Procrastinate

 WORD OF THE DAY

procrastinate / verb / prə-ˈkra-stə-ˌnāt  

Definition
1: to put off intentionally and habitually
2: to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done

Examples
"Don’t procrastinate by dwelling excessively on statistics."
— Cleveland, 2 Oct. 2021

"People said Facebook was a fad, a tool for people to procrastinate."
— Martine Paris, Fortune, 13 Sep. 2021

Did you know?
We won't put off telling you about out the origins of "procrastinate."
English speakers borrowed the word in the 16th century from Latin procrastinatus, which itself evolved from the prefix pro-, meaning "forward," and crastinus, meaning "of tomorrow."
Like its synonyms "delay," "lag," "loiter," "dawdle," and "dally," "procrastinate" means to move or act slowly so as to fall behind. It typically implies blameworthy delay especially through laziness or apathy.

Eloquent

 WORD OF THE DAY

el·​o·​quent / adjective / ˈe-lə-kwənt

Definition
1: having or showing the ability to use language clearly and effectively
2: clearly showing feeling or meaning
3: marked by forceful and fluent expression
4: vividly or movingly expressive or revealing

Examples
He [H. L. Mencken] relished the vagaries of vernacular speech and paid eloquent homage to them in The
American Language.
— Jackson Lears, New Republic, 27 Jan. 2003

Samuel Johnson is palmed off in classrooms as a harmless drudge of a lexicographer, yet open the Dictionary anywhere and find precision and eloquent plainness.
— Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination, (1954) 1981

Did you know?
Since "eloquent" can have to do with speaking, it makes sense that it comes from the Latin verb loqui, which means "to speak."
Loqui is the parent of many "talkative" offspring in English.
"Loquacious," which means "given to fluent or excessive talk," also arose from loqui.
Another loqui relative is "circumlocution," a word that means someone is talking around a subject to avoid making a direct statement (circum- means "around").
And a ventriloquist is someone who makes his or her voice sound like it’s coming from another source.

Treacle

 WORD OF THE DAY

treacle / noun / ˈtrē-kəl

Definition
1a: (chiefly British) molasses
1b: a blend of molasses, invert sugar, and corn syrup used as syrup
2: something (such as a tone of voice) heavily sweet and cloying
3: a medicinal compound formerly in wide use as a remedy against poison

Examples
The top-note is aromatic and savory, hinting at a vintage solera wine; herbal notes of fenugreek leaf and
parsley float above a very light suggestion of liquorice, with some treacle toffee in the base.
— Emily Price, Forbes, 4 May 2021

This approximately two-thirds Merlot and one-third Cabernet Franc blend includes commanding and ebullient but dense and rich aromas of rich ripe red cherries, plums, blueberries, figs and treacle.
— Tom Mullen, Forbes, 10 May 2021

Did you know?
The long history of "treacle" begins in ancient Greece.
The Greek word thēriakos, meaning "of a wild animal," came from "thērion" ("wild animal").
Since wild animals are often known to bite, these words gave rise to thēriakē, meaning "antidote against a poisonous bite."
Latin borrowed thēriakē as "theriaca," and the word eventually entered Anglo-French - and then Middle English - as "triacle."
The senses of "treacle" that refer to molasses developed from the earlier "antidote" sense.
The "molasses" sense, in turn, was extended to give us a word for things excessively sweet or sentimental.

Facile

 WORD OF THE DAY

facile / adjective / FASS-ul

Definition
1a: easily accomplished or attained
1b: shallow, simplistic
1c: used or comprehended with ease
1d: readily manifested and often lacking sincerity or depth
2 (archaic): mild or pleasing in manner or disposition
3a: ready, fluent
3b: poised, assured

Examples
"It feels as though the songs just came to be. They reveal a facile elegance that does not let on the laborious writing and technical work that went into their creation."
— Julien A. Luebbers, The Spokesman Review (Spokane, Washington), 20 Aug. 2021

But in the less palmy days of their marriage and the final years of his life, Lennon produced (with Yoko's help) shallow, facile recordings that cannibalized his early work.
— Francine Prose, The Lives of the Muses, 2002

Did You Know?
Would you have guessed that "facile" and "difficult" are related? They are!
"Facile" comes to us through Middle French, from the Latin word facilis, meaning "easy, and ultimately from facere, meaning "to make or do."
"Difficult" traces to "facilis" as well, but its history also involves the negative prefix dis-, meaning "not."
"Facile" can mean "easy" or "easily done," as befits its Latin roots, but it now often adds the connotation of undue haste or shallowness, as in "facile answers to complex questions."

