading dally to mean "to deal with lightly or in a way that is not serious."
It didn't take long for the fuddy-duddies to criticize all this play as a waste of time.
By the mid-16th century, dally was weighted down with its "to waste time" and "to dawdle" senses.

 

Flexuous

WORD OF THE DAY

flexuous / adjective / FLEK-shuh-wus

Definition
1: having curves, turns, or windings
2: lithe or fluid in action or movement

Examples
The last leg of the trail is a flexuous path leading up the mountain to a spectacular panoramic view of the valley.

"This pine [the longleaf pine] is not confused (or at least shouldn't be) with any other tree: the combination of long, flexuous needles (in 3's), whitened-silvery buds, and large cones make it distinctive in the Southeast, although in some cases our native slash pine looks similar."
— John Nelson, Post & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), 18 Mar. 2021

Did You Know?
Flexuous is a synonym of curvy. It is typically used in botany to describe plant stems that aren't rigid.
But don't let that tendency deflect you from occasionally employing this ultimately quite flexible word.
Stemming straight from Latin flectere, meaning "to bend," it can also mean "undulating" or "fluid."
It might, for example, be used of writing or music, or of something or someone that moves with a fluid sort of grace.

Pulchritude

 WORD OF THE DAY

pulchritude / noun / PUHL-kruh-tood

Definition
: physical comeliness

Examples

The magazine features a photo essay of celebrities who are famed for their Hollywood stardom and pulchritude.

"Sadly, Renee's judgment on Mrs. Appleyard's baby's pulchritude, or lack of it, turned out to be true—he was an 'ugly little thing.'"
— Kate Atkinson, Life After Life: A Novel, 2013

Did You Know?
Pulchritude is a descendant of the Latin adjective pulcher, which means "beautiful."
Pulcher hasn't exactly been a wellspring of English terms, but it did give English both pulchritude and pulchritudinous, an adjective meaning "attractive" or "beautiful."
The verb pulchrify (a synonym of beautify), the noun pulchritudeness (same meaning as pulchritude), and the adjective pulchrous (meaning "fair or beautiful") are other pulcher offspring, but those terms have proved that, in at least some linguistic cases, beauty is fleeting.

Exemplary

 WORD OF THE DAY

exemplary / adjective / ig-ZEM-pluh-ree

Definition
1a: deserving imitation
1b: commendable
1c: deserving imitation because of excellence
1d: serving as a pattern
2: serving as an example, instance, or illustration
3a: serving as a warning
3b: monitory

Examples
The novel is exemplary of 18th-century Romanticism.

"The awards … celebrate the exemplary performance of public school teachers throughout the city that inspire students, model great teaching, and enrich school communities."
— Annalise Knudson, The Staten Island (New York) Advance, 25 June 2021

Did You Know?
Exemplary (and its close relatives example and exemplify) derives from the Latin noun exemplum ("example").
When exemplary describes something as "excellent," it almost always carries the further suggestion that the thing described is worthy of imitation.