Ephemeral

 WORD OF THE DAY

ephemeral / adjective / ih-FEM-uh-rul

Definition
1: lasting a very short time
2: lasting one day only

Examples
"The varieties available at the plant sale include spring ephemeral wildflowers, which bloom a short period of time in the spring…."
— Cris Belle, WJW Fox 8 News (Cleveland, Ohio), 2 May 2022

This accounts for the peculiar sense most observers have that the ephemeral, sensationalist, polymorphous, magpie popular culture of the United States is at bottom remarkably conservative …
— Louis Menand, Harper's, March 1993

Did You Know?
In its aquatic immature stages, the mayfly (order Ephemeroptera) has all the time in the world—or not quite: among the approximately 2,500 species of mayflies, some have as much as two years, but a year is more common.
But in its adult phase, the typical mayfly hatches, takes wing for the first time, mates, and dies within the span of a few short hours. This briefest of heydays makes the insect a potent symbol of life's ephemeral nature.
When ephemeral (from the Greek word ephēmeros, meaning "lasting a day") first appeared in print in English in the late 16th century, it was a scientific term applied to short-term fevers, and later, to organisms (such as insects and flowers) with very short life spans.
Soon after that, it acquired an extended sense referring to anything fleeting and short-lived, as in "ephemeral pleasures."

Commemorate

 WORD OF THE DAY

commemorate / verb / kuh-MEM-uh-rayt

Definition
1: to call to remembrance
2a: to mark by some ceremony or observation
2b: observe
3: to serve as a memorial of

Examples
"Set to be unveiled this fall in the West End's Laurel Park, the bronze statue and plaza will commemorate the life and legacy of Cincinnati's world heavyweight boxing champion, Ezzard Charles."
— Sharon Coolidge, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 20 Apr. 2022

The astronauts wore stainless steel Omega Speedmasters during their trip, and the Swiss watchmaker issued a limited edition of 1,014 gold watches to commemorate their safe return.
— Tori Latham, Robb Report, 16 May 2022

Did You Know?
When you remember something, you are mindful of it. It's appropriate, therefore, that commemorate and other related memory-associated words (including memorable, memorial, remember, and memory itself) come from the Latin root memor, meaning "mindful."
English speakers have been marking the memory of important events with commemorate since the late 16th century.

Uncanny

 WORD OF THE DAY

uncanny / adjective / un-KAN-ee

Definition
1a: seeming to have a supernatural character or origin
1b: eerie, mysterious
1c: being beyond what is normal or expected
1d: suggesting superhuman or supernatural powers
2 (chiefly Scotland): severe, punishing

Examples
"Having reinvented contemporary circus as an aesthetically ambitious artform, the company here demonstrates ... what can be achieved when uncanny acrobatic prowess meets the poised spatial intelligence of contemporary dance and the intensities of physical theatre."
— Andrew Fuhrmann, Cameron Woodhead, and Jessica Nicholas, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 10 Apr. 2022

That uncanny ability led to the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Detroit native collecting nine total interceptions – including returning two for touchdowns – and not allowing a receiving touchdown during his three-year Cincinnati career.
— Keith Jenkins, The Enquirer, 26 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Weird and eerie are synonyms of uncanny, but there are subtle differences in the meanings of the three words.
Weird may be used to describe something that is generally strange or out of the ordinary.
Eerie suggests an uneasy or fearful consciousness that some kind of mysterious and malign powers are at work, while uncanny, which debuted in the 18th century, implies disquieting strangeness or mysteriousness.
English also has a word canny, but canny and uncanny should not be interpreted as opposites.
Canny, which first appeared in English in the 16th century, means "clever," "shrewd," or "prudent," as in "a canny lawyer" or "a canny investment."

