Arbitrary

 WORD OF THE DAY 

arbitrary / adjective / AHR-buh-trair-ee

Definition
1a: existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will
1b: based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something
2a: not restrained or limited in the exercise of power
2b: ruling by absolute authority
2c: marked by or resulting from the unrestrained and often tyrannical exercise of power
3 (law): depending on individual discretion (as of a judge) and not fixed by law

Examples
"It is common business knowledge that baby boomers outspend consumers from any other age cohort. It just hasn't been fashionable to say so in public. Yet, all that is changing and for reasons that could be market-driven but also as arbitrary as most else in fashion."
— Guy Trebay, The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2022

Darwin's emphasis on how populations gradually change gave the notion of species a more arbitrary quality: Species had whatever boundaries taxonomists chose. The idea of a species as a population of individuals that breed mostly with each other comes from 20th-century theorists.
— S. Milius, Science News, 25 Mar. 2006

Did You Know?
Arbitrary comes from Latin arbiter, which means "judge" and is the source of the English arbiter.
In English, arbitrary first meant "depending upon choice or discretion" and was specifically used to indicate the sort of decision (as for punishment) left up to the expert determination of a judge rather than defined by law.
Today, it can also be used for anything determined by or as if by a personal choice or whim.

Embarrass

 WORD OF THE DAY

embarrass / verb / im-BAIR-us

Definition
1a: to cause to experience a state of self-conscious distress
1b: to become anxiously self-conscious
1c: to place in doubt, perplexity, or difficulties
1d: to involve in financial difficulties
2a: to hamper the movement of
2b: hinder, impede
3a: to make intricate
3b: complicate
4: to impair the activity of (a bodily function) or the function of (a bodily part)

Examples

"The Eagles were embarrassed Sunday in a 31-15 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in an NFC Wild Card playoff game…."
— Mike Kaye, The South Jersey Times (New Jersey), 17 Jan. 2022

The Niners can’t expect the Packers to embarrass itself like the Cowboys, whose many miscues included seven pre-snap penalties.
— Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
If you've ever been so embarrassed that you felt like you were caught up in a noose of shame, then you may have some insight into the origins of the word embarrass.
The word can be traced back through French and Spanish to the Portuguese word embaraçar, which was itself probably formed as a combination of the prefix em- (from Latin in-) and baraça, the Portuguese word for "noose."
Though embarrass has had various meanings related to acts that hinder or impede throughout its history in English, these days it most often implies making someone feel or look foolish.

Utmost

 WORD OF THE DAY

utmost / adjective / UT-mohst

Definition
1a: situated at the farthest or most distant point
1b: extreme
2: of the greatest or highest degree, quantity, number, or amount

Examples
"Getting his body back to 100% is of the utmost importance for Burrow. As he continues nursing a pinky injury he suffered late in the season…."
— Zack Nagy, Sports Illustrated, 4 Feb. 2022

Homebuyers looking for the utmost privacy or an opportunity for multi-generational living should check out a property recently listed for $29.5 million in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami.
— Robyn A. Friedman, sun-sentinel.com, 10 Feb. 2022

Did You Know?
Utmost traces back to the Old English ūtmest, a superlative adjective formed from the adverb ūt, meaning "out."
Ūtmest eventually evolved into utmost, perhaps influenced by the spelling of the word most.
Not surprisingly, the earlier sense of utmost carries the same meaning as outermost.
The second sense of utmost, meaning "of the greatest or highest degree," first appeared in English in the 14th century.
A related word is utter, meaning "absolute" or "total," as in the phrase "utter chaos"; it comes from Old English utera, meaning "outer," and ultimately from ūt.

Parable

 WORD OF THE DAY

parable / noun / PAIR-uh-bul

Definition
1: a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle
2: something (such as a news story or a series of real events) likened to a parable in providing an instructive example or lesson

Examples
"Contributions poured in from around the world. By mid-week, the Shepherds of Good Hope had received more than 12,000 individual donations. The story of the shelter might stand as a parable for the times."
— editorial, The Toronto Star, 4 Feb. 2022

The film, a satirical parable on the insidious ways in which privilege can unleash the prejudice within, centers on Ben, who thinks of himself as a liberal and enlightened gay man, living in the perfect apartment with his boyfriend Raz.
— Leo Barraclough, Variety, 8 Feb. 2022

Did You Know?
Parable comes to us via Anglo-French from the Late Latin word parabola, which in turn comes from Greek parabolē, meaning "comparison."
The word parabola may look familiar if you remember your geometry.
The mathematical parabola refers to a kind of comparison between a fixed point and a straight line, resulting in a parabolic curve; it came to English from New Latin (Latin as used since the end of the medieval period, especially in scientific description and classification).
Parable, however, descends from Late Latin (the Latin language used by writers in the 3rd to 6th centuries).
The Late Latin term parabola referred to verbal comparisons: it essentially meant "allegory" or "speech."
Other English descendants of Late Latin parabola are parole and palaver.

