Flummox

 WORD OF THE DAY

flummox / verb / FLUM-uks

Definition
1: confuse

Examples
"It was an unfortunate ending for a defense that sputtered early as a bunch of new faces learned to adjust…. The late-season collapse, which included an inability to … consistently pressure the quarterback, flummoxed players and coaches alike."
— Jim McBride, The Boston Globe, 11 Mar. 2022

Mike Zimmer’s defense figures to flummox rookie quarterback Justin Fields just enough.
— Colleen Kane, chicagotribune.com, 20 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?
No one is completely sure where the word flummox comes from, but we do know that early use can be found in Charles Dickens' 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers and that it had become quite common in both British and American English by the end of the 19th century.
One theory expressed by some etymologists is that it was influenced by flummock, a word of English dialectical origin used to refer to a clumsy person.
This flummock may also be the source of the word lummox, which also means "a clumsy person."

Askance

 WORD OF THE DAY

askance / adverb / uh-SKANSS

Definition
1a: with disapproval or distrust
1b: scornfully
2a: with a side-glance
2b: obliquely

Examples
"'Sometimes not being authentic to the region is a good thing.' … [chef] Klime Kovaceski, who also prefers dried pasta to fresh, understands that some purists might look askance at his methods."
— Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald, 3 Mar. 2022

Candidates and their backers also typically knock on doors to get signatures, but that’s not an option this year as people look askance at strangers on their doorsteps.
— Patrick Marley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 18 May 2020

Did You Know?
Askance, which etymologists believe may have been influenced by askew, comes from Middle English forms such as askaunce, a-skans, a-skaunces, meaning variously "in such a way that," "as if," "as if to say," and "artificially" or "deceptively."
 The word was first used in English in the 16th century with the meaning "sideways" or "with a sideways glance," and writers over the years have used the suggestion of someone looking askance at something to express a number of feelings from disapproval and distrust to jealousy.

Dander

WORD OF THE DAY

dander / noun / DAN-der

Definition
1a: dandruff
1b: minute scales from hair, feathers, or skin that may be allergenic
2: anger, temper

Examples
"Unlike traditional vacuum cleaners made to handle a wider range of different messes, these next-level vacuums for pet hair are engineered to sweep away all of the stubborn pet fur…, allowing you to quickly de-fuzz your stuff and keep dander under control."
— Korin Miller, The Daily Beast, 8 Apr. 2022

The Greenote Cordless Vacuum Cleaner is complete with 200 watts of power, drumming up 23,000 pascals of suction power to efficiently absorb everything from dust and debris to pet dander and hair.
— Amy Schulman, PEOPLE.com, 6 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
How did dander acquire its "temper" sense? Etymologists have come up with a few possibilities, but nothing is known for sure.
Some experts have proposed, tongue-in-cheek, that the meaning stems from the image of an angry person tearing out his or her hair by the fistful, scattering dandruff in the process.
Some think it may come from a West Indian word dander, which refers to a kind of ferment and suggests "rising" anger (in English, ferment can mean either "an agent capable of causing fermentation" or "a state of unrest or excitement").
Yet another proposed possibility is that the "anger" sense was imported to America by early Dutch colonists and is from their phrase op donderen, meaning "to burst into a sudden rage."

Simulacrum

 WORD OF THE DAY

simulacrum / noun / sim-yuh-LAK-rum

Definition
1: image, representation
2a: an insubstantial form or semblance of something
2b: trace

Examples
"Bracelets, brooches, collars, and rings drip with diamonds in a simulacrum of a starry night—the galaxy rendered in platinum and gold."
— Camille Okhio, Elle Decor, 2 Mar. 2022

Impossible achieves this simulacrum by deploying heme, a protein present in animal tissues but here derived from plants.
— New York Times, 3 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
There is a similarity between simulacrum and simulate. Both words come from simulare, a Latin verb meaning "to copy, represent, or feign."
Simulacrum is the name for an image or representation, and simulate means "to look, feel, or behave like something."

