Quiddity

 WORD OF THE DAY

quiddity / noun / KWID-uh-tee

Definition
1a: whatever makes something the type that it is
1b: essence
2a: a trifling point
2b: quibble
2c: crochet, eccentricity

Examples
“This is typical [of author Karl Ove] Knausgaard. He observes a subject so closely, mining so far into its essence—its quiddity—that the observations transcend banality and become compelling. In other words, he draws the space between the objects.”
— Peter Murphy, The Irish Times, 20 Mar. 2018

Our skulls are like space helmets; we are trapped in our heads, unable to convey the quiddity of our sensations.
— Jason Pontin, WIRED, 16 Apr. 2018

Did You Know?
When it comes to synonyms of quiddity, the Q's have it.
Consider quintessence, a synonym of the "essence of a thing" sense of quiddity (this oldest sense of quiddity dates from the 14th century).
Quibble is a synonym of the "trifling point" sense; that meaning of quiddity arose from the subtler points of 16th-century academic arguments.
And quirk, like quiddity, can refer to a person's eccentricities.
Of course, quiddity also derives from a "Q" word, the Latin pronoun quis, which is one of two Latin words for "who" (the other is qui).
Quid, the neuter form of quis, gave rise to the Medieval Latin quidditas, which means "essence," a term that was essential to the development of the English quiddity.

Motley

WORD OF THE DAY

motley / adjective / MAHT-lee

Definition
1: variegated in color
2: made up of many different people or things
3: a woolen fabric of mixed colors made in England between the 14th and 17th centuries
4a: a garment made of motley
4b: the characteristic dress of the professional fool
5: jester, fool
6: a mixture especially of incongruous elements

Examples
"As evidenced by Burmese pythons and ubiquitous iguanas, there’s a motley roster of nonnative reptile species surviving in Florida—three times the amount of indigenous species—but there are two in particular that are on the rise."
— Bill Kearney, The South Florida Sun Sentinel, 12 Aug. 2022

Megan’s second studio album, Traumazine, is a thrill ride of a listen, a motley mix of slick bops and searing confessionals that wonderfully encapsulate all of her various vibes.
— Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 12 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
The word motley wears many colorful hats, each having a distinct use.
As an adjective it implies variety, be it in hues or humans.
As a noun it can identify an eclectic variety, a multicolored fabric, a garment made from such a fabric, or the jester known for wearing such garments in the European courts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The word's origin is unknown, but some etymologists suspect that Middle English mot, meaning "mote" or "speck," may be its source.
There may be a speck of truth to that. Surely, etymologists (and lexicographers) don’t jest.

Onomatopoeia

 WORD OF THE DAY

onomatopoeia / noun / ah-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh

Definition
1a: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)
1b: a word formed by onomatopoeia
2: the use of words whose sound suggests the sense

Examples
“[John] Madden’s influence, steeped in Everyman sensibilities and studded with wild gesticulations and paroxysms of onomatopoeia—wham! doink! whoosh!—made the N.F.L. more interesting, more relevant and more fun for over 40 years.”
— Ben Shpigel, The New York Times, 28 Dec. 2021

Thousands of fireflies, called kelip-kelip in Malaysia — their name is a sort of visual onomatopoeia for their twinkling — can settle on riverside trees. 
—  Joshua Sokol, Quanta Magazine, 20 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
English speakers have only used the word onomatopoeia since the 1500s, but people have been creating words inspired by the sounds heard around them for much longer.
It may not surprise you to learn that fizz, jingle, toot, and pop are onomatopoeic in origin, but did you know the same is true of bounce, tinker, and blimp?
Boom! Now you do. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that language originated in the imitating of natural sounds.
While it’s highly unlikely that onomatopoeia is the sole impetus for human language, it certainly made a mark, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Wheedle

 WORD OF THE DAY

wheedle / verb / WEE-dul

Definition
1: to influence or entice by soft words or flattery
2: to gain or get by wheedling
3: to use soft words or flattery

Examples
"In the book [Françoise Gilot] recalls a moment when Claude, a small boy, pleaded to be allowed into her studio. Loitering just outside her door, he wheedled, 'I love you, Mama.' No luck. He liked her painting, he told her, adding after a time, 'It's better than Papa's.' At that, she weakened and welcomed him inside."
— Ruth La Ferla, The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2022

The aim of Just Stop Oil and Letzte Generation has been to wheedle people for not caring more about the climate crisis.
 — Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 27 Oct. 2022

Did You Know?
Wheedle has been a part of the English lexicon since the mid-17th century, though no one is quite sure how it wheedled its way in.
(It has been suggested that the term may have come from the Old English word wǽdlian, which meant "to beg," but this is far from certain.)
Be careful not to confuse wheedle with the similar-sounding weasel.
While both words are applied in situations in which someone is trying to persuade another person, weasel is especially apt in cases in which the persuader is being clever or dishonest in their efforts, while wheedle always specifically involves soft words and flattery.

Vamoose

WORD OF THE DAY

vamoose / verb / vuh-MOOSS

Definition
: to depart quickly

Examples
"[Ali S.] Khan's group packed fast and vamoosed on a small airplane, which rose straight into a thrashing thunderstorm."
— David Quammen, The New Yorker, May 4, 2020

Nearby, a woman was making her own bathroom right next to the entrance of a residential building, vamoosing only when the doorman, Clever Santos Chavez, chased her away.
— Washington Post, 24 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?
In the 1820s and '30s, the American Southwest was rough-and-tumble territory—the true Wild West. English-speaking cowboys, Texas Rangers, and gold prospectors regularly rubbed elbows with Spanish-speaking vaqueros in the local saloons, and a certain amount of linguistic intermixing was inevitable.
One Spanish term that caught on with English speakers was vamos, which means "let's go."
Cowpokes and dudes alike adopted the word, at first using a range of spellings and pronunciations that varied considerably in their proximity to the original Spanish form.
But when the dust settled, the version most American English speakers were using was vamoose.

Leonine

 WORD OF THE DAY

leonine / adjective / LEE-uh-nyne

Definition
: of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion

Examples
“As I tried harder and harder ... I began to understand more about what [Fabio] meant at the time, to both me and to his fans. For me, I kind of thought he was just a hood ornament of '90s masculinity. Heroic and leonine, ripped like He-Man but draped in finely tailored Italian linen. There always seemed to be a wind machine plugged in somewhere just out of his frame.”
— Jason Sheeler, People.com, 11 Aug. 2021

Most famously, leonine tenor saxophonist Von Freeman remains a symbol of the music even after his death here in 2012, at age 88.
— Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 22 Sep. 2019

Did You Know?
Hear us roar! Most people or characters described as leonine aren’t cowardly (with one famous exception, of course), but rather noble, strong, regal, or possessed of similarly positive virtues associated with pride-forming big cats.
Leonine clawed its way into the English language from the Latin word leo (“lion”), which in turn comes from the Greek word leōn.
Today, we have an interesting range of words that relate back to leōn: leopard (leōn + pardos, a Greek word for a panther-like animal); chameleon (leōn + the Greek chamai, meaning “on the ground”); and the names Leo, Leon, and Leonard.
But the dancer’s and gymnast’s leotard is not named for its wearer’s cat-like movements. Rather, it was simply named after its inventor, Jules Léotard, a 19th-century French aerial gymnast.

Temerity

WORD OF THE DAY

temerity / noun / tuh-MAIR-uh-tee

Definition
1a: unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition
1b: rashness, recklessness
2: a rash or reckless act

Examples
"As Jackson sauntered during the ensuing break in play, his chin up defiantly and jaw clenched, James did a double-take at the apparent temerity, his next-play focus transforming into disapproval."
— Houston Mitchell, The Los Angeles Times, 4 Mar. 2022

He defeated giant corporations—the auto industry, big pharma—back when no one else was even trying to; he had the temerity to believe that fighting for safety and quality and transparency was a quintessentially American thing to do.
—  Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly, 16 Feb. 2007

Did You Know?
When you’re feeling saucy, there’s no shortage of words in the English language you can use to describe the particular flavor of your metaphorical sauce, from audacity and effrontery to the Yiddish-derived fan favorite chutzpah.
If we may be so bold, let us also suggest temerity: it comes from the Latin temere, meaning “recklessly” or “haphazardly,” and is good for suggesting boldness even in the face of danger or likely punishment.
Temerity is a formal word, rarely used in casual writing or conversation, but provided you have the cheek to flout this convention, you may be thinking “what have I got to lose?”
When it comes to flagrant boldness, temerity, audacity, hardihood, and effrontery have the cheek to get your meaning across.
Of those synonyms, temerity suggests boldness arising from contempt of danger, while audacity implies a disregard of the restraints commonly imposed by convention or prudence.
Hardihood implies firmness in daring and defiance, and effrontery suggests a shameless disregard of propriety and courtesy.
If you're looking for a more informal term for a brash attitude, you might consider nerve, cheek, gall, or chutzpah.