Transpire

 WORD OF THE DAY

transpire / verb / tran-SPYRE

Definiton
1a: to take place
1b: go on, occur
2a: to become known or apparent
2b: develop
2c: to be revealed
2d: come to light
3a: to give off vaporous material
4: to pass in the form of a vapor from a living body
5: to pass off or give passage to (a fluid) through pores or interstices, especially to excrete (a fluid, such as water) in the form of a vapor through a living membrane (such as the skin)

Examples
"Talk of the benefits of a four-day work week have circulated for years. … Now, it transpires that a six-month trial of a four-day working week is going to be launched in the UK."
— Olivia Petter, The Independent (United Kingdom), 17 Jan. 2022

Many months, and perhaps years, are likely to transpire before the chaos subsides.
— New York Times, 1 Feb. 2022

Did You Know?
Transpire came to life in the late 16th century and was originally used in technical contexts to describe the passage of vapor through the pores of a membrane.
From this technical use developed a figurative sense: "to escape from secrecy," or "to become known."
That sense was often used in ambiguous contexts and could be taken to mean "to happen." (For example, Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter, "I long to see you once more... to tell you of many things which have transpired since we parted.")
Thus, the "to take place" sense developed. Around 1870, usage critics began to attack this sense as a misuse, and modern critics occasionally echo that sentiment.
But the sense is commonly found today in serious and polished prose without concern.

Invincible

 WORD OF THE DAY

invincible / adjective / in-VIN-suh-bul

Definition
: incapable of being conquered, overcome, or subdued"

Examples
"After many makeovers, changes to the backstory, and noting that 'bad' guys don't sell newspapers very well, (his Superman stories were rejected by publishers for years) he finally settled on the version we have today: a nearly invincible man, handsome, incorruptible, honest to the core, who stands for justice, and who is a champion of the downtrodden."
— Terry Mejdrich, The Grand Rapids (Minnesota) Herald-Review, 7 Jan. 2022

Email is the cockroach of internet software, invincible.
— Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 12 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
Invincible comes from Latin invincibilis—a combination of the negative prefix in- with the Latin verb vincere, meaning "to conquer."
Vincere also gave English vincible, meaning (unsurprisingly) "capable of being overcome or subdued."

Hew

 WORD OF THE DAY

hew / verb / HYOO

Definition

1: to cut with blows of a heavy cutting instrument

2: to cut down by blows of an ax

3: to give form or shape to with or as if with heavy cutting blows

4: conform, adhere

Examples

While Michelan­gelo would later claim that he had raced back to Florence from Rome when the fledgling Florentine republic announced that it would be commissioning a new work to be hewn from a giant block of marble in its possession, the fact of the matter was that the block … had defied several generations of sculptors who had chipped away at its base...." 

— Victoria Coates, The National Review, 27 Dec. 2021

Months after vaccination, researchers can still see evidence of B cells trying to hew their antibodies into better weapons, just in case the virus returns.

— Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 2 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?

Hew is a strong, simple word of Anglo-Saxon descent. It can suggest actual ax-wielding, or it can be figurative: "If … our ambition hews and shapes [our] new relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their flavor in garden-beds" (Ralph Waldo Emerson). 

It's easy to see how the figurative "shape" sense of hew developed from the literal "hacking" sense, but what does chopping have to do with adhering and conforming? 

That sense first appeared in the late 1800s in the phrase "hew to the line." The "hew line" is a line marked along the length of a log indicating where to chop in order to shape a beam. 

"Hewing to the line," literally, is cutting along the mark—adhering to it—until the side of the log is squared.