Fetter

 WORD OF THE DAY

fetter / noun / FET-er

Definition
1: a chain or shackle for the feet
2a: something that confines
2b: restrain
3a: to put fetters on
3b: shackle
4: to restrain from motion, action, or progress

Examples
"The Alaska Constitution was written by a months-long gathering of 55 elected men and women in Fairbanks during the winter of 1955-1956. … They wanted a legislature free of the fetters that hobbled the older state governments—restraints that had prompted a nationwide outcry for constitutional reform in the years prior to the Alaska Constitutional Convention."
— Gordon Harrison, The Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, 24 Apr. 2022

And then there’s the New Deal, another famous attempt to slap fetters on the rough beast of capitalism.
— Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 22 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?
While now used as a more general term for something that confines or restrains, "fetter" was originally applied specifically to a chain or shackle for the feet.
Not surprisingly, the word's Old English ancestor, "feter," is etymologically shackled to "fōt," the Old English ancestor of "foot."
Both words have a long history in the English language, dating back to the early 9th century, and are chained to Sanskrit "pad," Latin ped- and pes, Greek pod- and "pous," Gothic "fotus," Norse "fōtr," and Old High German fuoz.

Benevolent

 Word of the Day : May 25, 2022

benevolent / adjective / buh-NEV-uh-lunt

What It Means

1a: marked by or disposed to doing good

1b: organized for the purpose of doing good

2: marked by or suggestive of goodwill

Examples

“I want to thank the benevolent stranger who found my keys and reunited me with them after seven months." 

— Curt Vazquez, letter in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16 May 2022

Grandfather sometimes turned on us like a rigged trap, and of course the benevolent gaze of the sage became the glare of the patriarch.

— Darryl Pinckney, High Cotton, 1992

Did You Know?

One who is benevolent genuinely wishes other people well, a meaning reflected clearly in the word's Latin roots: benevolent comes from bene, meaning "good," and velle, meaning "to wish." 

Other descendants of velle in English include volition, which refers to the power to make one's own choices or decisions, and voluntary, as well as the rare velleity, meaning either "the lowest degree of volition" or "a slight wish or tendency." 

A more familiar velle descendant stands directly opposed to benevolent: malevolent describes someone or something having or showing a desire to cause harm to another person.

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."

Mercurial

 WORD OF THE DAY

mercurial / adjective / mer-KYUR-ee-ul 

Definition

1: of, relating to, or born under the planet Mercury
2: having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or to the influence of the planet Mercury
3: characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood
4: of, relating to, containing, or caused by mercury

Examples
"But Cabrera was the definition of mercurial. He might be yelling at the top of his lungs, playfully arguing with a teammate, then quickly turn sullen when approached by a reporter."

— Carlos Monarrez, The Detroit Free Press, 26 Apr. 2022

Some scientists suggest that because manic-depressive patients are ever riding the bio-chemical express between emotional extremes, their brains end up more complexly wired and remain more persistently plastic than do the brains of less mercurial sorts.
— Natalie Angier, New York Times, 12 Oct. 1993

Did You Know?
The Roman god Mercury (Mercurius in Latin) was the messenger and herald of the gods and also the god of merchants and thieves (his counterpart in Greek mythology is Hermes).
He was noted for his eloquence, swiftness, and cunning, and the Romans named what appeared to them to be the fastest-moving planet in his honor.
The Latin adjective derived from his name, mercurialis, meaning "of or relating to Mercury," was borrowed into English in the 14th century as mercurial.
Although the adjective initially meant "born under the planet Mercury," it came to mean "having qualities attributed to the god Mercury or the influence of the planet Mercury," and then "unpredictably changeable."

Ad hoc

 WORD OF THE DAY

ad hoc / adjective / AD-HOCK

Definition
1a: concerned with a particular end or purpose
1b: formed or used for specific or immediate problems or needs
2a: fashioned from whatever is immediately available
2b: improvised

Examples
"The council voted unanimously last fall to establish an ad hoc advisory strategic planning board tasked with writing a new long-range plan for the town."
— Jodie Wagner, The Palm Beach (Florida) Daily News, 12 Apr. 2022

The ad hoc committee, which included faculty, students and nonvoting members of U. administration, held public town hall meetings and gathered other information to produce a 61-page report on divestment.
— Tim Fitzpatrick, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 May 2022

Did You Know?
In Latin, ad hoc literally means "for this." That historical meaning is clearly reflected in contemporary English uses of ad hoc—anything that is ad hoc can be thought of as existing "for this purpose only."
For example, an "ad hoc committee" is generally authorized to look into a single matter of limited scope, not to pursue any issue of interest.
Ad hoc can also be used as an adverb meaning "for the case at hand apart from other applications," as in "a commission created ad hoc."
The adverb is older: it has been used in English since the mid-17th century, whereas the adjective did not become part of the language until about the mid-19th century.