Hector

 WORD OF THE DAY

hector / verb / HEK-ter

Definition
1: bully, braggart
2a: to behave in an arrogant or intimidating way
2b: to play the bully
2c: swagger
3: to intimidate or harass by bluster or personal pressure

Examples
"… a sport hectored by scandal and dogged by unanswerable questions."
— Bob Ford, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 July 2019

Mr. Liggett sometimes used his art to hector neighbors in a score of grievances.
— Donald Frazier, Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2017

Did You Know?
Hector wasn't always a bully. In Homer's Iliad, the eldest son of King Priam of Troy was a model soldier, son, father, and friend, the champion of the Trojan army until he was killed by the Greek hero Achilles.
How did the name of a Trojan paragon become a generic synonym of bully?
That pejorative English use was likely influenced by gangs of rowdy street toughs who roamed London in the 17th century and called themselves "Hectors." They may have thought themselves gallant young blades, but to the general populace they were merely swaggering bullies who intimidated passersby and vandalized property.
By 1660, hector was being used as a noun for the sort of blustering braggarts who populated those gangs, and as a verb as well.

Perpetuity

 WORD OF THE DAY

perpetuity / noun / per-puh-TOO-uh-tee

Definition
1: eternity
2: the quality or state of being perpetual
3a: the condition of an estate limited so that it will not take effect or vest within the period fixed by law
3b: an estate so limited
4: an annuity payable forever

Examples
"Nearly 120 acres in Bradford County … will be free from development in perpetuity, thanks to a conservation easement acquisition by the North Florida Land Trust."
— The Florida Times-Union, 18 Sept. 2021

The hotel and restaurant will pay 2.5% of gross sales receipts to SITLA in perpetuity, and SITLA provided developers with a $4 million loan to facilitate bringing power, water and sewer utilities to the site.
— Zak Podmore, The Salt Lake Tribune, 9 Oct. 202

Did You Know?
Continual existence—that elusive concept has made perpetuity a favorite term of philosophers and poets for centuries.
The word derives ultimately from the Latin adjective perpetuus ("continual" or "uninterrupted"), which is also the source of our perpetual and perpetuate.
It frequently occurs in the phrase "in perpetuity," which essentially means "forever" or "for an indefinitely long period of time."
Perpetuity also has some specific uses in law. It can refer to an arrangement in a will rendering land forever inalienable (or at least, for a period longer than is set by rules against such arrangements) or to an annuity that is payable forever.

Untoward

 WORD OF THE DAY

untoward / adjective / un-TOH-erd

Definition
1a: difficult to guide, manage, or work with
1b: unruly, intractable
2a: marked by trouble or unhappiness
2b: unlucky
2c: not favorable
2d: adverse, unpropitious
3: improper, indecorous

Examples
"At 82, Judy Collins retains the crystalline tone that made her an icon of the early 1960s folk music movement, sounding so youthful … it's hard not to ask her whether she's made an untoward bargain with the devil."
— Andrew Gilbert, The San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Sept. 2021

Remove all human drivers and all of those untoward driving actions would presumably no longer exist
— Lance Eliot, Forbes, 5 Apr. 2021

Did You Know?
More than 700 years ago, English speakers began using the word toward for "forward-moving" youngsters, the kind who showed promise and were open to listening to their elders.
After about 150 years, the use was broadened somewhat to mean simply "docile" or "obliging." The opposite of this toward is froward, meaning "perverse" or "ungovernable."
Today, froward has fallen out of common use, and the cooperative sense of toward is downright obsolete, but the newcomer to this series—untoward—has kept its toehold.
Untoward first showed up as a synonym of unruly in the 1500s, and it is still used, just as it was then, though it has since acquired other meanings as well.

