Scintillate

 WORD OF THE DAY

scintillate / verb / SIN-tuh-lay

Definition
1a: to emit sparks
1b: spark
2a: to emit quick flashes as if throwing off sparks
2b: sparkle
3: to dazzle or impress with liveliness or wit
4: to throw off as a spark or as sparkling flashes

Examples
“Kimberly Marable's scarred Persephone, torn as Hades' consort between verdant summers above and the steamy underworld below, exudes a lust for life despite all. Her torchy vocals scintillate in ‘Livin' It Up on Top,’ a rousing paean to seizing every moment.”
— Michael Grossberg, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 18 Nov. 2021

The performances abounded in scintillating grace, wondrous shadings, even touches of impetuousness — all the qualities that distinguish his Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.
— New York Times, 4 Mar. 2020

Did You Know?
The history of scintillate begins with Latin scintilla, which means "spark."
Scintilla, in turn, sparked the development of the verb scintillare, meaning "to sparkle."
Scintillate is the English version of scintillare.
Though it sometimes means literally "to sparkle," it more often means "to sparkle" in a figurative sense—that is, to be lively, or to perform brilliantly.
 Scintillate is not the only word we get from scintilla. There is also scintilla itself (used as a noun meaning "a little bit"), scintillant (an adjective describing something that scintillates), and scintillation (which, among other things, means "a brilliant outburst").

Duress

WORD OF THE DAY

duress / noun / dur-RESS

Definition
1 (law): forcible restraint or restriction
2 (law): compulsion by threat

Examples
"The ordinance ... was passed under duress by council members who believed that it would never be implemented."
— Gilbert Garcia, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News Online, 20 May 2022

The Ukrainian cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, in Luhansk, are increasingly under duress and could fall to Russian forces within a week, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
— Claire Parker, Washington Post, 11 June 2022

Did You Know?
Duress is most often paired with the word under to refer to force or threats meant to make someone do something.
For example, someone forced to sign a document signs it “under duress,” and a person held “under duress” is not free to leave but is being constrained, usually unlawfully.
Do not confuse being “under duress” with being “under stress,” which is a much more common occurrence.
Duress is a word of hardy stock. It has been a part of the English language since the 14th century and has a number of long-lived relatives.
 Duress itself came into Middle English through the Anglo-French duresce (meaning "hardness" or "severity"), which stems from Latin durus, meaning "hard."
Some obvious relatives of this robust root are durable, endure and obdurate (meaning "unyielding" or "hardened in feelings").
Some others are dour (meaning "harsh," "unyielding," or "gloomy") and the preposition during.

Fulsome

 WORD OF THE DAY

fulsome / adjective / FULL-sum

Definition
1a: characterized by abundance
1b: copius
1c: generous in amount, extent, or spirit
1d: being full and well developed
2: aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive
3a: exceeding the bounds of good taste
3b: overdone
4a: excessively complimentary or flattering
4b: effusive

Examples
"The county executive isn't opposed in principle to bonds for housing, but thinks county leaders need to have a more fulsome discussion about tradeoffs such debt would require."
— Dan Brendel, The Washington (D.C.) Business Journal, 10 May 2022

There are fulsome discussions around ensuring a person with a juvenile record of violence or mental health struggles cannot get hold of such a weapon upon turning 18, when many juvenile records are expunged.
— Jennifer Haberkornstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2022

Did You Know?
In the 19th century, fulsome was mostly a literary term used disapprovingly to describe excessive, insincere praise and flattery.
This meaning is still current, but since the early 20th century fulsome has been increasingly used with far more positive meanings, among them “abundant, copious” and “full and well developed.”
The result is some amount of confusion: a phrase like “fulsome praise” used today without clarifying context may rightly be understood to mean either “abundant praise” or “excessive and obsequious praise.”
While some critics object to the pleasanter meanings of fulsome, they are in fact true to the word’s origins: when it was first used in the 14th century fulsome meant “abundant, copious.”