Hoary

 WORD OF THE DAY

hoary / adjective / HOR-ee

Definition
1: gray or white with or as if with age
2a: extremely old
2b: ancient

Examples
"A brief hike … reveals long expanses of light gray sand, pounded by waves, backed by lofty coconut palms, hoary mangroves and wild forests…."
— Jeff McMahon, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2022

Many who voted for Mélenchon have no use for his broad-brushed and hoary anticapitalist nostrums.
— Arthur Goldhammer, The New Republic, 11 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
"How to save the old that's worth saving ... is one of our greatest problems." British novelist John Galsworthy knew the value of preserving the past—and he would likely have counted hoary among those old things worth saving.
The word is old indeed; it traces to an Old English adjective, hār, which appeared in Beowulf. That hoary ancestor evolved over time into hoar, a synonym of ancient.
Hoary developed from hoar more than 475 years ago, and since then it has been used for anything that is old or that has the whitened look of age (from the hoary bat to the hoary willow).
The venerable hoar also remains as a synonym of hoary and as a component of compounds such as hoarfrost.

Juxtapose

 WORD OF THE DAY

juxtapose / verb / JUK-stuh-pohz

Definition
: to place (different things) side by side (as to compare them or contrast them or to create an interesting effect)

Examples
"There's the original wooden floorboards juxtaposing ... a glossy, stop-and-stare, curved timber wall that extends from behind the counter to the ceiling above."
— Anooska Tucker-Evans, The Courier Mail (Australia), 19 Mar. 2022

Black and gold accents juxtapose the pink to create a polished, feminine look.
— Jessica Bennett, Better Homes & Gardens, 30 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
A back-formation is a word that has come about through the removal of a prefix or a suffix from a longer word.
Etymologists think juxtapose is a back-formation that was created when people trimmed down the noun juxtaposition.
Historical evidence supports the idea: juxtaposition was showing up in English documents as early as 1654, but juxtapose didn't appear until 1851.
Juxtaposition is itself thought to be a combination of Latin juxta, meaning "near," and English position.

Imprimatur

 WORD OF THE DAY

imprimatur / noun / im-pruh-MAH-too

Definition
1a: sanction, approval
1b: imprint
1c: a mark of approval or distinction
2a: a license to print or publish especially by Roman Catholic episcopal authority
2b: approval of a publication under circumstances of official censorship

Examples
"Various uses for the land—some grandiose—have been floated and sunk over the years, but the latest proposal … was given the imprimatur of the city commission, which unanimously approved it….."
— Larry Keller, The Palm Beach Daily News, 14 Jan. 2022

Secondly, the state’s imprimatur has very little relevance in a world where essential data and systems are attacked by state-level or even private entities all the time.
— Roger Huang, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?
Imprimatur means "let it be printed" in New Latin.
It comes from Latin imprimere, meaning to "imprint" or "impress."
In the 1600s, the word appeared in the front matter of books, accompanied by the name of an official authorizing the book's printing.
It was also in the 1600s that English speakers began using imprimatur in the general sense of "official approval."
The Roman Catholic Church still issues imprimaturs for books concerned with religious matters (to indicate that a work contains nothing offensive to Catholic morals or faith), and there have been other authorities for imprimaturs as well.
For example, when Samuel Pepys was president of the Royal Society, he placed his imprimatur on the title page of England's great scientific work, Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in 1687.

Polyglot

 WORD OF THE DAY

polyglot adjective / PAH-lee-glaht

Definition
1: one who is polyglot
2a (capitalized): a book containing versions of the same text in several languages
2b: the Scriptures in several languages
3: a mixture or confusion of languages or nomenclatures
4a: speaking or writing several languages
4b: multilingual
4c: composed of numerous linguistic groups
5: containing matter in several languages
6: composed of elements from different languages
7: widely diverse (as in ethnic or cultural origins)

Examples
"Astoria, Queens, is a charming, polyglot, historically rich community known for its … great food and concentration of artistic talent."
 — Steve Cuozzo, The New York Post, 28 Feb. 2022

Acknowledging the polyglot entanglements of the musical canon can, in fact, serve as a check on the oppressive allure of nationalist mythologies.
— Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2022 

Did You Know?
You've probably run across the prefix poly- before—it comes from Greek and means "many" or "multi-." But what about -glot? That part of the word comes from the Greek term glōtta, meaning "language" or "tongue."
Glōtta is also the source of glottis, the word for the space between the vocal cords.
Polyglot itself entered English in the 17th century, both as an adjective and as a noun meaning "one who can write or speak several languages."
You could call the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V a polyglot. He claimed that he addressed his horse only in German, he conversed with women in Italian and with men in French, but reserved Spanish for his talks with God.

