Brandish

 WORD OF THE DAY

brandish / verb / BRAN-dish

Definition
1: to shake or wave (something, such as a weapon) menacingly
2: to exhibit in an ostentatious or aggressive manner
3a: an act or instance of waving something menacingly or exhibiting something ostentatiously or aggressively
3b: an act or instance of brandishing

Examples
“If someone is caught by police brandishing an imitation gun in a public place, they could face fines, an arrest or have the object seized by police.”
— The Daily Chronicle (DeKalb, Illinois), 15 June 2022

The district attorney’s office declined to file felony charges against Lee in the attack on Chappelle because the performer was not injured and Lee did not brandish the weapon, prosecutors said.
— James Queally, Los Angeles Times, 19 May 2022

Did You Know?
Often when we encounter the word brandish in print, it is followed by a word for a weapon, such as knife or handgun.
That’s appropriate given the word’s etymology: it is a descendant of the Middle English braundisshen, which comes from the Anglo-French brant or braund, a word of Germanic origin meaning “sword.”
Nowadays you can brandish things other than weapons, however.
The figurative usage of brandish rose alongside its earliest literal usage in the 14th century.
When you brandish something that isn’t a weapon (such as a sign or a letter), you are in effect waving it in someone’s face so that it cannot be overlooked

Effulgence

 WORD OF THE DAY

effulgence / noun / ih-FULL-junss

Definition
1: radiant splendor
2: brilliance

Examples
"His oil portrait silently observed us. His brother Robert who painted it didn't go for the obvious choice and recreate Dad's life-of-the-party effulgence, but instead captured his pensive look, as if he's listening intensely to what you are asking, and he may or may not answer you."
— Jamie Brickhouse, The Huffington Post, 21 June 2022

Just ask Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex who took her lit-from-within skin to the next level yesterday with an ample swirl of roseate blush applied to transform her pregnancy glow into a full-on display of effulgence.
— Calin Van Paris, Vogue, 30 Oct. 2018

Did You Know?
Apparently, English speakers first took a shine to effulgence in the 17th century; that's when the word was first used in print in our language.
Effulgence derives from the Latin verb fulgēre, which means "to shine."
Fulgēre is also the root of fulgent, a synonym of radiant that English speakers have used since the 15th century. 
Another related word, refulgence, is about 30 years older than effulgence.
Refulgence carries a meaning similar to effulgence but sometimes goes further by implying reflectivity, as in "the refulgence of the knight's gleaming armor."

Jaunty

WORD OF THE DAY

jaunty / adjective / JAWN-tee

Definition
1a: sprightly in manner or appearance
1b: lively
2a (archaic): stylish
2b: genteel

Examples
"Monty and Rose, who achieved local fame in 2019 as the first federally endangered piping plovers to raise a family in Chicago in almost 60 years, are gone from the North Side beach where they spent three summers. But the hope that the jaunty little shorebirds sparked for their species continues to grow. The Great Lakes Piping Plover Conservation Team has announced a record-breaking 2022 breeding season, with 149 wild chicks reaching the fledgling—or flying—stage, the most since official counts began in 1984."
— Nara Schoenberg, The Chicago Tribune, 7 Aug. 2022

There was a jaunty red scarf around her neck, pinned with a large jeweled brooch.
— Seija Rankin, EW.com, 5 May 2020

Did You Know?
Does throwing on a jaunty hat make someone appear more genteel? Maybe, but something more definitive links the words: both jaunty and genteel come from the French word gentil, meaning "of aristocratic birth."
Genteel was borrowed first to describe things associated with aristocratic people. Jaunty joined the language just a few years later in the mid-17th century as a synonym of stylish and also as a synonym for genteel.
While genteel has maintained its associations of propriety and high social class, jaunty has traipsed into less stuffy territory as a descriptor of tunes and hats and other things that suggest lively confidence.