Kibosh

 WORD OF THE DAY

kibosh / noun / KYE-bosh

Definition
: something that serves as a check or stop —usually used in the phrase put the kibosh on

Examples
"The state Senate last week put the kibosh on up to $60 million more in aid for school districts."
— Kevin Landrigan, The (Manchester) New Hampshire Sunday News, 24 Apr. 2022

The pandemic put the kibosh on Carlos Kalmar’s final year as music director of the orchestra.
— oregonlive, 22 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
Evidence of kibosh dates the word to only a few years before Charles Dickens used it in an 1836 sketch, but despite kibosh being relatively young in English its source is elusive.
Claims were once made that it was Yiddish, despite the absence of a plausible Yiddish source. Another hypothesis pointed to Irish caidhp bhais, literally, coif (or cap) of death, explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed.
But evidence for any metaphorical use of this phrase in Irish is lacking, and kibosh is not recorded in English as spoken in Ireland until decades after Dickens' use.
More recent source theories include a heraldic term for an animal’s head when born with only its face fully showing, and an Arabic word meaning “whip, lash,” but as the note at our etymology explains, no theory has sufficient evidence to back it.

Indoctrinate

 WORD OF THE DAY

indoctrinate / verb / in-DAHK-truh-nay

Definition
1: to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle
2a: to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments
2b: teach

Examples
"Moreover, in a pluralistic society, parents from varied backgrounds want to know their children can receive a public education without being indoctrinated into a faith not their own."
— David Callaway, The Parsons (Kansas) Sun, 26 Dec. 2020

Without leaders’ coordinated efforts to indoctrinate such a base, no lie can take hold.
— Katherine Stewart, The New Republic, 10 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
Indoctrinate simply means "brainwash" to many people. But its meaning isn't always so negative.
When this verb first appeared in English in the 17th century, it simply meant "to teach"—a meaning that followed logically from its Latin root.
The "doc" in the middle of indoctrinate derives from the Latin verb docēre, which also means "to teach." Other offspring of docēre include docent (referring to a college professor or a museum guide), docile, doctor, doctrine, and document.
It was not until the 19th century that indoctrinate began to see regular use in the sense of causing someone to absorb and take on certain opinions or principles.

Nefarious

 WORD OF THE DAY

nefarious / adjective / nih-FAIR-ee-us

Definition
1: flagrantly wicked or impious
2: evil

Examples
"Evil Dave's Grill. The name of this grill isn't a nod to anyone nefarious; it's a cheeky reference to the wicked dishes on its dinner-only menu."
— Claudia Laroye, The Toronto Star, 1 Apr. 2022

Moreover, those starry-eyed states inclined to perceive international relations in moral terms frequently underestimate the nefarious machinations of their competitors on the world political stage.
— Richard Wolin, New Republic, 4 June 2001

Did You Know?
Nefarious comes from the Latin adjective nefarius and the Latin noun nefas, which means "crime."
Nefas is a combination of ne- ("not") and fas, meaning "right" or "divine law."

There are many synonyms for nefarious, and all mean highly reprehensible or offensive in character, nature, or conduct.
Vicious may directly oppose virtuous in implying moral depravity, or may connote malignancy, cruelty, or destructive violence.  
Villainous applies to any evil, depraved, or vile conduct or characteristic. 
Iniquitous implies absence of all signs of justice or fairness. 
Corrupt stresses a loss of moral integrity or probity causing betrayal of principle or sworn obligations.  
Degenerate suggests having sunk to an especially vicious or enervated condition.  