Farce

WORD OF THE DAY

farce / noun / FAHRSS

Definition
1: stuff
2: to improve or expand (something, such as a literary work) as if by stuffing
3a: a savory stuffing
3b: foremeat
4: a light dramatic composition marked by broadly satirical comedy and improbable plot
5: the broad humor characteristic of farce
6: an empty or patently ridiculous act, proceeding, or situation

Examples
"It seems absurd that [Manchester United manager Erik] Ten Hag, after only a matter of weeks in charge, could be under such scrutiny despite being parachuted into a situation not of his making, but many fans would argue that the club has long since descended into farce."
— Rob Dawson, ESPN.com, 18 Aug. 2022

Satires like Ginder’s that retain a warmth and perhaps just enough of a spirit of farce can point out the wounds without hurting too badly.
—  John Warner, Chicago Tribune, 7 May 202

Did You Know?
From Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, many of us are familiar with farce in its dramatic sense.
However, when farce first appeared in English, it had to do with cookery, not comedy. In the 14th century, English adopted farce from Middle French with its original meaning of "forcemeat"—that is, a highly seasoned, minced meat or fish often served as a stuffing.
In the 16th century, English imported the word again, this time to refer to a kind of knockabout comedy already popular in France.
French farce had its origins in the 13th-century practice of "stuffing" Latin church texts with explanatory phrases.
By the 15th century, a similar practice of inserting unscripted buffoonery into religious plays had arisen.
Such farces—which included clowning, acrobatics, reversal of social roles, and indecency—soon developed into a distinct dramatic genre and spread rapidly in various forms throughout Europe.

Nugatory

WORD OF THE DAY

nugatory / adjective / NOO-guh-tor-ee

Definition
1a: of little or no consequence
1b: trifling, inconsequential
2a: having no force
2b: inoperative

Examples
“Elsewhere [on Death Cab for Cutie’s latest album], [Ben Gibbard] … continues his apparent affinity for writing songs about driving on ‘Wheat Like Waves’ and the gorgeously golden ‘Rand McNally,’ named after the now nugatory road atlas books.”
— Madeline Roth, The Daily Beast, 27 Aug. 2022

Yet all of these questions seem, increasingly, merely nostalgic, nugatory, in the face of the dissolution of the common solidarity of principles that had once made the liberation happen.
—    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 6 June 2019

Did You Know?

Just because nugatory isn’t the most common word in the English language doesn’t mean it’s trifling.
Rather, nugatory is literally trifling because the two words are synonymous, as in “comments too nugatory to merit attention.”
Like its synonyms vain, idle, empty, and hollow, nugatory means "without worth or significance."
But while nugatory suggests triviality or insignificance ("a monarch with nugatory powers," for example), vain implies either absolute or relative absence of value (as in "vain promises").
Idle suggests being incapable of worthwhile use or effect (as in "idle speculations").
Empty and hollow suggest a deceiving lack of real substance or genuineness (as in "an empty attempt at reconciliation" or "a hollow victory").
Nugatory first appeared in English in the 17th century; it comes from the Latin adjective nugatorius, which can mean  “trifling”, “frivolous” and "futile”  but also is ultimately a derivative of the noun nugae, meaning "trifles."
This sense carried over into English as well, and so in some contexts nugatory means “ineffective” or “having no force,” as when Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson invoked “the nugatory value of the contemporary penny.”
Nugatory may mean little to some, but we think it’s worth a pretty penny

Hummock

 WORD OF THE DAY

hummock / noun / HUM-uk

Definition
1: a rounded knoll or hillock
2: a ridge of ice

Examples
“...Yellowlegs nest on the ground, often at the base of a small tree or mossy hummock, so I watched my feet carefully. The nest is a small cup in the moss, typically lined with little dead leaves, lichens, and sedges.”
— Mary F. Wilson, The Juneau (Alaska) Empire, 14 June 2022

Its hummock was part of a wetland spiked with tamarack saplings and carpeted with wild cranberries.
—  Paul A. Smith, Journal Sentinel, 14 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Having trouble telling a hummock from a hammock from a hillock?
Not to worry: all three words refer to a small hill or earthen mound.
Hummock, in fact, is an alteration of hammock; this 16th century pair share an ancestor with the Middle Low German words hummel (“small height”) and hump (“bump”), the latter of which is also a distant relative of our English word hump.
As for the 14th-century vintage hillock, a version of the suffix -ock has been attached to nouns to designate a small one of whatever since the days of Old English.
Note that the hilly hammock mentioned here is not related to the hammock offering a swaying repose between supports. That hammock comes from the Spanish hamaca, and ultimately from Taino, a language spoken by the original inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas.

Augur

WORD OF THE DAY

augur / verb / AW-gur

Definition
1: to foretell especially from omens
2a: to give promise of
2b: presage

Example
"This year, MLS has increased the pipeline that is in place for women to be leaders at the team level. This is exemplified by the number of groundbreaking hires that have occurred. ... The addition of these women in their team front offices augurs well for the future."
— Richard Lapchick, ESPN.com, 9 Nov. 2021

ByteDance’s growth in emerging markets could be an augur of what’s to come.
—  Chris Stokel-walker, Wired, 22 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
In ancient Rome, augurs were official diviners whose function it was to divine whether the gods approved of a proposed undertaking, such as a military move.
They did so by various means, among them observing the behavior of birds and examining the entrails of sacrificed animals.
 We doubt the Romans predicted that augur would eventuate into a verb meaning “presage or foretell,” but in retrospect, augur’s path must have been in the stars.

Magnanimous

WORD OF THE DAY

magnanimous / adjective / mag-NAN-uh-mus

Definition
1: showing or suggesting a lofty and courageous spirit
2: showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind

Examples
“[Former Olympic champion, Mark] Spitz was in a three-day period between his finals, the last of which was a full day off. At the routine Thursday night press conference for medal winners, Spitz asked to be excused from questions so the spotlight could play on his three relay teammates ‘because this is their first gold medal.’ ... It was a wonderfully magnanimous gesture, but I knew from past interviews that winning the 100-meter butterfly that night was much bigger to him than he was indicating...”
— Bob Hammel, The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Indiana), 4 Sept. 2022

Rosengart’s legal guidance has helped make possible this magnanimous humanitarian effort.
— Malina Saval, Variety, 20 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
When you see anima, animus, or a similar formation in a word, it’s often an indicator of something alive, lively, or spirited.
Something described as animated is full of life, for example, and the word animal refers to a living thing. The Latin word anima means “breath” or “soul” and animus means “spirit.”
In magnanimous, animus is joined by the Latin word magnus, meaning “great.” Basically meaning “greatness of spirit,” magnanimity is the opposite of selfishness.
A truly magnanimous person can lose without complaining and win without gloating, and angry disputes can sometimes be resolved when one side makes a magnanimous gesture toward the other.

Crucible

WORD OF THE DAY

crucible / noun / KROO-suh-bul

Definition
1: a vessel of a very refractory (see REFRACTORY entry 1 sense 3) material (such as porcelain) used for melting and calcining a substance that requires a high degree of heat
2: a severe test
3: a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development

Examples
“Fungi have helped trees adapt on a millennial scale. They could be crucial to helping trees adapt in the climate crisis. ‘In difficult times, organisms find new symbiotic relationships in order to expand their reach,’ said Dr. [Cosmo] Sheldrake, the biologist. ‘Crisis is the crucible of new relationships.’”
— Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, 27 July 2022

But it’s a country far from the battlefield that has turned into a kind of crucible of the global moment.
— Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 5 July 2022

Did You Know?
Unless you’re studying Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in school, it may not be crucial to learn the story behind crucible, but it can’t hurt! Crucible looks like it should be closely related to the Latin combining form cruc- (“cross”); however, unlike crucial, it isn’t.
It was forged instead from the Medieval Latin crucibulum, a noun for an earthen pot used to melt metals, and in English it first referred to a vessel made of a very heat-resistant material (such as porcelain) used for melting a substance that requires a high degree of heat.
It’s possible that the resemblance between cruc- and crucible encouraged people to start using crucible to mean “a severe trial,” as that sense is synonymous with one meaning of cross, but the idea of simmering in a literal crucible also sounds plenty severe.
The newest sense of crucible (“a situation in which great changes take place,” as in “forged in the crucible of war”) recalls the fire and heat required to transform some solids into liquids.

Bilious

WORD OF THE DAY

bilious / adjective / BILL-yus

Definition
1a (biology): of or relating to a yellow or greenish fluid that is secreted by the liver and that aids especially in the emulsification and absorption of fats
1b: of or relating to bile
1c (biology): marked by or suffering from liver dysfunction and especially excessive secretion of bile
1d: appearing as if affected by a bilious disorder
2: of or indicative of a peevish ill-natured disposition
3: sickeningly unpleasant

Examples
"Inserting a character inspired by Big Daddy Pollitt in Tennessee Williams's 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' into a scenario patched together from three William Faulkner works, Orson Welles so thoroughly dominates 'The Long, Hot Summer' as Will Varner, the bilious magnate of Mississippi small town, that the other actors struggle to make themselves known."
— Scott Tobias, The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2022

Today Is the Today — into a bilious noise-rock confection, all rumbling bass, spat-out vocals and rusty-wire guitar.
—  Hank Shteamer, SPIN, 27 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
Bilious is one of several words whose origins trace to the old belief that four bodily humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood) control temperament.
Just like phlegmatic ("of a slow and stolid phlegm-driven character"), melancholy ("experiencing dejection associated with black bile"), and sanguine ("of a cheerful, blood-based disposition"), bilious suggests a personality associated with an excess of one of the humors—in this case, yellow bile.
Such a personality may also be described as unreasonable, peevish, or ill-tempered, as typified by Charlotte Brontë in her 1849 novel, Shirley: "These two men, of hard, bilious natures both, rarely came into contact but they chafed each other’s moods."