Overwhelm

WORD OF THE DAY

overwhelm / verb / oh-ver-WELM

Definition
1: upset, overthrow
2a: to cover over completely
2b: submerge
2c: to overcome by superior force or numbers
2d: to overpower in thought or feeling

Examples
"Saturday was the first day for reservations, with seating limited so as not to overwhelm the new staff and to avoid long wait times for orders."
— Cheryl V. Jackson, The Indianapolis Star, 17 Apr. 2022

The rising waters could then meet with a coastal storm surge that raises the level of San Francisco Bay by several feet to wash out low-lying roadways and overwhelm urban areas from the East Bay to San Jose.
— Sam Whiting, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Let’s face it: life can get overwhelming.
A person might be overwhelmed by a sensory experience or emotion; a city might be overwhelmed by an influx of tourists.
Things can underwhelm, too: a bland meal, a bare wall, a lackluster playlist. But how often does an experience just, well, whelm you?
 The answer, unassumingly, is just as often as one overwhelms you—the two verbs are in fact largely synonymous.
Both come from Middle English whelmen, meaning "to overturn," and overwhelm has always been more popular, perhaps because the emphatic redundancy of overwhelm makes it seem more apt for describing reactions to powerful forces or feelings.

Glitch

WORD OF THE DAY

glitch / noun / GLITCH

Definition
1a: a usually minor malfunction
1b: bug
1c: a minor problem that causes a temporary setback
1d: snag
2: a false or spurious electronic signal

Examples
"The weekend's exercise, which NASA calls a wet dress rehearsal, is the last major test before the rocket is launched on its first uncrewed test flight, which could occur as soon as this summer. By simulating a countdown without the excitement of engines igniting and a rocket rising to space, NASA hoped to work out glitches with equipment and procedures."
— Kenneth Chang, The New York Times, 4 Apr. 2022

During the 14 ½-hour flight from Hickam, a mechanical glitch prevented the plane from jettisoning three empty fuel tanks, and the P-82 fought drag from the unwanted weight and strong headwinds.
— Star Tribune, 26 Dec. 2020

Did You Know?
There's a glitch in the etymology of glitch—the origins of the word are not known for sure, though it may derive from the Yiddish glitsh, meaning "slippery place."
Glitch started showing up in print in English in the mid-20th century in reference to a brief unexpected surge of electrical current.
The term was new enough in 1962 that the astronaut John Glenn, writing in the book Into Orbit, felt the need to explain the term to his readers: "Literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an electrical circuit which takes place when the circuit suddenly has a new load put on it."
Today, you don't have to be an astronaut to be familiar with the word glitch, which can be used of any minor malfunction or snag.

Abrogate

WORD OF THE DAY

abrogate / verb / AB-ruh-gayt

Definition
1a (formal): to abolish by authoritative action
1b: annul
2a (formal): to treat as nonexistent
2b: to fail to do what is required by (something, such as a responsibility)
3 (formal): to suppress or prevent (a biological function or process, especially an immune response)

Example
"There have been a lot of bad days for the climate in the Australian parliament.... Too many bad days. A dark period where the Liberal and National parties abrogated a core responsibility of being a governing party—the responsibility to face the future."
— Katharine Murphy, The Guardian (London), 3 Aug. 2022

 Did You Know?
If you can't simply wish something out of existence, the next best thing might be to "propose it away."
That's more or less what abrogate lets you do—etymologically speaking, at least.
Abrogate comes from the Latin root rogāre, which means "to propose a law," and ab-, meaning "from" or "away."
Proposals aside, there’s no abrogating our responsibility to report that rogāre is the root of a number of English words, including prerogative, derogatory, arrogant, surrogate, and interrogate.

Epitome

 WORD OF THE DAY

epitome / noun / ih-PIT-uh-mee

Definition
1a: a typical or ideal example
1b: embodiment
2a: a summary of a written work
2b: a brief presentation or statement of something
3: brief or miniature form —usually used with in

Examples
"How do you embody a living legend who is the epitome of style and grace such as Dionne Warwick? After social media fueled rumors about their resemblance, [Teyana] Taylor has teamed up with the icon to direct and star in a limited scripted television series about Warwick’s life."
— Savannah Taylor, Ebony, 19 Apr. 2022

Terns, nicknamed sea swallows by fishermen, are superb flying machines, the epitome of beauty on the wing.
— E. Vernon Laux, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2001

Did You Know?
Epitome first appeared in print in the early 16th century, when it was used to mean "summary."
If someone asks you to summarize a long paper, you effectively cut it up, mentioning only the most important ideas, and the etymology of epitome reflects this process: it comes from Greek epitemnein, meaning "to cut short."
Your summary probably also presents all the key points of the original work, which may explain why epitome eventually came to be used for any person or object that is a clear or good example of an abstraction, as in "the epitome of grace" or "the epitome of health."
We could go on and on... or could we?