Nomenclature

 WORD OF THE DAY

nomenclature / noun / NOH-mun-klay-cher

Definition

1: name, designation

2: the act or process or an instance of naming

3a: a system or set of terms or symbols especially in a particular science, discipline, or art

3b: an international system of standardized New Latin names used in biology for kinds and groups of kinds of animals and plants

Examples

One of the worst mistakes a retailer can make is to build their own commerce ecosystem and then force brands into a system of nomenclature.

— Kristin Savilia, Forbes, 30 Aug. 2021

"Conkles Hollow, located less than two miles north of … the state park visitors' center, isn't technically part of the park…. But the nomenclature means little for visitors, who will find … myriad waterfalls along Conkle Hollow's two hiking trails." 

— Steve Stephens, The Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle Gazette, 19 Sept. 2021

Did You Know?

In his 1926 Dictionary of Modern English Usage, grammarian H. W. Fowler asserted that it was wrong to use nomenclature as a synonym for name; he declared that nomenclature could only mean "a system of naming or of names." 

It is true that nomenclature comes from the Latin nomenclatura, meaning "the assigning of names," but the name sense was the first to appear in English (it is documented as long ago as 1610), and it has been considered perfectly standard for centuries.

Zaftig

 WORD OF THE DAY

zaftig / adjective / ZAHF-tig

Definition
1: having a full rounded figure
2: pleasingly plump

Examples
"The photography exhibition revels in depictions of Coney Island, including Lisette Model's widely-reproduced 1939-40 portrait of a zaftig woman  … laughing as waves lap at her feet…."
— Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 29 Aug. 2021

Portraits of zaftig models are exhibited in the artist's collection.

Did You Know?
Over the centuries, some women have been approvingly described as full-figured, shapely, womanly, curvy, curvaceous, voluptuous, and statuesque.
Such women are, in a word, zaftig. Zaftig has been juicing up our language since the 1930s (the same decade that gave us Yiddish-derived futz, hoo-ha, and schmaltz, not to mention lox).
It comes from the Yiddish zaftik, which means "juicy" or "succulent" and which in turn derives from zaft, meaning "juice" or "sap."

Embellish

 WORD OF THE DAY

embellish / verb / im-BELL-ish

Definition
1a: to make beautiful with ornamentation
1b: decorate
2a: to heighten the attractiveness of by adding decorative or fanciful details
2b: enhance

Examples
"Well, I've always wanted to write a children's book. This is just partly based on a story I used to tell Krishna, my daughter, when she was going to bed at night, but we just embellished it and embellished it."
— Padma Lakshmi, quoted in Bon Appétit, 27 May 2021

When putting flowers in a clear vase, embellish the water with fall crab apples, winter cranberries and slices of summer citrus.

— Marni Jameson, orlandosentinel.com, 17 Sep. 2021

Did You Know?

Like its synonyms adorn, ornament, and garnish, embellish means to make something beautiful by the addition of a decorative or fanciful feature. Traditionally, the word is used specifically to stress the addition of superfluous or adventitious ornament, as in "The printer embellished the page with a floral border." Embellish differs from its synonyms, however, in that it is sometimes used in a euphemistic way to refer to the inclusion of details that are not necessarily true to make a story sound more appealing. The word derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French verb embelir, from en- and bel ("beautiful").

Cabal

 WORD OF THE DAY

cabal / noun / kuh-BAHL

Definitiono

1a: the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government)

1b: a group engaged in such schemes

2: club, group

Examples

"February 14? … That's an arbitrary date picked by a cabal of florists and greeting card manufacturers. Love can happen any time of the year…." 

— Bruce Gravel, Peterborough (Ontario) This Week, 4 Feb. 2021

The New World Order is a contemporary appellation of the centuries-old fear that a secret international cabal is surreptitiously seeking global domination.

— Mike Giglio, The New Yorker, 28 July 2021

Did You Know?

In A Child's History of England, Charles Dickens associates the word cabal with a group of five ministers in the government of England's King Charles II.

The initial letters of the names or titles of those men (Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale) spelled cabal, and they have been collectively dubbed as the "Cabal Cabinet" or "Cabal Ministry." 