Encapsulate

WORD OF THE DAY

encapsulate / verb / in-KAP-suh-layt

Definition
1: to enclose in or as if in a capsule
2: epitomize, summarize

Examples
"Catherine Lutz, a longtime valley journalist, edited the book for correct style and punctuation purposes, without altering [writer Peggy] Clifford’s content. She also wrote the captions to go along with each photo. ‘The captions for the photos were purposed to encapsulate the text of the book, so if someone were to just flip through without reading the text, they could get its essence from the photos and their captions,’ Lutz said...”
— Jacqueline Reynolds, The Aspen (Colorado) Daily News, 21 Aug. 2022

After giving birth to her second child with Kanye West, Saint, in 2015, the reality star decided to encapsulate her placenta to try and avoid postpartum depression. 
—  Christina Butan, Peoplemag, 26 Oct. 2022

Did You Know?
Keeping it brief by encapsulating the history of this word in just a few sentences.
Encapsulate and its related noun, capsule, come to us from capsula, a diminutive form of the Latin noun capsa, meaning “box.” (Capsa also gave us the “container” or “box” meaning of the noun case.)
The earliest examples of encapsulate are for its literal use (“to enclose something in a capsule”) and date to the late 19th century.
Its extended meaning, “to give a summary or synopsis of something,” plays on the notion of a capsule being something compact, self-contained, and often easily digestible.

Serendipity

 WORD OF THE DAY

serendipity / noun / sair-un-DIP-uh-tee

Definition
1a: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for
1b: an instance of this

Examples
“One of the things I find so fascinating about New York Times Cooking is that reading one recipe often leads me to another, and the serendipity leads me to make something entirely different from what I had intended to make when I logged on.”
— Sam Sifton, The New York Times, 2 Oct. 2022

As they leapfrog from South Africa to Singapore in search of local delicacies, the authors prove again and again that serendipity is the traveler's strongest ally: many of their most memorable meals issue from the hands of generous strangers …
— Sarah Karnasiewicz, Saveur, June/July 2008

Did You Know?
The word serendipity did not come about by luck; rather, it was intentionally coined by 18th century author Horace Walpole, who was eager to share a happenstance discovery he had made while researching a coat of arms.
In a letter to his friend Horace Mann he wrote:

“This discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of ...”

Walpole’s memory of the tale (which, as luck would have it, was not quite accurate) gave serendipity the meaning it retains to this day.

Gauche

 WORD OF THE DAY

gauche / adjective / GOHSH

Definition
1a : lacking social experience or grace
1b: not tactful
1c: crude
1d: crudely made or done
2: not planar

Examples
“When he completed his performance, [Olympic figure skater Nathan Chen] punched the air in celebration. Normally I find this display of open emotion a little bit gauche, but for Nathan, I’ll allow it. He was exquisite.”
— Chris Schleicher, Slate, 8 Feb. 2022

We were suburban housewives and mothers. As poets we took a respectful backseat to the male poets. We did not talk about our husbands and children in public; that would have been gauche indeed.
— Maxine Kumin, In Deep, 1987

Did You Know?
Although it doesn’t mean anything sinister, gauche is one of several words (including sinister) with ties to old suspicions and negative associations relating to the left side and use of the left hand.
In French, gauche literally means “left,” and it has the extended meanings “awkward” and “clumsy.”
These meanings may have come about because left-handed people could appear awkward trying to manage in a mostly right-handed world, or perhaps because right-handed people appear awkward when trying to use their left hand.
 Regardless, awkwardness is a likely culprit. Fittingly, awkward itself comes from the Middle English awke, meaning “turned the wrong way” or “left-handed.”
On the other hand, adroit and dexterity have their roots in words meaning “right” or “on the right side.”

Rapscallion

 WORD OF THE DAY

rapscallion / noun / rap-SKAL-yun

Definition
1: a person who causes trouble
2: rascal, ne'er-do-well

Examples
“Schmigadoon manages to collect practically every genre trope and cliche as well as outmoded cultural lens—from the small town rapscallion who can’t be tamed to the pure disbelief that meets the idea of a woman doctor—to lampoon in pitch perfect musical fun.”
— Brandon Katz, Observer, 6 July 2021

The embattled First Order military man could be the most stressed-out guy in the galaxy, first watching as Starkiller Base was blown sky high and then having to chase various rapscallions in the Resistance.
— Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 13 Dec. 2017

Did You Know?
The word rascal has been part of English since the 15th century, but it apparently failed to fully capture the disagreeable nature of the wily knaves of yore: by the 16th century, English speakers had expanded rascal to rascallion. But it seems that even that term didn’t sound quite mischievous enough.
Eventually, rascallion was further altered, resulting in the snappier, plosive-enhanced rapscallion, which is still commonly used as a synonym for varlet, scoundrel, and rogue.
And although rapscallion has zero connection with scallion, it does add a figuratively spicy kick to one’s speech, not unlike chawbacon and other cheeky insults that may be of interest and use.

Fustigate

 WORD OF THE DAY

fustigate / verb / FUSS-tuh-gayt

Definition
1: cudgel
2: to criticize severely

Examples
“This article explores major ways in which comedy exemplifies the power of popular culture to defy political censorship, advance freedom of expression, and contribute to the democratization of political culture in contemporary Africa. ... The article does so from the combined perspectives of political history and social philosophy. The latter perspective refers to the comedians’ conjuring up of Islamic and West African religious creeds to fustigate particular social flaws and moral deviancies that affect their society.” 
— Mohamed Saliou Camara, Nokoko (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), 1 Jan. 2022

Although they're sitting atop the standings now, the team went through a rough patch of getting absolutely fustigated by their division rivals.

Did You Know?
A modern fustigation won’t leave a bump on your head, but severe criticism can be a blow to your self-esteem.
When fustigate first left its mark on the English language in the mid-17th century, it did so with the meaning “to cudgel or beat with a short heavy club”—a sense that reflects the word’s Latin source, the noun fustis, meaning “club” or “staff.” (Beat, “to strike repeatedly,” is also a distant relative of fustis.)
The “criticize” sense of fustigate may be more common these days, but the violent use is occasionally a hit with sportswriters who employ it metaphorically to suggest how badly a team has been drubbed by their opponent.

Sallow

 WORD OF THE DAY

sallow / adjective / SAL-oh

Definition
1: any of several Old World broad-leaved willows (such as Salix caprea) including important sources of charcoal and tanbarkl
2: of a grayish greenish yellow color

Examples
"As a member of the 101st Airborne Division, Guy Whidden was among the first American paratroopers to head for Normandy in the early hours of June 6, 1944. The day before, he'd posed for a picture with a few of the other paratroopers. Sixty years later, he flashed the same impish grin, though his hair was white and his skin a little sallow."
— Tamela Baker, The Herald-Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), 25 Sept. 2022

His round face, once crimson, had become sallow, and acquired deep lines and wrinkles; his eyes too had become like his father’s, the rims swollen and red, a feature common to most peasants who work by the sea….
— Leslie T. Chang, The New York Review of Books, 21 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
In Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel A Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian’s unscrupulous friend Lord Henry Wotton impresses upon the young Dorian what the process of aging will do, saying "Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses.
You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed." Literature of the 19th century abounds with sallow people—Charles Dickens applied the word to characters in no fewer than 12 novels—but the word had been in use with the same meaning for centuries before that literary heyday.
Its synonymous Old English forbear is salu, which shares an ancestor with an Old High German word meaning "murky" as well as with a Russian word meaning "yellowish gray."

Lycanthropy

 WORD OF THE DAY

lycanthropy /noun / lye-KAN-thruh-pee

Definition
1: : a delusion that one has become a wolf
2: the assumption of the form and characteristics of a wolf held to be possible by witchcraft or magic

Examples
“In Marvel comics lore, Jack Russell on his 18th birthday learned of his family’s lycanthropy curse, which... every full moon transforms Jack into a powerful man-wolf hybrid possessing enhanced strength, speed, stamina, agility and reflexes.”
— Matt Webb Mitovich, TVLine.com, 12 Sept. 2022

The fantasies depicted were encyclopedic in their macabre scope, including murder, séances, ghost hunts, telekinesis, black magic, Nazis, lycanthropy and a visit by Jack the Ripper.
— Erik Piepenburg, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?
Whether about Zeus punishing King Lycaon for trickery or a perfectly coiffed werewolf drinking a piña colada in a London bar, tales of lycanthropy—the transformation of a person into a wolf or wolf-like creature—have captivated imaginations for millennia.
The word lycanthropy comes from the Greek words lykos, meaning “wolf,” and anthrōpos, meaning “human being.”
Halloween, the time of year when you’re most likely to encounter a lycanthropic individual (or several), also happens to be the perfect occasion to drop such etymological knowledge on their tufted little ears. You know, as a treat.