Elicit

 WORD OF THE DAY

elicit / verb / ih-LISS-it

Definition
1: to call forth or draw out (something, such as information or a response)
2: to draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential)

Examples
"Black-and-white wall art can elicit several different moods in your home. … You can use black-and-white wall art to subdue a space or add a touch of elegance."
— Karl Daum, KDVR (Denver, Colorado), 22 Feb. 2022

That plot won't elicit a second playthrough; neither will the score-more-points replay mode nor a numbingly average take on online multiplayer.
— Sam Machkovech, Ars Technica, 6 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Elicit comes from the Latin verb elicere, from the prefix e-, meaning "away," and lacere, "to entice by charm or attraction."
First known use in the 1640s, from Latin elicitus, past participle of elicere "draw out, draw forth," from ex "out" (see ex-) + -licere, combining form of lacere "to entice, lure, deceive" (related to laqueus "noose, snare;" see lace (n.)). Related: Elicited; eliciting; elicits; elicitation.

ex- 
word-forming element, in English meaning usually "out of, from," but also "upwards, completely, deprive of, without," and "former"
From the Latin ex- "out of, from within; from which time, since; according to; in regard to."
In some cases also from Greek cognate ex; Often reduced to e- before -b-, -d-, -g-, consonantal -i-, -l-, -m-, -n-, -v- (as in elude, emerge, evaporate, etc.).

lace (n.)
From the early 13c. Old French, laz, meaning "cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk, etc.," and also "a net, noose, string, cord, tie, ribbon, or snare"
Later also "net, noose, snare" (c. 1300); and "piece of cord used to draw together the edges of slits or openings in an article of clothing" (late 14c., as preserved in shoelace). In Middle English it mostly had the sense "cord, thread," especially for tying or binding. It was used of fishing lines and perhaps the gallows rope, crossbeams in architecture, and the net Vulcan used to catch Venus in adultery. Death's lace was the icy grip of Death, and Love's lace was a binding love.
From 1540s as "ornamental cord or braid," hence the meaning "fabric of fine threads in a patterned ornamental open net" (1550s), which soon became the main meaning of the English word. "Century Dictionary" (1902) describes by name 87 varieties. As an adjective, lace-curtain "middle class" (or lower-class with middle-class pretensions), often used in reference to Irish-Americans, is attested by 1928.

Liaison

WORD OF THE DAY

liaison / noun / lee-AY-zahn

Definition
1: a binding or thickening agent used in cooking
2a: a close bond or connection
2b: interrelationship
2c: an illicit sexual relationship
2d: affair
3a: communication for establishing and maintaining mutual understanding and cooperation (as between parts of an armed force)
3b: a person who establishes and maintains communication for mutual understanding and cooperation
4: the pronunciation of an otherwise absent consonant sound at the end of the first of two consecutive words the second of which begins with a vowel sound and follows without pause

Examples
"It expects to have one staffer stationed in Duluth to begin with, who'll lead the preservation work here and also serve as a liaison to city councils and others."
— editorial, The Duluth (Minnestoa) News-Tribune, 22 Feb. 2022

 Today's army works on rotations; soldiers are deployed for about a year and then (in principle at least) they come home. When that happens, local liaisons and intelligence relationships must be rebuilt.
— James K. Galbraith, Mother Jones, March/April 2006

Did You Know?
If you took French in school, you might remember that liaison is the word for the phenomenon that causes a silent consonant at the end of one word to sound like it begins the next word when that word begins with a vowel, so that a phrase like beaux arts sounds like \boh zahr\.
We can thank French for the origin of the term, as well.
Liaison comes from Middle French lier, meaning "to bind or tie."
Other English senses of liaison apply it to all kinds of bonds—from people who work to connect different groups to the kind of relationship sometimes entered into by two people who are attracted to one another.