But these five names are not the source of the word cabal, which was in use decades before Charles II ascended the throne. 

The term traces back to cabbala, the Medieval Latin name for the Kabbalah, a traditional system of esoteric Jewish mysticism. 

Latin borrowed Cabbala from the Hebrew qabbālāh, meaning "received or traditional lore."

Odious

 WORD OF THE DAY

odious / adjective / OH-dee-us

Definition
1: arousing or deserving hatred or repugnance
2: hateful 

Examples
"There are probably few things more emotion-laden and odious as taxes. But for a society to function for the common good, they are a necessary evil."
— William P. Cawley, The Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch, 15 Sept. 2021

He learned an important lesson some years ago in Panama. Manuel Antonio Noriega was too odious even for Carter, who shunned the Panamanian strongman in the run-up to the 1989 ballot there.
— Jim Wooten, New York Times Magazine, 29 Jan 1995

Did You Know?
Odious has been with us since the days of Middle English. We borrowed it from Anglo-French, which in turn had taken it from Latin odiosus.
The Latin adjective came from the noun odium, meaning "hatred."
Odium is also an ancestor of the English verb annoy (another word that came to Middle English via Anglo-French).
And, at the beginning of the 17th century, odium entered English in its unaltered form, giving us a noun meaning "hatred" or "disgrace" (as in "ideas that have incurred much odium").

Extricate

 WORD OF THE DAY

extricate / verb / EK-struh-kayt

Definition

1: to free or remove from an entanglement or difficulty

2a: to distinguish from a related thing

2b (archaic): unravel

Examples

"The skylight has been lifted off Toland Hall to create an opening large enough to extricate the panels by crane." — Sam Whiting, The San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Aug. 2021

The local government, recognizing the number of local children drawn into smuggling, has launched a program to extricate them from the business.

— Kevin Sieff, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2021

 

Did You Know?

It can take an ample amount of dexterity - manual, verbal, or mental - to free yourself from a tangled situation. This can be seen in extricate, a word derived from Latin extricatus, which combines the prefix ex- ("out of") with the noun tricae, meaning "trifles or perplexities." (The resemblance of tricae to our word trick is no illusion; it’s an ancestor.) While a number of words (such as "disentangle") share with extricate the meaning of "to free from difficulty," extricate suggests the act of doing so with care and ingenuity, as in "Through months of careful budgeting, he was able to extricate himself from his financial burdens."

Restauranteur

 WORD OF THE DAY

restaurateur / noun / res-tuh-ruh-TER

Definition

: the operator or proprietor of a restaurant

Examples

"Savvy restaurateurs have been turning to milkshakes to create buzz for their brands in recent years thanks to the visual nature of maxed-out milkshakes … with their over-the-top flavors laden with indulgent toppings like churros, whole cake slices and ice cream bars." — The Nation's Restaurant News, 20 Aug. 2021

Jimmy Neary, the restaurateur in charge of Neary’s restaurant and pub on 57th Street and First Avenue in New York City for more than 50 years, has died.

— Fox News, 3 Oct. 2021

Did You Know?

Restaurateur and restaurant are French words from Latin restaurare, meaning "to restore." 

Of the two words, restaurant is more common—a fact that may have influenced the development of the variant spelling restauranteur for restaurateur. 

Some people consider restauranteur to be an error, but it is still on the menu as an acceptable word choice.

Cavalier

 WORD OF THE DAY

cavalier / adjective / kav-uh-LEER

Definition:
1: marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters
2: debonair
3a (capitalized): of or relating to the party of Charles I of England in his struggles with the Puritans and Parliament
3b: aristocratic
3c (capitalized): of or relating to the English Cavalier poets of the mid-17th century
4: a gentleman trained in arms and horsemanship
5a: a mounted soldier
5b: knight
6a: a lady's escort or dancing partner
6b: gallant

Examples
"Another surprisingly common problem is grant applications that are poorly written. In some cases, poor writing can make your argument difficult to comprehend, and it certainly suggests a cavalier attitude to the process."
— Michelle Havich, The American City & County (Atlanta, Georgia), 12 Aug. 2021