Epithet

 WORD OF THE DAY

epithet / noun / EP-uh-thet

Definition
1a: a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing
1b: a disparaging or abusive word or phrase
1c: the part of a taxonomic name identifying a subordinate unit within a genus
2 (obsolete): expression

Examples
"Seeing the [Combat Veterans motorcycle club] holding American Flags … brings back a lot of patriotic emotions. WWII vets are part of what has been referred to as 'The Greatest Generation.' I wonder what the epithet will be for our current generation."
— Stephen Rowland, The Daily Herald (Columbia, Tennessee), 23 Mar. 2022

The first challenge with Chloë Sevigny is figuring out how to describe her, as no single epithet feels quite right.
— Liam Hess, Vogue, 19 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Nowadays, epithet is usually used negatively, with the meaning "a derogatory word or phrase," but it wasn't always that way.
Epithet comes to us via Latin from the Greek noun epitheton and ultimately derives from epitithenai, meaning "to put on" or "to add."
In its oldest sense, an epithet is simply a descriptive word or phrase, especially one joined by fixed association to the name of someone or something (as in "Peter the Great" or the stock Homeric phrases "gray-eyed Athena" and "wine-dark sea").
Alternatively, epithets may be used in place of a name (as in "the Peacemaker" or "the Eternal").
These neutral meanings of epithet are still in use, but today the word is more often used in its negative "term of disparagement" sense.

Turpitude

 WORD OF THE DAY

turpitude / noun / TER-puh-tood

Definition
1a: inherent baseness
1b: depravity
2: a base act

Examples
"Moral turpitude is defined at the local level, but common crimes include murder, … robbery, burglary, drugged driving, drunk driving with a suspended license, voluntary manslaughter…."
— David J. Bier, The Cato Institute, 30 Nov. 2021

By 1900, nativism had crept into the temperance discourse, as immigrants from Ireland and Italy were associated with drunkenness and moral turpitude.
— Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 19 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Turpitude came to English from Latin turpitudo by way of Middle French.
Turpitudo comes from turpis, which means "vile" or "base."
Turpitude is often found in the phrase "moral turpitude," an expression used in law to designate an act or behavior that gravely violates the moral sentiment or accepted moral standards of the community.
A criminal offense that involves moral turpitude is one that is considered wrong or evil by moral standards, in addition to being the violation of a statute.

Bloviate

 WORD OF THE DAY

bloviate / verb / BLOH-vee-ay

Definition
: to speak or write verbosely and windily

Examples
"The excerpt itself relates to … a perpetual clock that ticked off precise measures of time, to keep orators in the Roman Senate from bloviating past their allotted speaking period."
— Caitlin Lovinger, The New York Times, 10 Mar. 2022

 And will Washington have the resources to hire someone who can actually compete with Oregon, not just bloviate about academic standards?
— Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, 15 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
Warren G. Harding is often linked to bloviate, but to him the word wasn't insulting; it simply meant "to spend time idly."
Harding used the word often in that "hanging around" sense, but during his tenure as the 29th U.S. President (1921-23), he became associated with the "verbose" sense of bloviate, perhaps because his speeches tended to the long-winded side.
Although he is sometimes credited with having coined the word, it's more likely that Harding picked it up from local slang while hanging around with his boyhood buddies in Ohio in the late 1800s.
The term probably derives from a combination of the word blow plus the suffix -ate.

Nefarious

WORD OF THE DAY

nefarious / adjective / nih-FAIR-ee-us

Definition
1: flagrantly wicked or impious
2: evil

Examples
"Evil Dave's Grill. The name of this grill isn't a nod to anyone nefarious; it's a cheeky reference to the wicked dishes on its dinner-only menu."
— Claudia Laroye, The Toronto Star, 1 Apr. 2022

Moreover, those starry-eyed states inclined to perceive international relations in moral terms frequently underestimate the nefarious machinations of their competitors on the world political stage.
— Richard Wolin, New Republic, 4 June 2001

Did You Know?
Nefarious comes from the Latin adjective nefarius and the Latin noun nefas, which means "crime."
Nefas is a combination of ne- ("not") and fas, meaning "right" or "divine law."