Opportune

 WORD OF THE DAY

opportune / adjective / ah-per-TOON

Definition
1: suitable or convenient for a particular occurrence
2: occurring at an appropriate time

Examples
"Whether it's an open 3-point jumper or back-door cut to the basket that gets him an easy layup, the senior guard has shown up for his team at opportune times as the Boilermakers continue to grind out victories in closely-contested matchups."
— D. J. Fezler, Sports Illustrated, 12 Mar. 2022

The long days of spring and summer are opportune for running in the dark, when cool nights offer runners looking to avoid scorching daytime heat more accommodating temperatures.
— Adam Chase, Outside Online, 11 May 2020

Did You Know?
To choose any port in a storm is sometimes the most opportune way of proceeding in a difficult situation—and appropriately so, etymologically speaking.
Opportune descends from the Latin opportūnus, which means "favoring one's needs," "serviceable," and "convenient."
Originally, opportūnus was probably used of winds with the literal meaning of "blowing in the direction of a harbor."
The word is a combination of the prefix ob-, meaning "to," and portus, "port" or "harbor."
Latin portus is also at the root of English port.
Opportune and port both made their way to English via Anglo-French, with port arriving before the 12th century, and opportune arriving in the 15th century.

Funambulism

 WORD OF THE DAY

funambulism / noun / fyoo-NAM-buh-liz-um

Definition
1: tightrope walking
2: a show especially of mental agility

Example
"Jason Kenney is a deft exponent of funambulism—the fine art of political tightrope walking. The Alberta premier's high wire act requires him to be suitably outraged at Ottawa's anti-energy policies but not so aggrieved that he incites what he calls 'the fear and anger roiling the Prairies.'"
— John Ivison, The National Post (Canada), 10 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
Back in ancient Rome, tightrope walking was a popular spectacle at public gatherings.
The Latin word for "tightrope walker" is "funambulus," from the Latin funis, meaning "rope," plus ambulare, meaning "to walk."
It doesn't take any funambulism on our part to see how the word for an impressive act of physical skill and agility came to mean an impressive act of mental skill or agility.
That extended sense of the word has been around since at least 1886, when British academic and writer Augustus Jessopp described the act of diagramming sentences as "horrible lessons of ghastly grammar and dreary funambulism."

Zoomorphic

 WORD OF THE DAY

zoomorphic / adjective / zoh-uh-MOR-fik

Definition
1: having the form of an animal
2: of, relating to, or being a deity conceived of in animal form or with animal attributes

Examples
"Wow what a wonderful stoneware vase. … The zoomporphic rams head handles add real pizzazz to the visual impact."
— John Sikorski, The Gainesville (Florida) Sun, 29 May 2021

Large, spiral conch shells, probably once home to ancient sea snails and now notched by hand at the apex to form a trumpet, are incised with images of warriors, hunters and the dead — as well as zoomorphic creatures that may well be crocodiles.
— Christopher Knight, latimes.com, 18 Apr. 2018

Did You Know?
Zo- (or zoo-) derives from the Greek word zōion, meaning "animal," and -morph comes from the Greek morphē, meaning "form."
These two forms combined to give us the adjective zoomorphic in the 19th century to describe something that resembles an animal. English includes other words that were formed from zo- or zoo-, such as zoology (made with -logy, meaning "science").
And there are also other words that were formed from -morph, such as pseudomorph, for a mineral having the outward form of another species. (The combining form pseud- or pseudo- means "false.")

Mettlesome

WORD OF THE DAY

mettlesome / adjective / MET-ul-sum

Definition
1: full of vigor, courageous
2: spirited, ardent, brave

Examples
"My mother was strong, mettlesome—a survivor. We were a lower-middle-class family."
— Patti Smith, quoted in The Guardian, 20 Sep. 2020

"We’re quite brutal and quite cutthroat,” Williams said. “You have to get results. Otherwise, you’ll be kicked off. There’s not enough funding just to keep you on if you’re just not performing and maybe that mentality really drives the athlete continuously.”
— Jonathan Abrams, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 2022

Did You Know?
The 17th-century adjective mettlesome (popularly used of spirited horses) sometimes appeared as the variant metalsome.
That's not surprising.
In the 16th century and for some time after, mettle was a variant spelling of metal—that is, the word for substances such as gold, copper, and iron. (Metal itself dates from the 14th century and descends from a Greek term meaning "mine" or "metal.")
The 16th century was also when metal—or mettle—acquired the figurative sense of "spirit," "courage," or "stamina."
However, by the early 18th century, dictionaries were noting the distinction between metal, used for the substance, and mettle, used for "spirit," so that nowadays the words mettle and mettlesome are rarely associated with metal 

Winsome

 WORD OF THE DAY

winsome / adjective / WIN-sum

Definition
1: generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence
2: cheerful, delighted