The senses shown above are the chief living senses of fulsome. Sense 2, which was a generalized term of disparagement in the late 17th century, is the least common of these.
Fulsome became a point of dispute when sense 1, thought to be obsolete in the 19th century, began to be revived in the 20th.
The dispute was exacerbated by the fact that the large dictionaries of the first half of the century missed the beginnings of the revival. Sense 1 has not only been revived but has spread in its application and continues to do so.
The chief danger for the user of fulsome is ambiguity. Unless the context is made very clear, the reader or hearer cannot be sure whether such an expression as "fulsome praise" is meant in sense 1b or in sense 4.

Culminate

 WORD OF THE DAY

culminate / verb / KUL-muh-nayt

Definition
1a (of a celestial body): to reach its highest altitude
1b: to be directly overhead
2a: to rise to or form a summit
2b: to reach the highest or a climactic or decisive point
3: to bring to a head or to the highest point

Examples
“The trail culminates at a mountaintop summit with handcrafted log benches as well as views of Lake Tahoe in one direction, Granite Chief Wilderness in the other.”
– The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California), 28 July 2021

March Madness is coming to an end, and the tournaments will culminate with the women’s and men’s national championship games on April 3 and April 4, respectively.
— New York Times, 3 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
When a star or other heavenly body culminates, it reaches its highest point above the horizon from the vantage point of an observer on the ground.
Culminate was drawn from Medieval Latin culminare, meaning "to crown," specifically for this astronomical application.
Its ultimate root is Latin culmen, meaning "top."
Today, the word’s typical context is less lofty: it can mean “to reach a climactic point,” as in “a long career culminating in a prestigious award,” but it can also simply mean "to reach the end of something,” as in “a sentence culminating in a period.”

Confidant

 WORD OF THE DA Y

confidant / noun / KAHN-fuh-dahnt

Definition
1: one to whom secrets are entrusted
2: intimate

Examples
“Lee Strasberg, the Actors Studio director who was, with his wife, Paula, a confidant and caretaker of Marilyn Monroe, felt that an actor must plumb the depths of her psyche to find the emotional truth of a performance.”
–James Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 Jan. 2022

Isidore Dockweiler was a Los Angeles native, born in 1867 at First and Broadway in downtown L.A., a leading lawyer and Democratic politician and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson.
— Los Angeles Times, 17 May 2022

Did You Know?
If you're confident of the trustworthiness of your confidants, you're tuned into the origins of the word confidant.
The word comes, via French, from the Italian confidente, meaning "trusting, having trust in," from Latin confīdere, meaning "to put one’s trust in, have confidence in.”
Other descendants of confīdere in English include confide, confidence, confident, and confidential, all of which ultimately have Latin fīdere, meaning "to trust (in), rely (on)," as their root.
Confidant (and its variant confidante, used especially of a woman) and confident are often confused, a topic about which we have plenty to say.

Ingenuous

 WORD OF THE DAY

ingenuous / adjective / in-JEN-yuh-wus

Definition
1a: showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness
1b: lacking craft or subtlety
2 (obsolete): noble, honorable
3 (obsolete):  ingenious

Example
“I remember too well being young yet adult, confident yet ingenuous. It’s like marching off to war, armed with a bubble wand.”
— Margo Bartlett, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 20 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Ingenuous is most often used to describe someone who has a childlike innocence and openness.
It should not be confused with ingenious, which typically describes someone who is unusually inventive or clever, or something made or done in an especially original or clever way.
The words look very much alike, but sound different: remember that ingenuous sounds like its linguistic relation genuine, while ingenious sounds like genius—despite the fact that there is no etymological connection between those two. 

Quibble

WORD OF THE DAY

quibble / verb / KWIB-ul

Definition
1: to evade the point of an argument by caviling about words
2a: cavil, carp
2b: bicker
3: to subject to quibbles
4: an evasion of or shift from the point
5: a minor objection or criticism

Example
“The Outfit is a smart movie—maybe a little too smart for its own good here and there, but let’s not quibble.”
– Mick LaSalle, The San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Mar. 2022

And there's room to quibble about micro-level decisions along the way.
— Rahat Huq, Chron, 7 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
In addition to functioning as a verb, quibble also exists as a noun meaning "an evasion of or shift from the point" and "a minor objection or criticism."
Both forms of the word arrived in English in the mid-17th century. Presumably (though not certainly) quibble originated as a diminutive of a now obsolete word, quib, which also meant "quibble."
In fact, although language experts may quibble over this, there is a possibility that quib can be traced back to the plural of the Latin word qui, meaning "who," which was often used in legal documents. If so, that makes quibble a very distant cousin of the English word who.