Echelon

 WORD OF THE DAY

echelon / noun / ESH-uh-lahn

Definition
1a: an arrangement of a body of troops with its units each somewhat to the left or right of the one in the rear like a series of steps
1b: a formation of units or individuals resembling such an echelon
1c: a flight formation in which each airplane flies at a certain elevation above or below and at a certain distance behind and to the right or left of the airplane ahead
1d: any of several military units in echelon formation
1e: any unit or group acting in a disciplined or organized manner
2a: one of a series of levels or grades in an organization or field of activity
2b: a group of individuals at a particular level or grade in an organization or field of activity

Examples
"[Amy Schneider] is already the highest-earning female contestant in 'Jeopardy!' history and is the first transgender contestant to qualify for the 'Tournament of Champions' round. But she still has a ways to go before further cementing herself in the upper echelons of 'Jeopardy!' history."
— Brian Boyle, SFGate (San Francisco, California), 15 Jan. 2022

There’s a real hunger, togetherness and loyalty fueling Servite’s charge into the upper echelon of the football hierarchy this season.
— Eric Sondheimer Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
Echelon is a useful word for anyone who is climbing the ladder of success.
It traces back to scala, a Late Latin word meaning "ladder" that was the ancestor of the Old French eschelon, meaning "rung of a ladder."
Over time, the French word (which is échelon in Modern French) came to mean "step," "grade," or "level."
When it was first borrowed into English in the 18th century, echelon referred specifically to a step-like arrangement of troops, but it now usually refers to a level or category within an organization or group of people.

Slapdash

 WORD OF THE DAY

slapdash / adjective / SLAP-dash

Definition
: haphazard, slipshod

Examples
"I approach any recipe with a certain degree of slapdash irreverence. I make substitutions left and right, change amounts, add spices, omit steps that I deem too troublesome or leave out ingredients altogether."
— Monika Spykerman, The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), 1 Dec. 2021

On one hand, the disastrous, slapdash virtual learning programs enacted in March 2020 have widened equity gaps that persist to this day, particularly for children of families with unstable access to housing, broadband internet, and child care.
— Pia Ceres, Wired, 17 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
One of the first known uses of slapdash in English came in 1679 from the British poet and dramatist John Dryden, who used it as an adverb in his play "The Kind Keeper"; or "Mr. Limberham": "Down I put the notes slap-dash."
The Oxford English Dictionary defines this sense in part as "[w]ith, or as with, a slap and a dash," perhaps suggesting the notion of an action (such as painting) performed with quick, imprecise movements.
Over 100 years later, the word acquired the adjectival sense with which we are more familiar today, describing something done in a hasty, careless, or haphazard manner.

Meander

 WORD OF THE DAY

meander / verb / mee-AN-der

Definition
1a: a winding path or course
1b: labyrinth
2: a turn or winding of a stream
3: to follow a winding or intricate course
4a: to wander aimlessly or casually without urgent destination
4b: ramble

Examples
"Seeking a respite from the frantic pace of the digital world, we turned to 'The Unwinding: And Other Dreamings.' … [We] meandered through the pages, absorbed in peaceful fragments of prose and Morris's elaborate watercolors."
— Julian Wray and Sam Mathisson, The Michigan Daily, 10 Dec. 2021

He meandered with the sightseers gawping at the boat people
— John le Carré

Did You Know?

Roam, ramble, and meander all mean to move about from place to place without a plan or definite purpose, but each suggests wandering in a unique way.
Roam refers to carefree wandering over a wide area often for pleasure (as in "I roamed over the hills for hours").
Ramble stresses carelessness and indifference to one's course or objective (for instance, "the speaker rambled on without ever coming to the point").
Meander, which comes from Greek Maiandros—an old name for a river in Asia Minor that is now known as the Menderes—implies a winding course and lazy movement, and it is still sometimes associated with rivers (as in, "the river meandered through the town").
Meander can also be used as a noun meaning "a winding path."

Fastidious

WORD OF THE DAY

fastidious / adjective / fass-TID-ee-us

Definition
|1a: showing or demanding excessive delicacy or care
1b: reflecting a meticulous, sensitive, or demanding attitude
1c: having high and often capricious standards
1d: difficult to please
2: having complex nutritional requirements
3 (archaic): scornful

Examples
"Curran kept fastidious notes on woolly-bear coloration in an attempt to link them to weather patterns."
— Jim McCormac, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 2 Jan. 2022

My mother had always been the most fastidious and organized of people—a wet ring left on her coffee table by a glass could drive her to distraction.
— John B. Judis, New Republic, 14 Oct. 1996

Did You Know?
Fastidious comes from Latin fastidium, meaning "aversion" or "disgust."
Fastidium is believed to be a combination of fastus, meaning "arrogance," and taedium, "irksomeness" or "disgust." (Taedium is also the source of tedium and tedious.)
In keeping with its Latin roots, fastidious once meant "haughty," "disgusting," and "disagreeable," but the word is now most often applied to people who are very meticulous or overly difficult to please, or to work which reflects a demanding or precise attitude.