There are many synonyms for nefarious, and all mean highly reprehensible or offensive in character, nature, or conduct.
Vicious may directly oppose virtuous in implying moral depravity, or may connote malignancy, cruelty, or destructive violence.  
Villainous applies to any evil, depraved, or vile conduct or characteristic. 
Iniquitous implies absence of all signs of justice or fairness. 
Corrupt stresses a loss of moral integrity or probity causing betrayal of principle or sworn obligations.  
Degenerate suggests having sunk to an especially vicious or enervated condition.  

Conclave

 WORD OF THE DAY

conclave / noun / KAHN-klay

Definition
1a: a private meeting or secret assembly
1b: a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope
2: a gathering of a group or association

Examples
"Until Franklin Roosevelt invited King George VI and the Queen Mother for a visit in 1939, no reigning British ruler had ever set foot on American soil. With the clouds of war on the horizon, their conclave was a key element in bolstering the relationship between the two nations."
— Jonathan L. Stolz, The Virginia Gazette, 24 Jan. 2022

According to Vatican statistics, Francis has elevated 58 percent of the cardinals who would enter a conclave were it held today, with 72 voting cardinals, compared with 39 by Benedict XVI and 13 by Pope John Paul II.
— New York Times, 9 July 2021

Did You Know?
Ever wonder what happens behind locked doors? The etymology of conclave begs this question as the word comes from a Latin term meaning "room that can be locked up."
The English word formerly had the same meaning, but that use is now obsolete. Today, "conclave" refers not to the locked rooms but to the private meetings and secret assemblies that occur within them.
"Conclave" is especially likely to refer to a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals who have secluded themselves to choose a pope, but it can refer to other types of private or secret meetings as well.
The meaning of "conclave" has also expanded to include gatherings that are not necessarily secret or private but simply involve people with shared interests.

Sagacious

 WORD OF THE DAY

sagacious / adjective / suh-GAY-shus

Definition
1a: of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment
1b: discerning
1c: caused by or indicating acute discernment
2 (obsolete): keen in sense perception

Examples
"If depression crept in, she would phone her sagacious dad for advice…."
— Tom Lanham, Spin, 8 Sept. 2021

… the winner is praised for his sagacious grasp of the hopes and anxieties of the public, the loser is excoriated for the many and obvious blunders that derailed his candidacy …
— Hendrik Hertzberg, New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2000

Did You Know?
You might expect the root of sagacious to be sage, which, as an adjective, means "wise" or, as a noun, "a wise person."
Despite similarities of spelling, sound, and sense, the two words are not closely related. Sagacious comes from sagire, a Latin verb meaning "to perceive keenly."
Etymologists believe that sage comes from a different Latin verb, sapere, which means "to taste," "to have good taste," or "to be wise."
Sagacious entered the English language around the beginning of the 17th century and, for some decades, referred to perceptiveness of sight, taste, and especially, smell.
One of the first authors to use the word, Edward Topsell, wrote in 1607 of bees searching for something with “a most sagacious smelling-sence.”
Sagacious has largely lost the sense (no pun intended) of being keen in sensory perception, and now almost exclusively means "of keen judgment, discerning.”
The upshot is that English has words for the state of possessing acute vision (such as far-sighted) and a fine sense of touch (such as sensitive), but lacks any adjectives describing an excellent sense of smell.

Mollify

WORD OF THE DAY

mollify / verb / MAH-luh-fye

Definition
1a: to soothe in temper or disposition
1b: appease
2a: to reduce the rigidity of
2b: soften
3a: to reduce in intensity
3b: assuage, temper
4 (archaic): soften, relent

Examples
"And a lot of fans who had vowed never to return were apparently mollified since attendance returned to pre-strike levels within a year. Will fans forgive this time? Maybe. But MLB was losing ground before the lockout."
— Jeffery G. Hanna, The Roanoke (Virginia) Times, 23 Mar. 2022

This did not mollify the fans, especially when two French Canadian players taken just after Lafleur in the 1971 draft, Marcel Dionne (Detroit Red Wings) and Richard Martin (Buffalo Sabres), started scoring immediately.
— David Shoalts, New York Times, 22 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Mollify, like its synonyms pacify, appease, and placate, means "to ease the anger or disturbance of."
But mollify is particularly well-suited for referring to an act of soothing hurt feelings or anger; it comes from the Latin mollis, meaning "soft."