Prescience

WORD OF THE DAY

prescience / noun / PRESH-ee-unss

Definition
1a: foreknowledge of events
1b: divine omniscience
1c: human anticipation of the course of events
1d: foresight

Examples
"As the author of some of the most searing indictments of the damage governments and people can do, George Orwell has become synonymous with the kind of prescience most artists only dream of."
— Clarke Reader, The Elbert County News (Kiowa, Colorado), 16 Mar. 2022

Especially at the end of the second episode, Apatow and Bonfiglio concentrate on Carlin’s prescience without delving all that deeply into his subsequent appropriation by both sides of the political spectrum.
— Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 May 2022

Did You Know?
If you know the origin of "science," you already know half the story of "prescience." "Science" comes from the Latin verb scire, which means "to know" and which is the source of many English words ("conscience," "conscious," and "omniscience," just to name a few).
"Prescience" comes from the Latin verb praescire, which means "to know beforehand."
"Praescire" joins the verb "scire" with the prefix prae-, a predecessor of "pre-."
A lesser-known "scire"-derived word is "nescience."
Nescience means "ignorance" and comes from "scire" plus "ne-," which means "not" in Latin

Garrulous

WORD OF THE DAY

garrulous / adjective / AIR-uh-lus

Definition
1a: given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity
1b: pointlessly or annoyingly talkative
2: wordy

Examples
“Most college presidents I've met are outgoing, garrulous types who enjoy talking with students and faculty.”
—John Boyle, The Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen Times, 15 May 2022

Salman grew ever more garrulous as the yellow liquid in the bottle went down; Baal couldn't recall when he'd last heard anyone talk up such a storm.
— Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, 1989

Did You Know?
Garrulous is a 17th century Latin borrowing that has its origin in garrīre, meaning "to chatter, talk rapidly."
That Latin root is probably imitative in origin—that is, it was coined to imitate what it refers to.
English has a number of words that are imitative in origin, among them several others that describe ways of talking, such as babble and chatter.

Oblige

WORD OF THE DAY

oblige / verb / uh-BLYJE

Definition
1: to constrain by physical, moral, or legal force or by the exigencies of circumstance
2a: to put in one's debt by a favor or service
2b: to do a favor for
3: to do something as or as if as a favor

Examples
"Fiduciaries are obliged to do what's in your best interest, even if it means they make less money."
— Paul Katzeff, Investor's Business Daily, 13 May 2022

Many Chinese communities think yellow skin is an indicator of a chicken that lived well, and hence eats well, and some kitchens will tint the poaching water with a tiny bit of turmeric to oblige their customers.
— Tse Wei Lim, BostonGlobe.com, 7 June 2022

Did You Know?
Oblige shares some similarities with its close relative obligate, but there are also differences.
Oblige derives via Middle English and the Anglo-French obliger from Latin obligare ("to bind to"), a combination of ob- ("to or toward") and ligare ("to bind"), whereas obligate descends directly from obligatus, the Latin past participle of obligare.
Both oblige and obligate are frequently used in their past participle forms to express a kind of legal or moral constraint.
Obligated once meant "indebted for a service or favor," but today it typically means "required to do something because the law requires it or because it is the right thing to do."
Obliged is now the preferred term for the sense that Southern author Flannery O'Connor used in a 1952 letter: "I would be much obliged if you would send me six copies."

Adulation

 WORD OF THE DAY

adulation / noun / aj-uh-LAY-shun

Definition
: extreme or excessive admiration or flattery

Examples
“The history that emerges here is of a band yo-yoing between attempts to be taken seriously as artists, then coming back for more boyband fame and adulation.”
– Cath Clarke, The Guardian (London), 18 May 2022

Over the course of the six-week-and-counting trial, Vasquez has generated admiration, speculation and adulation online.
— Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 25 May 2022

Did You Know?
If adulation makes you think of a dog panting after its beloved person, you're on the right etymological track; the word ultimately comes from the Latin verb adūlārī, meaning "to fawn on" (a sense used specifically of the affectionate behavior of dogs) or "to praise insincerely."
Adulation has been in use in English since the 15th century.
The verb adulate, noun adulator, and adjective adulatory later followed dutifully behind.