Collaborate

 WORD OF THE DAY

collaborate / verb / kuh-LAB-uh-rayt

Definition
1: to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor
2: to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force suspected of collaborating with the enemy
3: to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected

Examples
"He is interested in teaching students how to collaborate on productions and expand their film knowledge."
— Paris Barraza, The Iowa City Press-Citizen, 5 Jan. 2022

States and utilities must actively identify the need for new transmission, collaborate on regional plans, and seek community input on siting.
— Energy Innovation: Policy And Technology, Forbes, 26 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
The Latin prefix com-, meaning "with, together, or jointly," is a bit of a chameleon—it has a tricky habit of changing its appearance depending on what it's next to.
If the word it precedes begins with "l," com- becomes col-.
In the case of collaborate, com- teamed up with laborare ("to labor") to form Late Latin collaborare ("to labor together").
Colleague, collect, and collide are a few more examples of the com- to col- transformation. Other descendants of laborare in English include elaborate, laboratory, and labor itself.

Peremptory

 WORD OF THE DAY

peremptory / adjective / puh-REMP-tuh-ree

Definition
1a: putting an end to or precluding a right of action, debate, or delay
1b: not providing an opportunity to show cause why one should not comply
1c: admitting of no contradiction
2: expressive of urgency or command
3a: characterized by often imperious or arrogant self-assurance
3b: indicative of a peremptory attitude or nature
3c: haughty

Examples
"Celeste had work e-mails flooding in. Her assistant had taken the entire fall off with a mysterious—even suspect—leg injury and now e-mailed Celeste fifteen times a day demanding, in peremptory and vaguely hostile tones, that Celeste fill out paperwork."
— Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Apr. 2019

So far, the judge has granted 12 such peremptory challenges, or strikes, to prosecutors and 24 total to defense attorneys.
— Russ Bynum, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Oct. 2021

Did You Know?
Peremptory is ultimately from Latin perimere, which means "to take entirely" or "destroy" and comes from per- ("thoroughly") and emere ("to take").
Peremptory implies the removal of one's option to disagree or contest something. It sometimes suggests an abrupt dictatorial manner combined with an unwillingness to tolerate disobedience or dissent (as in "he was given a peremptory dismissal").
A related term is the adjective preemptive, which comes from Latin praeemere-from prae- ("before") plus emere.
Preemptive means "marked by the seizing of the initiative" (as in "a preemptive attack").

Yen

WORD OF THE DAY

yen / noun / YEN

Definition
1: the basic monetary unit of Japan
2a: a strong desire or propensity
2b: urge, craving

Examples
"During the spring, retirees come south to New Hampshire for day trips, including shopping at outlets, while in summer the visitors are families with a yen for outdoor activities."
— John Koziol, The New Hampshire Union Leader, 14 Oct. 2021

"In me you see a youth who's completely on the loose. No yens, no yearnings. No strings, no connections."
— Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) in: Top Hat (1935)

Did You Know?
Although yen suggests no more than a strong desire these days (as in "a yen for a beach vacation"), at one time someone with a yen was in deep trouble: the first meaning of yen was an intense craving for opium.
The word comes from Cantonese yīn-yáhn, a combination of yīn, meaning "opium," and yáhn, "craving." In English, the Chinese syllables were translated as yen-yen.

Disheveled

 WORD OF THE DAY

disheveled / adjective / dih-SHEV-uld

Definition

: marked by disorder or disarray

Examples

"I'm a realist. … I know what I see. And what I see is a team that's somewhat disheveled. And that's on me. Somehow, … I do not have the ability at this point in time to affect my players to make sure that we're in a better place mentally and physically, to play the kind of basketball we need to play."
— Geno Auriemma, quoted in ESPN, 9 Dec. 2021

 

For example, Minerva laughs at the idea of Rue’s rather chaotic, disheveled character (played by Zendaya), sporting a fresh, chip-free manicure.

— Kiana Murden, Vogue, 25 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?

It’s common to wake up after a long night’s sleep with your hair disheveled - which is appropriate, considering the origins of the word disheveled.
First appearing in English in the late 16th century, disheveled derived from Middle English discheveled, meaning "bareheaded" or "with disordered hair."
It is a partial translation of the Anglo-French word deschevelé, formed by combining the prefix des- (dis-) with chevoil, the word for hair.
Since the early 17th century, however, disheveled has been used for things other than hair, including such disparate items as grammar and reputations, that are far from tidy.