Examples
"Among the fabled activists who risked their lives and transformed those of many others in the civil rights movement, [Julian Bond] stood out with his smooth patter, winsome charm, and understated glamour."
— Gene Seymour, The New Republic, 1 Mar. 2021

Shirley MacLaine is the winsome elevator operator that one of those executives is toying with.
— Alison Willmore, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2021

Did You Know?
Winsome comes from Old English wynn, meaning "joy" or "pleasure," which was altered in spelling to win (with the same meaning).
That win is obsolete and is unrelated to today's win—referring to victory and coming from Old English winnan, "to struggle, suffer, or acquire."
The adjective winning, meaning "tending to please or delight," as in "a winning smile" or "winning ways," is believed to be from the victorious win.

Grift

 WORD OF THE DAY

grift / verb / GRIFT

Definition
1: to obtain (money or property) illicitly (as in a confidence game)
2: to acquire money or property illicitly

Examples
"The lovelorn were grifted out of $547 million by dating-app scammers last year, a shocking 78% increase over the previous record $307 million in losses in 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission."
— Kerry J. Byrne, The New York Post, 13 Feb. 2022

Anna Sorokin, who posed as a German heiress named Anna Delvey to grift her way into a luxurious Manhattan lifestyle, has been released from prison this week after years of backlash for her famous SoHo scam.
— Erin Corbett, refinery29.com, 14 Feb. 2021

Did You Know?
A grifter might be a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, scammer, or a confidence man.
Grift may have come from graft, a slightly older word meaning "to acquire dishonestly."

Adversity

 WORD OF THE DAY

adversity / noun / ad-VER-suh-tee

Definition
: a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune

Examples
"ABC7 News Anchor Reggie Aqui spoke with Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider about how her life has changed since her historic run on the show. Schneider discussed how she has been able to overcome adversity being a trans woman in the spotlight."
— ABC News, 2 Mar. 2022

After two years of research, I discovered that everyone has a crisis personality survivor IQ—that they marshal in a moment of adversity: a mindset and ways of thinking about a situation.
— Ben Sherwood, Newsweek, 2 Feb. 2009

Did You Know?
Adversity comes from Middle English adversite, meaning "opposition, hostility, misfortune, or hardship," which itself is from Latin adversus, the source of adverse, which means "bad or unfavorable," as in "adverse criticism" or "an adverse reaction to the medication."
Adversity, mishap, misfortune, and mischance all suggest difficulty of one sort or another. Adversity particularly applies to a state of grave or persistent misfortune (as in "a childhood marked by great adversity").
Mishap suggests an often trivial instance of bad luck (as in "the usual mishaps of a family vacation"). Misfortune is the most common and the most general of the terms, often functioning as a simple synonym of "bad luck" (as in "having the misfortune to get a flat tire on the way to their wedding").
Mischance applies especially to a situation involving no more than slight inconvenience or minor annoyance (as in "a small mischance that befell us").

Salient

 WORD OF THE DAY

salient / adjective / SAIL-yunt

Definition
1a: moving by leaps or springs
1b: jumping
2: jetting upward
3a: projecting beyond a line, surface, or level
3b: standing out conspicuously
3c: prominent
3d: of notable significance
4a: something (such as a promontory) that projects outward or upward from its surroundings
4b: an outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense

Examples
"Research published last month in MIT's Sloan Management Review offers some insight. The salient point it makes is that a 'toxic work culture' was more than 10 times as predictive of attrition than insufficient compensation."
— Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2022

That's true now more than ever in the case of Vladimir Putin and certainly more salient than ever, as Europe is now facing a horrific war for the first time in decades.
— CBS News, 9 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
Salient first popped up in English in the 16th century as a term of heraldry meaning "rampant but leaning forward as if leaping."
By the mid-17th century, it had leaped into more general use in the senses of "moving by leaps or springs" or "spouting forth."
Those senses aren't too much of a jump from the word's parent, the Latin verb salire, which means "to leap."
Salire also occurs in the etymologies of some other English words, including somersault and sally, as well as Salientia, the name for an order of amphibians that includes frogs, toads, and other notable jumpers.
Today, salient is usually used to describe things that are physically prominent (such as a salient nose) or that stand out figuratively (such as the salient features of a painting or the salient points in an argument).