Credulous

WORD OF THE DAY

credulous / adjective / KREJ-uh-lus

Definition
1: ready to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence
2: proceeding from credulity

Examples
"A pair of fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes raked in millions by duping credulous investors, Manhattan and Brooklyn federal prosecutors said Tuesday."
— Noah Goldberg, The Daily News (New York), 9 Mar. 2022

Like the Afghanistan debacle, Theranos is a horror story of wishful thinking, credulous media, and celebrity impunity.
— Samuel Goldman, The Week, 10 Sep. 2021

Did You Know?
It’s easier to give credit to people who adhere to their creed than to give credence to what miscreants say, or for that matter, to find recreants altogether credible.
That sentence contains a half dozen words which, like today’s credulous, are descendants of credere, the Latin verb that means "to believe" or "to trust":
credit ("honor," as well as "belief");
creed ("guiding principle");
credence ("acceptance as true");
miscreant ("a heretic" or a criminal);
recreant ("coward, deserter");
credible ("offering reasonable grounds for being believed").
Credulous is even more closely allied to the nouns credulity and credulousness (both meaning "gullibility"), and of course its antonym, incredulous ("skeptical," also "improbable").

Festoon

WORD OF THE DAY

festoon / verb / fess-TOON

Definition
1: to hang or form festoons on
2: to shape into festoons
3: decorate, adorn
4: cover 

Examples
“The budget-conscious will appreciate that the restaurant's heartier dishes, like the wood-fired pork chop festooned with sweet farmers' market nectarines and toasted hazelnuts, are all less than $30 apiece.”
– Soleil Ho, The San Francisco Chronicle, 15 Apr. 2022

The neutral dress sets off the sitter’s pink sash and flowers, her rouged cheeks, the yellow festoon on the stone wall and the wreath of parti-colored flowers in her hand.
— Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
The noun festoon first appeared in the 1600s when it was used, as it still is today, to refer to decorative chains or strips hung between two points. (It can also refer to a carved, molded, or painted ornament representing such a chain.)
After a century’s worth of festoon-adorning, the verb festoon made an entrance, and people began to festoon with their festoons—that is, they draped and adorned with them.
The verb has since then acquired additional, more general senses related not only to decorating, but to something appearing on the surface of something, as in “a sweater festooned with purple unicorns.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this celebratory-sounding and party-associated word traces back (by way of French and Italian) to Latin festa, the plural of festum, meaning “festival.”

Panacea

WORD OF THE DAY

panacea / noun / pan-uh-SEE-uh

Definition
1a: a remedy for all ills or difficulties
1b: cure-all

Examples
But there isn’t one oil-fighting shampoo panacea for everyone.
— Adam Hurly, Robb Report, 28 Apr. 2022

In Hawaiʻi, ‘awa root is used like a panacea for conditions ranging from insomnia to headaches to kidney disorders.
— Kathleen M. Wong, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Mar. 2022

Did You Know?
Panacea is from Latin, and the Latin word, in turn, is from Greek panakeia. In Greek, panakēs means "all-healing," combining pan- ("all") and akos, which means "remedy."
The Latin designation Panacea or Panaces has been awarded to more than one plant at one time or other, among them the herb today known as Prunella vulgaris, whose common name is self-heal.
More often than not, panacea is used when decrying a claim made for a remedy that seems too good to be true.
Most likely that's what the author is doing in a 1625 anatomical treatise, describing "a certaine medicine made of saffron, quick silver, vermilion, antimonie, and certaine sea shels made up in fashion of triangular lozenges," and calling it a panacea.

Additionally, Panacea was the goddess of healing. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, alchemists who sought to concoct the "elixir of life" (which would give eternal life) and the "philosopher's stone" (which would turn ordinary metals into gold) also labored to find the panacea.
But no such medicine was ever found, just as no solution to all of a society's difficulties has ever been found. Thus, panacea is almost always used to criticize the very idea of a total solution ("There's no panacea for the current problems plaguing Wall Street").