Admonish

 WORD OF THE DAY

admonish / verb / ad-MAH-nish

Definition
1a: to indicate duties or obligations to
1b: to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner
2: to give friendly earnest advice or encouragement to
3: to say (something) as advice or a warning

Examples
"This Lady Macbeth is fiercely loving and loyal, protective of her husband even (especially) in his moments of weakness, and apt to admonish him in that no-nonsense, commonsensical tone that [Frances McDormand] nails better than just about any actor."
— Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times, 24 Dec. 2021

According to linguistics expert, Maxine Ali, the word wasn’t always used to admonish people.
— Rose Stokes, refinery29.com, 26 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?
We won't admonish you if you don't know the origins of this word—its current meanings have strayed slightly from its history.
Admonish was borrowed in the 14th century (via Anglo-French amonester) from Vulgar Latin admonestāre, which itself is probably a derivative of admonestus, the past participle of the Latin verb admonēre, meaning "to warn." 
Admonēre, in turn, was formed by the combination of the prefix ad- and monēre, "to warn."
Other descendants of monēre in English include monitor, monitory ("giving a warning"), premonition, and an archaic synonym of admonish, monish.
Incidentally, admonish has a number of other synonyms as well, including reprove, rebuke, reprimand, reproach, and chide.

Factoid

 WORD OF THE DAY

factoid / noun / FAK-toyd

Definition
1: an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print
2: a briefly stated and usually trivial fact.

Examples
"A girls team from Silver Lake Regional High School has never won a state championship. The soccer program now stands just one win away from changing that factoid."
— David Wolcott, Jr., Old Colony Memorial (Plymouth, Massachusetts), 20 Nov. 2021

As a huge Peaky Blinders fan, here’s another Cine Lens factoid that intrigued me.
— Andy Meek, BGR, 16 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?
We can thank Norman Mailer for factoid: he used the word in his 1973 book Marilyn (about Marilyn Monroe), and he is believed to be the coiner of the word.
In the book, he explains that factoids are "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper, creations which are not so much lies as a product to manipulate emotion in the Silent Majority."
Mailer's use of the -oid suffix (which traces back to the ancient Greek word eidos, meaning "appearance" or "form") follows in the pattern of humanoid: just as a humanoid appears to be human but is not, a factoid appears to be factual but is not.
The word has since evolved so that now it most often refers to things that decidedly are facts, just not ones that are significant.

Obsequious

 WORD OF THE DAY

obsequious / adjective / ub-SEE-kwee-us

Definition
: marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

Examples
"The service here is as traditional as the decor, with the obsequious staff as cheery as they are attentive."
— Anooska Tucker-Evans, The Courier Mail (Australia), 4 Dec. 2021

He could wear an oxford shirt and necktie and speak the local language, in every sense, and never act obsequious or look as though he felt out of place.
— Tracy Kidder, New England Monthly, April 1990

Did You Know?
An obsequious person is more likely to be a follower than a leader. Use that fact to help you remember the meaning of obsequious.
All you need to do is bear in mind that the word comes from the Latin root sequi, meaning "to follow." (The other contributor is the prefix ob-, meaning "toward.")
Sequi is the source of a number of other English words, too, including consequence (a result that follows from an action), sequel (a novel, film, or TV show that follows and continues a story begun in another), and non sequitur (a conclusion that doesn't follow from what was said before).

Garble

 WORD OF THE DAY

garble / verb / GAR-bul

Definition
1a: to so alter or distort as to create a wrong impression or change the meaning
1b: to introduce textual error into (a message) by inaccurate encipherment, transmission, or decipherment

2: to sift impurities from

3 (archaic): cull

4: an act or an instance of garbling

5: the impurities removed from spices in sifting

Examples

"We aren't very good as human beings at having good conversations in the first place, and then everything switched to Zoom, where body language often gets lost and signals get garbled."
— Andreas Kluth, quoted in The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington), 25 Dec. 2021

In 2013, Sahai and five co-authors proposed an iO protocol that splits up a program into something like jigsaw puzzle pieces, then uses cryptographic objects called multilinear maps to garble the individual pieces.
— Quanta Magazine, 10 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?
Garble developed from Late Latin cribellare, a verb meaning "to sift." Arabic speakers borrowed cribellare as gharbala, and the Arabic word passed into Old Italian as garbellare; both of these words also meant "to sift."
When the word first entered Middle English as garbelen, its meaning stayed close to the original; it meant "to sort out the best." But that sort of sifting can cause a distortion, and in early Modern English garble came to mean "to distort the sound or meaning of."