Scour

WORD OF THE DAY

scour / verb / SKOW-er

Definition
1a: to rub hard especially with a rough material for cleansing
1b: to remove by rubbing hard and washing
2 (archaic): to clear (a region) of enemies or outlaws
3a: to clean by purging
3b: purge
4: to remove dirt and debris from (something, such as a pipe or ditch)
5: to free from foreign matter or impurities by or as if by washing
6: to clear, dig, or remove by or as if by a powerful current of water
7: to perform a process of scouring
8: to suffer from diarrhea or dysentery
9: to become clean and bright by rubbing
10: a place scoured by running water
11: scouring action (as of a glacier)
12: diarrhea, dysentery
13: damage done by scouring action
14: to move about quickly especially in search
15: to go through or range over in or as if in a search

Example
“Many business owners don’t realize that they need to check if their brand name is available before setting it in stone. There are plenty of online tools that will scour the web to find websites and social media profiles that match a brand name you're thinking about.”
— Syed Balkhi, Forbes, 22 July 2022

Did You Know?
It doesn’t require much scouring of our website to see that there are two distinct scour verbs in English.
One has meanings relating to cleaning and washing away; that scour, which dates back to at least the early 14th century, probably comes from the Late Latin excurare, meaning “to clean off.”
A related noun scour refers to the action of this type of scouring, or to places that have been scoured, as by running water.
The other verb scour appeared a century earlier, and may come from the Old Norse skūr, meaning “shower.” 
Skūr is also distantly related to the Old English scūr, the ancestor of our English word shower.
Many different things can be scoured, such as an area (as in “scoured the woods in search of the lost dog”) or publications (as in “scouring magazine and newspaper articles”)

Notorious

WORD OF THE DAY

notorious / adjective / noh-TOR-ee-us

Definition
1: generally known and talked of
2: widely and unfavorably known

Example
“Like airlines, hotels are notorious for attaching additional charges to the bill at the end of a stay: resort fees, self-parking fees and fees for checking in early."
— Jacob Passy, The Wall Street Journal, 27 Aug. 2022

Cars are notorious for getting dirty quickly and being a total pain to clean.
— Annie Burdick, Peoplemag, 29 Oct. 2022

Did You Know?
For those who don’t give a hang about a bad reputation, being notorious for unpopular behavior is no biggie. (Being notorious for topping the Billboard charts? Now that's a Biggie.)
Although notorious (which comes from Latin noscere, "to come to know") can be a synonym of famous, it's more often a synonym of infamous, having long ago developed the additional implication of someone or something disreputable.
The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 includes one of the first known uses of the unfavorable meaning in print, referring to "notorious synners." You know what they say: more notorious synners, more problems.

Utopia

WORD OF THE DAY

utopia / noun / yoo-TOH-pee-uh

Definition
1 (often capitalized): a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions
2: an impractical scheme for social improvement
3: an imaginary and indefinitely remote place

Example
“This year’s Essence Festival activation plans to be bigger, more immersive, and further integrated than ever before. Centered around the idea of a Black utopia, Afrotropolis 3.0 will be an innovative 360-degree wonderland curated to intersect Black culture, creativity, artistry and technology with exciting opportunities for festival attendees to discover, explore, and further build their network.”
— Black Enterprise, 5 July 2022

Though surveys show that a majority of women will jump at a flexible work schedule if offered, home is not a utopia.
— Ellen Mcgirt, Fortune, 19 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
There’s quite literally no place like utopia. In 1516, English humanist Sir Thomas More published a book titled Utopia, which compared social and economic conditions in Europe with those of an ideal society on an imaginary island located off the coast of the Americas.
More wanted to imply that the perfect conditions on his fictional island could never really exist, so he called it “Utopia,” a name he created by combining the Greek words ou (“not, no”) and topos (“place”).
The earliest generic use of utopia was for an imaginary and indefinitely remote place. The current use of utopia, referring to an ideal place or society, was inspired by More’s description of Utopia’s perfection.

Defile

 WORD OF THE DAY

defile / verb / dih-FYLE

Definition
1a: make unclean or impure
1b: to corrupt the purity or perfection of
1c: debase
1d: to violate the chastity or virginity of
1e: deflower
1d: to make physically unclean especially with something unpleasant or contaminating
1e: to violate the sanctity of
1f: desecrate
1g: sully, dishonor
2a: a narrow passage (as between hills, rocks, or cliffs)
2b: gorge
3: to march off in a line

Example
“Now, in an about-face, the agency is preparing to rework those regulations, potentially allowing state officials to take a broader array of environmental concerns ... into account when deciding whether to approve major construction that could defile bodies of water.”
— Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post, 27 May 2021

Police charged Brevard with abduction with intent to defile in the Homewood Suites attack.
— Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
The verb defile (unrelated to this verb defile or its related noun) has a number of uses that are all variations on the idea of making something unclean or impure.
These meanings echo the word’s Middle English and Anglo-French ancestry, where defilement is connected to figurative and literal trampling.
The ultimate Anglo-French root is fuller, or foller, which means “to trample under foot,” “to oppress”—or literally, “to full.”
Full in this case is a technical term: when you full woolen cloth you shrink and thicken it by moistening, heating, and pressing it. Originally, the pressing part was done by trampling it with the feet.

Peculiar

 WORD OF THE DAY

peculiar / adjective / pih-KYOOL-yer

Definition
1a: characteristic of only one person, group, or thing
1b: distinctive
2: different from the usual or normal
2a: special, particular
2c: odd, curious
2d: eccentric, unusual
3: something exempt from ordinary jurisdiction

Example
"'Troll: A Love Story,' by Johanna Sinisalo, is a celebration of the imagination—a quirky and peculiar read for those who love something out of the ordinary. The protagonist, a young photographer in his 30s, finds a wounded troll (from the Scandinavian mythology) outside his apartment building, and decides to give it shelter."
— Pajtim Statovci, The New York Times, 14 Sept. 2022

As military coups go, this was a most peculiar one, bloodless, and in Bangkok at least quite popular.
— Ian Buruma, New York Review, 1 Mar. 2007

Did You Know?
It might strike you as odd that the origins of peculiar are livestock-related, so let us explain. The word's Latin ancestor, peculiaris, means "privately owned, extraordinary"; it traces back to pecu, meaning "cattle," by way of peculium, meaning "private property"—cattle of course being a particular kind of private property.
Given the monetary value historically placed in cattle, it makes sense that pecu has given us several money-related words, including pecuniary ("of or relating to money"), peculate ("to embezzle"), and impecunious ("having very little or no money").
Peculiar honed in on the "extraordinary" meaning of peculiaris, applying to what is characteristic of only one individual, group, or thing.
In modern use that sense is commonly followed by the preposition to, as in "a tradition peculiar to their family."
The "odd" and "eccentric" meanings of peculiar are extensions of that sense, and are now the word's most common applications

Sepulchre

 WORD OF THE DAY

sepulchre / noun / SEP-ul-ker

Definition
1a: a place of burial
1b: tomb
2: a receptacle for religious relics especially in an altar
3a (archaic): to place in or as if in a sepulchre
3b (archaic): bury
4 archaic : to serve as a sepulchre for

Example
“Unlike the Romans, though, for some 3,000 years of their history what the Egyptians mostly left behind was tombs. A pyramid is a sepulchre for the rich and powerful, but they liked to be buried with their possessions—so it’s also a gigantic ‘X marks the spot.’ The sands and cities of Egypt are riddled with three millennia of buried treasure...”
— Christopher Hart, The Daily Mail (London), 1 Sept. 2022

The Garden Tomb, is believed by many to be the garden and sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, and therefore a possible site of the resurrection of Jesus.
— Joe Yudin, Town & Country, 5 Oct. 2016

Did You Know?
The history of sepulchre is a grave tale.
The earliest evidence in our files traces sepulchre (also spelled sepulcher) back to Middle English around the beginning of the 13th century.
It was originally spelled sepulcre, as it was in Anglo-French.
Like many words borrowed into English from French, sepulchre has roots buried in Latin; in this case the root is sepelire, a verb meaning “to bury.”
Sepultus, the past participle of sepelire, gave us—also by way of Anglo-French—the related noun sepulture, a synonym of burial and sepulchre, but one whose contemporary use is much rarer

Genteel

WORD OF THE DAY

genteel / adjective / jen-TEEL

Definition
1a: having an aristocratic quality or flavor
1b: stylish
1c: of or relating to the gentry or upper class
1d: elegant or graceful in manner, appearance, or shape
1e: free from vulgarity or rudeness
1f: polite
2a: maintaining or striving to maintain the appearance of superior or middle-class social status or respectability
2b: marked by false delicacy, prudery, or affectation
2c: conventionally or insipidly pretty

Example
“On a technical level, [Roger] Federer reconciled the power of the modern game with the finesse of the wooden-racket era, creating an elegant style that was excitingly contemporary yet still felt like a loving homage to the sport’s past. ... That Federer’s aesthetically inventive style bolstered his reputation is clear from the reams of essays and books that laud him as the Platonic ideal of a genteel racket-sport champion.”
— Kevin Craft, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2022

That Federer’s aesthetically inventive style bolstered his reputation is clear from the reams of essays and books that laud him as the Platonic ideal of a genteel racket-sport champion.
— Kevin Craft, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
The word genteel has some familiar English relatives, including gentle, gentrify, and gentility. All come from the Latin noun gens, used to refer to a group of related people.
That word's plural, gentes, was used in Roman times to classify the people of the world, particularly non-Romans.
Similarly, the English gentile refers to people who are not Jewish, or who don’t follow other specific religions.
Many non-English words come from gens as well, including the Spanish gente, meaning “people.” To say gens has made its mark would be putting it gently.

Volition

WORD OF THE DAY

volition / noun / voh-LISH-un

Definition
1a: the power of choosing or determining
1b: will
2a: an act of making a choice or decision
2b: a choice or decision made

Example
“A year ago, Naomi Osaka left the French Open of her own volition, never beaten on the court but determining that she needed to pull out before the second round to stand up for herself and protect her mind more than she needed to do whatever she could to win matches.”
— Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press, 23 May 2022

And the records show that the informant traveled to Washington at his own volition, not at the request of the F.B.I.
— New York Times, 25 Sep. 2021

Did You Know?
When you do something of your own volition, you do it voluntarily, which makes sense—both volition and voluntary ultimately come from the Latin velle, meaning “to wish” or “to will.”
English speakers borrowed volition from French in the 17th century, using it at first to mean “an act of choosing,” a meaning Herman Melville employed in Moby-Dick (1851): “Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea.”
By then, however, the word had also developed an additional meaning, “the power to choose,” which is now more common.