The action begins with an almost careless, cavalier suicide by a young subway worker whose wife, Annie, is pregnant with their first child.
— Mary Gordon, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2017

Did You Know?
According to a dictionary prepared by Thomas Blount in 1656, a cavalier was "a knight or gentleman, serving on horseback, a man of arms."
That meaning is true to the history of the noun, which traces back to the Late Latin word caballarius, meaning "horseman."
By around 1600, it had also come to denote "a roistering, swaggering fellow." In the 1640s, English Puritans applied it disdainfully to their adversaries, the swashbuckling Royalist followers of Charles I, who sported longish hair and swords.
Although some thought those cavaliers "several sorts of Malignant Men,… ready to commit all manner of Outrage and Violence," others saw them as quite suave—which may explain why cavalier can be either complimentary or a bit insulting.

Loll

 WORD OF THE DAY

loll / verb / LAHL

Definition:
1a: to hang loosely or laxly
1b: droop
2a: to act or move in a lax, lazy, or indolent manner
2b: lounge
3: to let droop or dangle

Examples
"Curiously, while the seals loll on the sand for a month, their metabolic capacity does not decrease."
— Veronique Greenwood, The New York Times, 8 July 2021

"Mid-August was always my favorite part of summer: still time to loll in the relaxing heat of the season with the sweet anticipation of a new season waiting in the wings."
— Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?
Loll has origins similar to those of another soothing verb, lull, which means "to cause to rest or sleep."
Both words can be traced back to 14th-century Middle English and probably originated as imitations of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep.
Loll has also been used in English as a noun meaning "the act of lolling" or "a relaxed posture," but that use is now considered archaic.
In its "recline" or "lean" sense, loll shares synonyms with a number of "l" verbs, including loaf, lounge, and laze.

Intransigent

WORD OF THE DAY

intransigent / adjective / in-TRAN-suh-junt

Definition
1: characterized by refusal to compromise or to abandon an often extreme position or attitude
2: uncompromising

Examples
"So we're this incredibly adaptable creature because we have these very plastic brains. And our experience imprints itself on those brains, and we become habituated to things. … And that's just the way they are. … And this is … what makes us so intransigent, so resistant to change…."
— James Suzman, quoted in The New York Times, 29 June 2021

Israel’s previous government, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had denigrated Abbas as an intransigent inciter of violence and never met with him.
— BostonGlobe.com, 25 Sep. 2021

Did You Know?
English speakers borrowed "intransigent" in the 19th century from Spanish intransigente ("uncompromising"), itself a combination of the familiar prefix in- ("not") and "transigente" ("willing to compromise").
"Transigente" comes from the Spanish verb transigir ("to compromise"), which in turn comes from Latin transigere ("to come to an agreement").
The French have a similar verb, "transiger," which also means "to compromise."
You may wonder if the word transigent exists in English, and the answer is "not really."
It has seen occasional use, but it is not well established.
There is, however, one other common English word that traces from Latin transigere: transact, meaning "to conduct (business)."

Mettle

 WORD OF THE DAY

mettle / noun / MET-ul

Definition
1a: vigor and strength of spirit or temperament
1b: staying quality
1c: stamina
2a: quality of temperament or disposition
2b: aroused to do one's best

Examples
"Recently, 23 of Watauga's best math students met virtually to test their mettle against their peers in the annual MathCounts competition—a contest that tasks young mathematicians to tackle challenging math problems in a timed tournament format."
— The Blowing Rocket (Blowing Rock, North Carolina), 22 Apr. 2021

Tour officials limited capacity to just 20%, but the spectators still were a welcome sight to Thomas and more than enough to test his mettle.
— Edgar Thompson, orlandosentinel.com, 15 Mar. 2021

Did You Know?
Originally, mettle was simply a variant spelling of the word metal (which dates to at least the 13th century), and it was used in all of the same senses as its metallic relative.
Over time, however, mettle came to be used mainly in figurative senses referring to the quality of someone's character.
It eventually became a distinct English word in its own right, losing its literal sense altogether.
Metal remained a term primarily used for those hard, shiny substances such as steel or iron, but it also acquired a figurative use.
Today, both words can mean "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament," but only metal is used of metallic substances.