Lout

WORD OF THE DAY

lout / noun / LOUT

Definition
1: to bow in respect
2: submit, yield
3: an awkward brutish person
4: scorn

Examples
“This is a page-turner about a tough woman and her con-artist lout of a partner, and I will eat my laptop if it doesn’t get optioned for TV or film the minute it hits bookshelves.”
– Molly Young, Vulture, 8 Jan. 2021

An even closer relationship between Lincoln and popular culture was to the humorist David Ross Locke, who wrote under the pen name Petroleum V. Nasby, a vicious lout who lampooned Northern Democrats for their support of the Confederacy.
— Washington Post, 13 Nov. 2020

Did You Know?
Lout belongs to a large group of words that we use to indicate a particular sort of offensive and insensitive person, that group also including such terms as boor, oaf, jerk, and churl.
We've used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. As early as the 800s, however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning "to bow in respect." No one is quite sure how—or even if—the verb sense developed into a noun meaning "a brutish person."
The noun could have been coined independently, but if its source was the verb, perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing down led over the centuries to the idea that the bowing person was base and awkward as well.

Evanescent

 WORD OF THE DAY

evanescent / adjective / ev-uh-NESS-unt

Definition
: tending to vanish like vapor

Examples
"In both cases Viladrich makes you feel just how extraordinary it is to capture something as evanescent as a personality in a painting."
— Will Heinrich, The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2022

But from his vantage on the evanescent bridge to maturity, So is puzzling out some big questions, ones that might be exigent from different vantages at any age.
— Deborah Eisenberg, The New York Review of Books, 19 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?
The fragile, airy quality of things evanescent reflects the etymology of the word evanescent itself.
It derives from a form of the Latin verb evanescere, which means "to evaporate" or "to vanish."
Given the similarity in spelling between the two words, you might expect evaporate to come from the same Latin root, but it actually grew out of another steamy Latin root, evaporare.
Evanescere did give us vanish, however, by way of Anglo-French and Vulgar Latin.

Arrogate

WORD OF THE DAY

arrogate / verb / AIR-uh-gay

Definition
1a: to claim or seize without justification
1b: to make undue claims to having
1c: assume
2a: to claim on behalf of another
2b: ascribe

Examples
"Teenage girls rule in the tart but sweet new Broadway musical Mean Girls. But their system of high-school government is far from a democracy: It's a reign of terror, angst and mall fashions, where popularity is arrogated and then ruthlessly enforced."
— Adam Feldman, TimeOut New York, 8 Apr. 2018

The Chinese Communist Party, bizarrely, arrogates to itself the right to approve his successor.
— The Economist, 11 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
Arrogate comes from Latin arrogatus, a past participle of the verb arrogare, which means "to appropriate to one's self."
The Latin verb, in turn, was formed from the prefix ad- ("to" or "toward") and the verb rogare ("to ask").
You may have noticed that arrogate is similar to the more familiar arrogant.
And there is, in fact, a relationship between the two words. Arrogant comes from Latin arrogant- or arrogans, the present participle of arrogare.
Arrogant is often applied to that sense of superiority which comes from someone claiming (or arrogating) more consideration than is due to that person's position, dignity, or power. 

Vocation

 WORD OF THE DAY

vocation / noun / voh-KAY-shun

Definition
1a: a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action
1b: a divine call to the religious life
1c: an entry into the priesthood or a religious order
2a: the work in which a person is employed
2b: occupation
2c: the persons engaged in a particular occupation
3: the special function of an individual or group

Examples
"The play, adapted by Eric Coble from a young adult novel by Lois Lowry, is set in the unnamed 'community' over which the committee presides. The leaders choose mandatory vocations for every citizen, come up with draconian rules, diligently enforce them (sometimes with capital punishment) and control natural human emotions with drugs."
— Betsie Freeman, The Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald, 27 Apr. 2022

Speculation in cryptocurrencies and NFTs gives young investors the opportunity to make lots of money fast, a vocation as old as time that will remain popular until the lights go out in this world.
— Lawrence Wintermeyer, Forbes, 14 Apr. 2022

Did You Know?
Vocation has been making its voice heard in English since the 15th century, when it referred to a summons from God to perform a particular task or function in life, especially a religious career.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the word is a descendant of Latin vocatio, meaning "summons." Vocatio, in turn, comes from vocare, meaning "to call," which itself is from vox, meaning "voice." Vocation also has a secular position in the English language as a word for the strong desire to do a certain kind of work or the work itself, much like the words calling or occupation.