Abide

WORD OF THE DAY

abide / verb / uh-BYDE

Definition
1a: to bear patiently
1b: tolerate
1c: to endure without yielding
1d: withstand
2a: to wait for
2b: await
3: to accept without objection
4: to remain stable or fixed in a state
5a: to continue in a place
5b: sojourn
6: to conform to
7a: to accept without objection
7b: to acquiesce in

Example
"When it comes to the quality of recording, mixing and mastering, the industry standard is quite flexible. ‘Mostly it comes down to taste and finding someone with the skill set to achieve a desired outcome,’ says Adam McDaniel, co-owner of Drop of Sun Studios in West Asheville. ... ‘But the subjective qualities of tone and fidelity are dictated by the songs and the artists' preference. Personally, I can't abide an attitude of ‘that's good enough.’ If something can be better, then let's go further.’”
— Edwin Arnaudin, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, North Carolina), 10 Aug. 2022

If it is signed within 90 days, the ordinance will officially be implemented, and any developer must abide by it as written.
— Drew Dawson, Journal Sentinel, 13 Oct. 2022

Did You Know?
Abide has abided in the English language since before the 12th century, picking up along the way several meanings and inflections that are now rare or no longer in use.
For instance, one of abide’s former meanings was “to stop” and its former past participle was abidden (whereas we now use abided or abode).
Today, abide often turns up in the phrase “can't abide” to say that someone cannot tolerate or accept something.
The expression abide by, which means “to accept and be guided by (something),” is also common.
Related terms include abiding, meaning “continuing for a long time” or “not changing” (as in “an abiding friendship”), abidance (“continuance” or “the act or process of doing what you have been asked or ordered to do”), and abode (“the place where someone lives”).

Cloying

 WORD OF THE DAY

cloying / adjective / KLOY-ing

Definition
1: disgusting or distasteful by reason of excess
2: excessively sweet or sentimental

Example
“The series is also a showcase for the affect that [comedian Sam] Richardson has become known for, an extra-beatific quality that verges on pathological but is never pathetic or cloying, even when the goofiness runs sweet.”
— Lauren Michel Jackson, The New Yorker, 29 May 2022

The result is miraculously neither pompous nor cloying.
— Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 14 July 2022

Did You Know?
Cloying comes from the verb cloy, which had among its earliest uses the meaning (to quote the Oxford English Dictionary) “to render [a gun] useless by driving a spike or plug into the touch-hole.”
This ultra-specific sense of clogging and stuffing arose alongside both broader and figurative ones, including “to fill or choke up,” and cloy has since come to mean “to supply or indulge to excess.”
Accordingly, cloying implies a nauseating amount of something that might be pleasing in smaller doses, especially both literal and metaphorical sweetness.

Interlocutor

WORD OF THE DAY

interlocutor / noun / in-ter-LAH-kyuh-ter

Definition
1: one who takes part in dialogue or conversation
2: a man in the middle of the line in a minstrel show who questions the end men and acts as leader

Example
“The Turing Test is a test of intelligence, sentience, consciousness and self-awareness. A machine passes the Turing Test if it can convince a human interlocutor that it is sentient.”
— Leon Gordon, Forbes, 11 July 2022

Most days, Milley would also call the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who was hardly a usual interlocutor for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
— Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
It may not necessarily be grandiloquence to use the word interlocutor in casual speech, but if your interlocutors—that is, the people with whom you are speaking—are using it, your conversation is likely a formal one.
Interlocutor is one of many English words that comes from the Latin verb loqui, “to speak,” including loquacious (“talkative”), eloquent (“capable of fluent or vivid speech”), and grandiloquence (“extravagant or pompous speech”).
In interlocutor, loqui was joined to inter- forming a Latin word meaning “to speak between” or “to issue an interlocutory decree.”
An interlocutory decree is a judicial decision that isn’t final, or that deals with a point other than the principal subject matter of the dispute.

Avuncular

WORD OF THE DAY

avuncular / adjective / uh-VUNK-yuh-ler

Definition
1: suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality
2: of or relating to an uncle

Example
"From East L.A. to Pasadena, from Koreatown to Riverside, and from the San Gabriel Valley to Orange County, millions of baseball fans welcomed [Vin] Scully into their homes. And that created a connection not just between individual households to the voice of the Dodgers but also among each other. He was the avuncular storyteller of Southern California, around which a unified community gathered to listen and to learn."
 — Ryan Carter and Chris Haire, The Orange County (California) Register, 4 Aug. 2022

Now 70 years old, with an avuncular twinkle, Shadinov is one of the dwindling number of Moynaq residents who lived through this transformation.
— Henry Wismayer, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Not all uncles are likeable fellows (Hamlet's villainous Uncle Claudius, for example, isn't exactly Mr. Nice Guy in Shakespeare's tragedy), but avuncular reveals that, as a group, uncles are often seen as friendly and kindhearted.
Avuncular comes from the Latin noun avunculus, which means "maternal uncle," but since at least the 19th century English speakers have used avuncular to describe uncles from either side of the family, or people who are uncle-like in character or behavior.
Avunculus is also an ancestor of the word uncle itself.

Bombinate

WORD OF THE DAY

bombinate / verb / BAHM-buh-nayt

Definition
: buzz, drone

Example
“Though no longer pristine wetlands, 90% of which have been lost in California, the rice fields enticed enough migratory birds to once again darken the sky, their honks and quacks bombinating across the valley.”
— Daniel Trotta and Nathan Frandino, Reuters, 9 Feb. 2022

Did You Know?
Bombinate sounds like it should be the province of bombastic blowhards who bound up and bombard you with droning blather at parties—and it is.
The word traces back to the Greek word bómbos, a term that probably originated as an imitation of a deep, hollow sound (the kind we would likely refer to as “booming” nowadays).
Latin speakers rendered the original Greek form as bombus, which led not only to bombinate, but also to bomb, bombard, and bound (“to move by leaping”).

Spiel

WORD OF THE DAY

spiel / noun / SPEEL

Definition
1: to play music
2: to talk volubly or extravagantly
3: to utter, express, or describe volubly or extravagantly

Examples
“In the blue room, Third Man’s concert venue, [Bob] Weir and his band Wolf Bros preached between songs. The bassist, Don Was, who is also the head of the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records, gave a spiel about the glory of ‘authentic,’ Auto-Tune-free music.”
— Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 9 June 2022

George had spieled a third version of that boss blonde in the picture.
— James Ellroy, Vanities, 7 Oct. 2017

Did You Know?
Here’s our spiel on spiel: it’s well-known as a noun, and you may also be aware that spiel can be used as a verb meaning “to talk extravagantly,” but did you know that the verb can also mean “to play music”?
That, in fact, is the word’s original meaning, and one it shares with its German root, spielen. (Spiel is also found in glockenspiel, the name of a musical instrument similar to the xylophone.)
In Scottish English, spiel is also sometimes used as a shortened form of bonspiel, which refers to a match or tournament of the icy game of curling.

Mnemonic

WORD OF THE DAY

mnemonic / adjective / nih-MAH-nik

Definition
1a: assisting or intended to assist memory
1b: of or relating to mnemonics
2: of or relating to memory

Examples
“Restoring Indigenous place names restores mnemonic and spiritual connections among place, culture and ancestral knowledge.”
 — Bonnie McGill, Scientific American, 22 Apr. 2022

An easy way to remember migraine prevention techniques is through the mnemonic device SEEDS.
— Carly Vandergriendt, SELF, 19 May 2022

Did You Know?
Need a mnemonic device to remember how to spell mnemonic? Although the word’s pronunciation begins with an n sound, the spelling begins with an m, as in memory.
There are very few English words that start this way (mnestic and mnioid are two others), and as with similar Latin and Greek borrowings such as pneumonia, we retained the double initial consonant but not the pronunciation.
In addition to its adjectival use, mnemonic is also a noun used to refer to a mnemonic device, such as the famous—or infamous—spelling dictum “I before E, except after C,” which isn't consistently helpful (just ask your neighbor to weigh in on it).

Decorous

WORD OF THE DAY

decorous / adjective / DECK-er-us

Definition
1: marked by propriety and good taste
2: correct

Examples
“Ruth Orkin's most famous picture was staged in Florence. Learning from a young American student how Italian men ogled and catcalled women, Orkin posed her in a picturesque but slightly seedy setting, looking straight ahead with an uncomfortable expression as she passed a gantlet of male bystanders. Taken in 1951, the picture offers a feminist rejoinder to a celebrated Richard Avedon image made four years earlier, of a Dior fashion model standing in Paris's decorous Place de la Concorde, as three appreciative but respectful young men stride by.”
— The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2021

The expression on the face of the resident first cellist, who had every right to expect the gig, is a study in decorous disappointment.
— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
One of the earliest recorded uses of decorous appears in the mid-17th century in a book titled The Rules of Civility (1673): “It is not decorous to look in the Glass, to comb, brush, or do any thing of that nature to ourselves, whilst the said person be in the Room.”
This rule of thumb may be a bit outdated; like many behaviors once deemed unbecoming, public primping is unlikely to offend in modern times. Though mores shift, decorous lives on to describe timeless courtesies like polite speech, proper attire, and (ahem) covering one’s cough.
Decorous for a time had another meaning as well—"fitting or appropriate"—but that now-obsolete sense seems to have existed for only a few decades in the 17th century.
Decorous derives from the Latin word decorus, an adjective created from the noun decor, meaning "beauty" or "grace."
Decor is akin to the Latin verb decēre ("to be fitting"), which is the source of our adjective decent. It is only fitting, then, that decent can be a synonym of decorous.