Fractious

 WORD OF THE DAY

fractious / adjective / FRAK-shus

Definition
1a: tending to be troublesome
1b: unruly
2: quarrelsome, irritable

Examples
"The game became fractious, heavy tackles flying in, players squaring up to each other. The hostility spread."
— Luke Edwards, The Daily Telegraph (London), 4 Apr. 2022

But their long fight for the vote, Taub said, can stand in for any of the great social movements in American history, all of which were also messy, fractious, imperfect — and unfinished.
— New York Times, 24 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
The Latin verb frangere means "to break or shatter" and is related to a few common words, which is evident in their meanings.
Dishes that are fragile break easily. A person whose health is easily broken might be described as frail.
A fraction is one of the many pieces into which a whole can be broken.
But fraction also once meant "disharmony" or "discord"—that is, a "rupture in relations."
From this noun sense came the adjective fractious.

Abeyance

 WORD OF THE DAY

abeyance / noun / uh-BAY-unss

Definition
1a: a state of temporary inactivity
1b: suspension —used chiefly in the phrase in abeyance
2: a lapse in succession during which there is no person in whom a title is vested

Examples
"The consensus of analysts is that the crisis may be in abeyance for the moment, but is far from over."
— Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Dec. 2021

Three weeks later, Dayspring and his business associates addressed the Board of Supervisors during the public comment period, urging the county to again extend the abeyance.
— Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2021

Did You Know?
Abeyance comes from Old French baer, meaning "to have the mouth wide open," which was joined with the prefix a- to form abaer, a verb meaning "to open wide," and, in later Anglo-French usage, "to expect or await."
There followed Anglo-French abeyance, which referred to a state of expectation—specifically, a person's expectation of inheriting a title or property.
The word, in English, was then applied for the expectation to the property itself: a property or title "in abeyance" is in temporary limbo, waiting to be claimed by a rightful heir or owner.

Nefarious

 WORD OF THE DAY

nefarious / adjective / nih-FAIR-ee-us

Definition
1a: flagrantly wicked or impious
1b: evil

Examples
"Evil Dave's Grill. The name of this grill isn't a nod to anyone nefarious; it's a cheeky reference to the wicked dishes on its dinner-only menu."
— Claudia Laroye, The Toronto Star, 1 Apr. 2022

Moreover, those starry-eyed states inclined to perceive international relations in moral terms frequently underestimate the nefarious machinations of their competitors on the world political stage.
— Richard Wolin, New Republic, 4 June 2001

Did You Know?
Nefarious comes from the Latin adjective nefarius and the Latin noun nefas, which means "crime."
Nefas is a combination of ne- ("not") and fas, meaning "right" or "divine law.

Leviathan

 WORD OF THE DAY

leviathan / noun / luh-VYE-uh-thun

Definition
1a (often capitalized): a sea monster defeated by Yahweh in various scriptural accounts
1b: a large sea animal
2 (capitalized): the political state
3: something large or formidable

Examples
"The Juno probe has been tasked with studying a leviathan: Jupiter, the heavyweight of the Solar System, King of the Planets."
— Michelle Starr, Science Alert, 23 Mar. 2022

So, for approved and vetted smaller firms that would fit a diverse supplier profile, this can mean leviathan-sized hurdles buried in the fine print: things like outsized insurance and cybersecurity requirements, or onerous payment terms.
— Ellen Mcgirt, Fortune, 25 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
The Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, Leviathan (in Hebrew, Liwyāthān), are thought to come from an ancient myth in which the god Baal slays a multiheaded sea monster.
Leviathan appears in the Book of Psalms, as a sea serpent that is killed by God and then given as food to creatures in the wilderness, and it is mentioned in the Book of Job as well.
Today, its name is used for "something monstrous or of enormous size."