Sumptuous

 WORD OF THE DAY

sumptuous / adjective / SUMP-shuh-wus

Definition
1: extremely costly, rich, luxurious, or magnificent

Examples
"Simple but sumptuous, this sheet-pan cod primavera with blender hollandaise is a spring sensation...."
— headline, The Alaska Dispatch News, 20 Apr. 2022

The film has become infamous for its ludicrous language, sumptuous furnishings, and over the top acting with a capital A.
— Callahan Tormey, Town & Country, 8 May 2022

Did You Know?
The word sumptuous typically describes things that can only be had at some significant expense, a fact that keeps the modern English word tied to its Latin source: sumptus, meaning "expense."
Another English adjective, sumptuary, has the same Latin source, but today is found mostly in the context of sumptuary laws, largely historical regulations limiting extravagant expenditures and habits, especially on moral or religious grounds.

Perfunctory

 WORD OF THE DAY

perfunctory / adjective / per-FUNK-tuh-ree

Definition
1a: characterized by routine or superficiality
1b: mechanical
2: lacking in interest or enthusiasm

Examples
"In those days we offered a pick-up and delivery service for bike repairs. Usually the transaction was perfunctory, but not with Lou. He used to open the door to his house and invite us to come inside for a coffee or soda."
— Bill Durham, The Islander News (Key Biscayne, Florida), 21 Apr. 2022

The eight-time Pro Bowl player sometimes goes several weeks without agreeing to do even the most perfunctory postgame interviews.
— Nunyo Demasio, Sports Illustrated, 8 Jan. 2007

Did You Know?
Perfunctory is a word whose origins are found entirely in Latin. It first appeared in English in the late 16th century and is derived from the Late Latin perfunctorius, meaning "done in a careless or superficial manner."
Perfunctorius was also borrowed for the synonymous, and now archaic, English adjective perfunctorious at around the same time.
Perfunctorius comes from the earlier Latin perfunctus, a past participle of perfungi, meaning "to accomplish" or "to get through with."
That verb is formed by combining the prefix per-, meaning "through," with the verb fungi, meaning "to perform."
Fungi can be found in the roots of such words as function, defunct, and fungible.

Meld

WORD OF THE DAY

meld / verb / MELD

Definition
1: to declare or announce (a card or combination of cards) for a score in a card game especially by placing face up on the table
2a: to declare a card or combination of cards as a meld
2b: a card or combination of cards that is or can be melded in a card game
3: merge, blend, mixture

Example
"The community art event, which came at the tail-end of National Poetry Month, melded games and art together to present poetry as an inclusive and demographically accessible expressive art, according to the event’s organizer, Rachel Cyrene Blackman."
— Emily Thurlow, The Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), 1 May 2022

Did You Know?
As a verb meaning "to blend or merge," meld dates only to the first half of the 20th century. In its early days, the word attracted some unfavorable attention.
Those who didn't like it tended to perceive it as a misuse of an older meld meaning "to declare or announce (a card or cards) for a score in a card game" (such as pinochle or gin rummy).
But the more recent meld, a blend of melt and weld, was an entirely new coinage suggesting a smooth and thorough blending of two or more things into a single, homogeneous whole. The word is no longer controversial.

Behest

WORD OF THE DAY

behest / noun / bih-HEST

Definiton
1a: an authoritative order
1b: command
2: an urgent prompting

Examples
"Earmarks were banned on Capitol Hill 11 years ago at the behest of House Republicans and then-President Obama in response to scandals surrounding how lawmakers were using them."
— Jennifer Haberkorn, The Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the detentions were in retaliation for Canada’s role in the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, at the behest of U.S. authorities.
— Paul Vieira, WSJ, 20 May 2022

Did You Know?
Behest first appeared in Old English and was formed from the prefix be- and the verb hātan ("to command" or "to promise").
While this word was originally used only in the sense of "promise," it acquired the additional sense of "command" among speakers of Middle English. Among contemporary English speakers, behest is no longer used in the sense of "promise" but rather denotes an authoritative or urgent request or command.
Old English hātan also gave English the now-archaic words hest (meaning "command") and hight ("being called or named").