Gargantuan

 WORD OF THE DAY

gargantuan / adjective / gahr-GAN-chuh-wuhn

Definition
1: tremendous in size, volume, or degree
2: gigantic, colossal

Examples
"We rode a horse-drawn carriage up to the gargantuan Grand Hotel, still embracing its luxury 1887 roots. After a tour of the quirkily colored suites, we settled in for a lunch of local smoked whitefish in the airy restaurant."
— Simon Peter Groebner, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 14 Aug. 2022

The Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful ever built for NASA, a gargantuan booster that will generate 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, enough to propel Orion crew ships into lunar orbit.
— William Harwood, CBS News, 24 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
Gargantua is the name of a giant king in François Rabelais's 16th-century satiric novel Gargantua, the second part of a five-volume series about the giant and his son Pantagruel.
All of the details of Gargantua's life befit a giant. He rides a colossal mare whose tail switches so violently that it fells the entire forest of Orleans.
He has an enormous appetite, such that in one incident he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad. The scale of everything connected with Gargantua led to the adjective gargantuan, which since William Shakespeare's time has been used for anything of tremendous size or volume.

Atone

WORD OF THE DAY

atone / verb / uh-TOHN

Definition
1a: to make amends
1b: to provide or serve as reparation or compensation for something bad or unwelcome —usually used with for
2a: to make reparation or supply satisfaction for
2b: expiate —used in the passive voice with for
2c (obsolete): reconcile

Examples
“After a childhood act of cowardice, Amir spends most of the play reflecting on and trying to atone for his failure to come to the aid of his best friend.”
— Laura Zornosa, The New York Times, 1 July 2022

A year after America’s shambolic withdrawal, Washington should do more to atone for its mistakes.
— Jonathan Schanzer, WSJ, 15 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Atone has its roots in the idea of reconciliation and harmony. It grew out of the Middle English phrase at on meaning “in harmony,” a phrase echoed in current expressions like “feeling at one with nature.”
When atone joined modern English in the 16th century, it meant “to reconcile,” and suggested the restoration of a peaceful and harmonious state between people or groups.
Today, atone specifically implies addressing the damage—or disharmony—caused by one’s own behavior.

Onus

 WORD OF THE DAY

onus / noun / OH-nuss

Definition
1a: burden
1b: a disagreeable necessity
1c: obligation
1d: blame
1e: stigma
2: burden of proof

Examples
“So many of us are solopreneurs, which means we make all of the decisions and the onus is on us to actually follow through on our plans.”
— Susan Guillory, Forbes, 18 Aug. 2022

It is not the scions of Yale and Harvard who apply to become FBI agents and construction workers and civil servants and cops who bear the onus of this reverse discrimination.
— Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post, 9-15 Mar. 1992

Did You Know?
Understanding the etymology of onus shouldn’t be a burden; it’s as simple as knowing that English borrowed the word—spelling, meaning, and all—from Latin in the 17th century.
Onus is also a distant relative of the Sanskrit word anas, meaning cart (as in, a wheeled wagon or vehicle that carries a burden).
English isn’t exactly loaded with words that come from Latin onus, but onerous (“difficult and unpleasant to do or deal with”) is one, which is fitting since in addition to being synonymous with “burden,” onus has also long been used to refer to obligations and responsibilities that one may find annoying, taxing, disagreeable, or distasteful.

Languid

 WORD OF THE DAY

languid / adjective / LANG-gwid

Definition
1a: drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion
1b: weak
2a: sluggish in character or disposition
2b: listless
3a: lacking force or quickness of movement
3b: slow

Examples
“Wölffer’s rosés—the company now has eight varieties—have become a fixture at backyard parties and beach picnics, a symbol of languid days on Long Island’s South Fork.”
— Alex Williams, The New York Times, 27 June 2022

Few things are more comforting than watching languid actor Jeff Goldblum (best known for playing Dr. Malcolm in the Jurassic Park movies) shrug his way through a series of short documentaries about different subcultures and industries.
— WIRED, 23 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
Lack, lack, lack. Languid is all about lack.
Depending on its context, the word can suggest a lack of strength, lack of energy, or lack of activity.
The lack-of-strength sense of languid describes the kind of sluggishness that often results from fatigue or weakness, as in “the illness left her feeling languid.”
The lack-of-energy sense is synonymous with listless, and often describes someone’s character or disposition as a result of dissatisfaction or sadness.
Lastly, there’s the lack-of-activity sense of languid, as in “investors are worried about the languid stock market.” So languid is a total bummer, right?
Not so (ahem) fast! Sometimes it’s a good thing to dillydally, and languid has also long been used to describe stretches of time—think afternoons, days, summers, etc.—that are relatively and perhaps pleasantly chill.

Proselytize

 WORD OF THE DAY

proselytize / verb / PRAH-suh-luh-tyze

Definition
1: to induce someone to convert to one's faith
2: to recruit someone to join one's party, institution, or cause
3: to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause

Examples
“... [Television mogul Shonda] Rhimes also stresses that, when it comes to her work and the shows she’s creating, she’s not trying to proselytize or push agendas, outside of simply expressing herself. ‘I don’t like to be preached at,’ Rhimes says, ‘and I’m not interested in preaching.’”
— Zach Seemayer, ET Online (etonline.com), 5 Jan. 2022

They are a sport-shirted, discomforted lot, pacing, puffing feverishly on cigarettes, perspiring freely and proselytizing furiously.
— Nicholas Dawidoff, Sports Illustrated, 19 Aug. 1991

Did You Know?
Proselytize comes from the noun proselyte, meaning “a new convert,” which in turn ultimately comes from the Greek prosēlytos, meaning “stranger” or “newcomer.”
When proselytize entered English in the 17th century, it had a distinctly religious connotation and meant simply “to recruit religious converts.”
This meaning is still common, but today one can also proselytize in a broader sense—recruiting converts to one’s political party or pet cause, for example.

Kerfuffle

 WORD OF THE DAY

kerfuffle / noun / ker-FUFF-ul

Definition
: a disturbance or commotion typically caused by a dispute or conflict

Examples
“I wasn’t the only one given a seat that had already been claimed. ... Thankfully the flight was half-empty. Once the seating kerfuffle subsided, I noticed something remarkable. I had an incredible amount of legroom ...”
— Christopher Muther, The Boston Globe, 8 June 2022

Recently, there has also been a separate kerfuffle about lengthy headnotes—the introductions that precede most recipes on a blog or in a cookbook—as some people just want to skip the story and get cooking.
— Wired, 1 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Fuffle is an old Scottish verb that means “to muss” or “to throw into disarray”—in other words, to (literally) ruffle someone’s (figurative) feathers.
The addition of car-, possibly from a Scottish Gaelic word meaning “wrong” or “awkward,” didn’t change its meaning much. In the 19th century carfuffle, with its variant curfuffle, became a noun, which in the 20th century was embraced by a broader population of English speakers and standardized to kerfuffle, referring to a more figurative feather-ruffling.
There is some kerfuffle among language historians over how the altered spelling came to be favored. One theory holds that it might have been influenced by onomatopoeic words like kerplunk that imitate the sound of a falling object hitting a surface.

Ritzy

 WORD OF THE DAY

ritzy / adjective / RIT-see

Definition
1: snobbish
2a: impressively or ostentatiously fancy or stylish
2b: fashionable, posh

Examples
“Situated on nearly two acres of land in the ritzy neighborhood of Bel Air, the sprawling manor is surrounded by a stone wall and gates and now boasts an impressive six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and two half-baths.”
— Gabrielle Chung, People, 13 Aug. 2021

Thompson Madrid is set within two historic buildings in the Spanish capital’s ritzy Golden Mile district.
— Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 22 Aug. 2022

 Did You Know?
César Ritz (1850-1918) earned worldwide renown for the luxurious hotels bearing his name in London and Paris. (The Ritz-Carlton hotel company is a contemporary descendant of these enterprises.)
Although they were by no means the first to cater to high-end clients, Ritz’s hotels quickly earned reputations as symbols of opulence. F. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer who often focused on the fashionably wealthy, titled one of his short stories “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” and the phrase “to put on the ritz” means “to indulge in ostentatious display.”
The adjective ritzy, describing either something fancy or stylish, or the haughty attitudes of the wealthy elite, first checked into the English language in 1920.

Fructify

 WORD OF THE DAY

fructify / verb / FRUK-tuh-fye

Definition

1: to bear fruit

2: to make fruitful or productive

Examples

“After two seasons.... [Pamela] Adlon stepped up, hiring a writers’ room. And ‘Better Things’ kept going, fructifying into a closely observed and deeply felt portrait of one woman’s over-full life.” 

— Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, 26 Apr. 2022

Reliance has been in talks with Saudi Aramco for a stake sale in its refinery unit, although the transaction is yet to fructify.

— Matthew Martin, Bloomberg.com, 5 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?

Fructify comes from Latin fructus, meaning “fruit.” 

When the word was first used in English, it literally referred to the actions of fruit-bearing plants. Later it was used to refer to the action of making something literally or figuratively fruitful, such as soil or labor, respectively. 

These days fructify is more frequently used to refer to the giving forth of something in profit from something else (such as dividends from an investment). 

Fructus also gave us the name of the sugar fructose, as well as usufruct, which refers to the legal right to enjoy the fruits or profits of something that belongs to someone else.

Sporadic

 WORD OF THE DAY

sporadic / adjective / spuh-RAD-ik

Definition
: occurring occasionally, singly, or in irregular or random instances

Examples
“Over the decades, what began as sporadic nods to Black campus experiences has grown into more: portrayals that are both authentic and that challenge stereotypes about H.B.C.U. college life.”
— Audra D.S. Burch, The New York Times, 26 May 2022

The law was indeed tightened, prohibiting the employment of illegal aliens on the valid assumption that removing the magnet of jobs is necessary to stem illegal immigration. But enforcement was sporadic at best, and has now virtually ceased.
— Mark Krikorian, National Review, 26 Jan. 2004

Did You Know?
You never know where or when the occasion to use sporadic will pop up, but when it does, sporadic is the perfect choice to describe something that happens randomly or irregularly, often in scattered instances or isolated outbursts.
Sporadic describes the distribution of something across space or time that is not frequent enough to fill an area or period, often in scattered instances or isolated outbursts (as in "sporadic applause").
The word comes from Medieval Latin sporadicus, which is itself derived from Greek sporadēn, meaning “here and there.”
It is also related to the Greek verb speirein (“to sow”), the ancestor from which we get our word spore (the reproductive cell of a fungus, microorganism, or some plants), hinting at the seemingly scattered nature by which such cells spread and germinate.

Misnomer

 WORD OF THE DAY

misnomer / noun / miss-NOH-mer

Definition
1: the misnaming of a person in a legal instrument
2a: a use of a wrong or inappropriate name
2b: a wrong name or inappropriate designation

Examples
“The librarian of the Oregon Grotto, which is a bit of a misnomer because it’s focused on southern Washington, is the official keeper of approximately 600 tightly protected cave maps that reveal the secret locations of every documented cave in the region.”
 — Kate Robertson, The Guardian (London), 29 Mar. 2022

Spring/Summer 2023 collection was sunny, optimistic, and breezy—no doubt lead by its hero piece, the signature nightgown, a misnomer for the flowy, bohemian housedress that put the brand on the map.
— Lauren Caruso, Harper's BAZAAR, 12 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
What’s in a name? Well, in some cases, a name will contain an error, a misunderstanding, or a mislabeling.
Historians have long noted that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.
The Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought on Breed’s Hill.
And the Pennsylvania Dutch are in fact of German ancestry.
For such cases, we have the term misnomer, which can refer both to the use of an incorrect or inappropriate designation (as in “it’s a misnomer to call an orca a ‘killer whale’”) or to the designation itself.
Regardless, there’s no mistaking the source of misnomer: it comes from the Anglo-French verb mesnomer (“to misname”) and ultimately has its roots in nomen, the Latin word for “name.”

Defer

WORD OF THE DAY

defer / verb / dih-FER

Definition
1: put off, delay
2: to postpone induction of (a person) into military service
3: to delegate to another
4: to submit to another's wishes, opinion, or governance usually through deference or respect

Examples
“... lack of access to regular mortgage lending forces our clients to turn to predatory alternative lending and rent-to-own schemes or defer making needed repairs to their aging homes.”
— Rachel Labush and Michael Froehlich, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 29 Aug. 2022

Backers say the arrangement will make patients more cost-conscious and judicious in their use of medical service, thus restraining health-cost increases; critics say it will cause patients to defer needed treatment and will be attractive only to younger, healthier workers.
— Wall Street Journal, 9 Jan. 2006

Did You Know?
There are two distinct words spelled defer in English, each with its own history and meaning. The defer having to do with allowing someone else to decide or choose something, or with agreeing to follow someone else’s decision, tradition, etc., (as in “He deferred to his parents’ wishes”) comes from the Latin verb dēferre, meaning “to bring down, convey, transfer, submit.”
The defer synonymous with delay comes from Latin differre, which itself has several meanings, including two that resound in its English descendant: “to postpone” and “to delay.”
Another meaning of differre is “to be unlike or distinct,” which makes apparent another of its descendants: differ, meaning “to be different.”

Perspicacious

 WORD OF THE DAY

perspicacious / adjective / per-spuh-KAY-shus

Definition
1a: of acute mental vision or discernment
1b: keen

Examples
“Some of the film’s performances are merely peculiar and others merely apt, but [actor Don] Cheadle is thrilling, with coiled strength and a perspicacious gaze that seems to realize ideas in motion.”
— Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 1 July 2021

As some of the nation’s most perspicacious observers have noted, self-regulation is a crucial component of fixing what’s wrong with social media.
—  Gilad Edelman, Wired, 30 Sep. 2021

Did You Know?
Some perspective on perspicacious: the word combines the Latin perspicac- (from perspicax meaning “clear-sighted,” which in turn comes from perspicere, “to see through”) with the common English adjective suffix -ious.
The result is a somewhat uncommon word used to describe someone (such as a reader or observer) or something (such as an essay or analysis) displaying the perception and understanding of subtleties others tend to miss, such as the distinctions between the words perspicacious, shrewd, sagacious, and astute—something our synonym chooser can help with.

Verdigris

WORD OF THE DAY

verdigris / noun / VER-duh-greess

Definition
1a: a green or greenish-blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper and consisting of one or more basic copper acetates
1b: normal copper acetate Cu(C2H3O2)2·H2O
2: a green or bluish deposit especially of copper carbonates formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces

Examples
“There’s a standard shower room, but also—drum roll—an outside bath, which is private thanks to a wooden fence, so you can concentrate on the canopy of tree branches shimmering and rustling overhead. This tub is made of copper, all dappled with verdigris and it rumbles loudly as it slowly fills up.”
— Gaby Soutar, The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland), 13 July 2022

In Pessin’s home office, tucked into a nook under his staircase, there’s a verdigris Jean Prouvé-esque desk beneath a wall-hugging facsimile of a geometric Frank Stella painting.
— New York Times, 25 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
“Green of Greece”—that is the literal translation of vert de Grece, the Anglo-French phrase from which we get the modern word verdigris.
 A coating of verdigris forms naturally on copper and copper alloys such as brass and bronze when those metals are exposed to air. (It can also be produced artificially.)
Like cinnabar, fuchsia, and amaranth before it, however, verdigris is also seeing increased use as a color name that can be applied to anything suggestive of its particular hue.
For more colorful history you might enjoy this article before testing your knowledge with a quiz.

Haywire

 WORD OF THE DAY

haywire / adverb or adjective / HAY-wyre

Definition
1: being out of order or having gone wrong
2a: emotionally or mentally upset or out of control
2b: crazy

Examples
“Something, I suspect, is going haywire in the frying process, an interaction that leads to those off-putting aromas. Is the oil not hot enough, thereby clinging to the [French toast] sticks and leaving behind the flavors of whatever was fried in it previously? Were they fried too long?”
— Tim Carman, The Washington Post, 17 Aug. 2022

The beat, though played on a physical drum kit, feels like one of later Kraftwerk’s methodical midtempo pulses — until things go psychedelically haywire.
— Jon Pareles, New York Times, 7 May 2020

Did You Know?
The noun haywire refers to a type of wire once used in baling hay and sometimes for makeshift repairs. This hurried and temporary use of haywire gave rise to the adjective (and sometimes adverb) haywire.
When the adjective was first used in the early 20th century, it was primarily found in the phrase “haywire outfit,” which originally denoted a poorly equipped group of loggers, and then anything that was flimsy or patched together.
This led to a “hastily patched-up” sense, which in turn gave us the now-common meaning, “being out of order or having gone wrong.”
The “crazy” sense of haywire may have been suggested by the tendency of the relatively weak and rust-prone wire to fail at inopportune times, or to get tangled around legs, or possibly to the disorderly appearance of the temporary repair jobs for which it was used.

Broadside

 WORD OF THE DAY

broadside / noun / BRAWD-syde

Definition
1a: a sizable sheet of paper printed on one side
1b: a sheet printed on one or both sides and folded
1c: something (such as a ballad) printed on a broadside
2 (archaic): the side of a ship above the waterline
3a: all the guns on one side of a ship
3b: a volley of abuse or denunciation
4: a broad or unbroken surface
5a: with the side forward or toward a given point
5b: sideways
5c: directly from the side
6: in one volley
7: at random

Examples
“Mr. Taruskin had a no-holds-barred approach to intellectual combat. ... Following a 1991 broadside by Mr. Taruskin contending that Sergei Prokofiev had composed Stalinist propaganda, one biographer complained of his ‘sneering antipathy.’”
— William Robin, The New York Times, 1 July 2022

In his broadside, Mr. Biden is maligning half the country and the 70 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump.
— The Editorial Board, WSJ, 2 Sep. 2022

Did You Know?
Nautical language is both fascinating and fun, what with its jibbooms and spirketing, its scuppers and poop decks.
 As these four terms demonstrate, not all ship-related words sail over to landlubber vocabulary, but broadside is one that has. It originally referred to the side of a ship above the water, then later to the guns arrayed along that side.
The further use of broadside to refer to the firing of all those guns at once eventually led to the figurative “volley of abuse” sense—a strongly worded attack intended to shiver one’s timbers.
The printing-related uses of broadside, referring originally to sheets of paper, and then to matter printed on such paper, arose independently.

Rancid

 WORD OF THE DAY

rancid / adjective / RAN-sid

Definition
1: having an unpleasant smell or taste usually from chemical change or decomposition
2a: distinctly unpleasant or distasteful
2b: offensive

Examples
“At a basic level, ghee is a type of clarified butter believed to have originated in India as a way to preserve butter from going rancid in the hot climate. Churned cream or butter is simmered slowly until the moisture evaporates and any browned milk solids are removed, resulting in a sumptuously rich, fragrant and nutty fat.”
— Aysha Imtiaz, BBC, 27 July 2022

The laborers at Chattahoochee Brick were subject to inhumane conditions including being beaten and fed rancid food, and some died there, Blackmon reported.
— J.d. Capelouto, ajc, 25 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?
Rancid and putrid and fetid—oh my! While all three words are used to describe unpleasant smells and tastes, each also traces its roots to a “stinky”
Latin word: rancid can be traced back to the Latin rancēre; the root of putrid shares an ancestor with putēre; and fetid comes from foetēre—all verbs meaning “to stink.”
Not long after entering the language in the early 17th century, rancid also developed a second, figurative sense which is used for non-gustatory and non-olfactory offenses, as in “rancid hypocrisy.”

Coalesce

 WORD OF THE DAY

coalesce / verb / koh-uh-LESS

Definition
1: to grow together
2a: to unite into a whole
2b: fuse
2c: to unite for a common end
2d: join forces
3: to arise from the combination of distinct elements
4: to cause to unite

Examples
“This is European soccer—or, at least, an idealized version of it: clubs that represent something greater than themselves, offering communities narratives to coalesce around.”
— Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 28 May 2022

And once roasted, let the gratin rest a beat to coalesce—then grab some bread to run through the drippings.
— WSJ, 26 July 2022

Did You Know?
The meaning of many English words equals the sum of their parts, and coalesce is a fitting example. The word unites the prefix co- (“together”) and the Latin verb alescere, meaning “to grow.”
Coalesce is one of a number of English verbs (along with mix, commingle, merge, and amalgamate) that refer to the act of combining parts into a whole.
In particular, coalesce usually implies the merging of similar parts to form a cohesive unit, such as a political ideology, a fan-following, or (perish the thought) a Portuguese man-of-war, the body of which includes three types of zooids.

Laconic

 WORD OF THE DAY

laconic / adjective / luh-KAH-nik

Definition
: using or involving the use of a minimum of words : concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious

Examples
“The genius of ‘Wall-E’ lies in its ability to inspire empathy with a pair of robots that can speak only a few words. It helps that Wall-E and Eve are both extremely cute, as robots go; if the trash cube robot didn’t have those giant, sad basset hound eyes, we wouldn’t have cared if he found love. But the cutest and most laconic robot of ‘Wall-E’ is the Axiom’s custodian, M-O.”
— Michael Baumann, The Ringer, 13 June 2022

… towards the father—laconic, authoritarian, remote, an immigrant who'd trained in Galicia to be a rabbi but worked in America in a hat factory—their feelings were more confused.
— Philip Roth, Granta 24, Summer 1988

Did You Know?
We’ll keep it brief. Laconia was an ancient country in southern Greece.
Its capital city was Sparta, and the Spartans were famous for their terseness of speech.
Laconic comes to us by way of Latin from Greek Lakōnikos, meaning “native of Laconia.”
In current use, laconic means “terse” or “concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious,” and thus recalls the Spartans’ taciturnity.

Exponent

 WORD OF THE DAY

exponent / noun / ik-SPOH-nunt

Definition
1: a symbol written above and to the right of a mathematical expression to indicate the operation of raising to a power
2a: one that expounds or interprets
2b: one that champions, practices, or exemplifies

Examples
“Onscreen, [Tom] Cruise is unmistakably our biggest movie star, as the New York Times reporter Nicole Sperling recently explained—the last true exponent of a century-old studio system that has been steadily eroded by the rising forces of franchise filmmaking and streaming.”
— Calum Marsh, The New York Times, 5 July 2022

Born in Jammu, Northern India, Sharma became a exponent of the classical instrument santoor.
— Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 10 May 2022

Did You Know?
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that exponent and proponent have a lot in common.
While the two share visual similarities and closely related definitions, they also have a common ancestor: the Latin ponere, meaning “to put.”
Exponent comes from exponere, meaning “to explain, expound, or set forth,” while proponent comes from proponere, meaning “to expose to view, bring to one’s attention, propose.”
Today, proponent usually refers to someone who argues in favor of something. Exponent can also refer to someone who is an advocate, but it tends to refer especially to someone who stands out as a shining representative of something.
In addition, it has kept its earlier meaning of “one who expounds,” as well as its mathematical symbol meaning.

Facsimile

WORD OF THE DAY

facsimile / noun / fak-SIM-uh-lee

Definition
1: an exact copy
2: a system of transmitting and reproducing graphic matter (such as printing or still pictures) by means of signals sent over telephone lines

Examples
“Walls are now decorated with posters and murals of facsimiles of old newspapers that tell the tales of the team's big moments.”
— Carlos Monarrez, The Detroit Free Press, 29 July 2022

The space has a sparse, futuristic feel; there’s a 3D print facsimile of a boulder from the Alps that is supposed to symbolize the synthesis of technological innovation, appreciation for the natural world, and Swiss charisma.
— Martin Fritz Huber, Outside Online, 6 Oct. 2021

Did You Know?
The facsimile machine (or fax machine) has long been an office staple, but its name is much, much older. Fac simile is a Latin phrase meaning “make alike.”
English speakers began using facsimile to mean “an exact copy” in the late 1600s. In this sense, a facsimile might be a handwritten or hand-drawn copy, or even a copy of a painting or statue. (Today, we also use the phrase “a reasonable facsimile” for a copy that is fairly close but not exact.)
In the 1800s, people developed facsimile technology that could reproduce printed material via telegraph. Now, of course, we use telephone lines or wireless technology, and we usually call the resulting facsimile a fax.

Mawkish

 WORD OF THE DAY

mawkish / adjective / MAW-kish

Definition
1: lacking flavor or having an unpleasant taste
2: exaggeratedly or childishly emotional

Examples
“It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) matter that ‘This Is Us’ is a network show in a sea of cable and streaming contenders or that [Mandy] Moore has a pop music and schmaltzy YA movie past. ... One of this season’s most poignant moments avoided a mawkish mood because of Moore’s ability to hold our teary gaze through song.”
— Emma Fraser, The Daily Beast, 23 May 2022

And the inevitable reaffirmation of the family’s bonds, strengthened by the spirit of the girls’ mother, is touching without being too mawkish.
— David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Mawkish really opens up a can of worms—or maggots, as it were: the word wriggled out from Middle English mawke, meaning “maggot.”
Its earliest sense, used in the late 17th century but now obsolete, was synonymous with squeamish (understandable!) but not long after that mawkish was used to describe an unpleasant, nauseating, often sickeningly sweet flavor.
It’s no surprise that a figurative sense of mawkish, used to describe things that are full of “sickly sweet” sentimentality, arose almost concurrently, one of several food texture- and taste-related words favored by critics to show disdain for art they deem overly emotive, including gooey, saccharine, mushy, and schmaltzy.

Conciliate

 WORD OF THE DAY

conciliate / verb / kun-SILL-ee-ayt

Definition
1: appease
2: to gain (something, such as goodwill) by pleasing acts
3a: to make compatible
3b: reconcile
4: to become friendly or agreeable

Examples
"Oklahoma City established a human rights commission Tuesday for the first time in more than a quarter century. The new nine-member commission ... will be charged with investigating and addressing employment, housing and public accommodations discrimination complaints. ... An investigation can either lead to dismissal of the complaint or an attempt by the commission to conciliate between the complainant and the accused party."
— Jana Hayes, The Oklahoman, 19 July 2022

Refusing either to conciliate or coerce Southern states rushing headlong into secession, Lincoln maintained...
— Harold Holzer, WSJ, 15 May 2020

Did You Know?
Now here’s a people pleaser. The immediate source of conciliate is a form of the Latin verb conciliare, meaning "to assemble, unite, win over," and when conciliate was first used in the 16th century, the idea of winning over was key; it was used to mean "to gain something, such as goodwill or favor, by pleasing acts."
Today, conciliate is mostly used in contexts where appease or reconcile is a more common choice, as in "a refusal to conciliate the dictator," and "efforts to conciliate the views of those on opposing sides."
Like the word council, conciliate ultimately traces back to the Latin word concilium, meaning "assembly, council."

Panache

 WORD OF THE DAY

panache / noun / puh-NAHSH

Definition
1: an ornamental tuft (as of feathers) especially on a helmet
2a: dash or flamboyance in style and action
2b: verve

Examples
“Down home and upbeat, the Bloomfield Bluegrass Band is an all-Sonoma County ensemble of veteran performers whose primary musical obsession is the traditional bluegrass repertoire played with verve, panache, polish and pluck.”
— The Argus-Courier (Petaluma, California), 28 July 2022

Leonard Bernstein’s crowd-pleasing Symphonic Dances from West Side Story closes the program with Broadway panache.
— San Francisco Chronicle, 14 July 2022

Did You Know?
Few literary characters can match the panache of French poet and soldier Cyrano de Bergerac, from Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play of the same name.
In his dying moments, Cyrano declares that the one thing left to him is his panache, and that assertion at once demonstrates the meaning of the word and draws upon its history.
In both French and English, panache (which traces back to Late Latin pinnaculum, “small wing”) originally referred to a showy, feathery plume on a hat or helmet; our familiar figurative sense debuted in the first English translation of Rostand’s play, which made the literal plume a metaphor for Cyrano’s unflagging verve even in death.
In a 1903 speech Rostand himself described panache: “A little frivolous perhaps, most certainly a little theatrical, panache is nothing but a grace which is so difficult to retain in the face of death, a grace which demands so much strength that, all the same, it is a grace … which I wish for all of us.”