Shard

WORD OF THE DAY

shard / noun / SHAHRD

Definition
1a: a piece or fragment of a brittle substance
1b: a small piece or part
1c: scrap
1d: shell, scale
1e: elytron
2: a fragment of a pottery vessel found on sites and in refuse deposits where pottery-making peoples have lived
3: highly angular curved glass fragments of tuffaceous sediments

Examples
“The hunter struck his weapon to sharpen its edge in anticipation. In that moment, two glassy flakes splintered away from the point of impact and fell to his feet. They would be buried there for nearly 10,000 years. In 2013 those two shards of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, would be recovered from a sample of earth, roughly the volume of a quart of milk, that was pulled from the bottom of Lake Huron, under 100 feet of water.”
— Aaron Martin, Scientific American, 1 June 2021

After watching other rioters use a police shield and a wooden plank to break a window, Hunter Seefried used a gloved fist to clear a shard of glass in one of the broken windowpanes, prosecutors said.
— Michael Kunzelman, BostonGlobe.com, 15 June 2022

Did You Know?
Shard dates back to Old English (where it was spelled sceard) and is related to Old English scieran, meaning "to cut." English speakers have adopted the modernized shard spelling for most uses, but archaeologists prefer to spell the word sherd when referring to the ancient fragments of pottery (sometimes referred to specifically as potsherds) they unearth.
While shard initially referred to exactly such items, today the word is also used more broadly to encompass slivers of intangible concepts.
A baseless accusation may be made "without a shard of evidence," and fans of the losing team may "cling to a shard of hope" until the final score.
The utility of shard is its, ahem, point.

Carceral

WORD OF THE DAY

carceral / adjective / KAHR-suh-rul

Definition
1: of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison

Examples
"Coordinate care inside and outside carceral settings."
— Bill Frist, Forbes, 15 June 2022

Pointing to the expanding gulf between wages and rent and real estate’s tightening grip on the state, the group demands that the city’s new, nearly $1 billion homelessness budget serve a whole new system rather than a carceral fix.
— Tracy Rosenthal, The New Republic, 19 May 2022

Did You Know?
Carceral is a member of a small but imposing family: like its close relations incarcerate (meaning "to imprison") and incarceration (meaning "confinement in a jail or prison"), its ultimate source is the Latin word for "prison," carcer.
All three words have been in use since the 16th century, and all three are more common today than they were a century ago.
Carceral has always been the rarest of the group, but its use has increased significantly since the turn of the current century, most often within academic or legal contexts.

Wreak

WORD OF THE DAY

wreak / verb / REEK

Definition
1: bring about, cause
2a: to cause the infliction of (vengeance or punishment)
2b (archaic): avenge
3: to give free play or course to (malevolent feeling)

Examples
"[Rats] rustle around in trash cans and take up residence in sewers, which feeds the false impression that they are fundamentally dirty creatures. Worse still, they invade homes and other indoor spaces. Squirrels do this too—given the opportunity, they'll wreak havoc in your attic—but not as frequently."
— Jacob Stern, The Atlantic, 8 July 2022

Gustwiller played nose guard and defensive tackle in 2021, using brute force to wreak havoc along the way.
— Jonathan X. Simmons, cleveland, 5 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
Wreak is a venerable word that first appeared in Old English as wrecan, meaning "to drive, drive out, punish, or avenge."
Wrecan is related to a number of similar words in the Germanic languages, including Middle Dutch wreken ("to punish, avenge"), Old High German rehhan ("to avenge"), Old Norse reka ("to drive, push, or avenge"), and Gothic wrikan ("to persecute").
It may also be related to Latin urgēre ("to drive on, urge"), the source of the English verb urge.
In modern English, vengeance is a common object of the verb wreak, reflecting one of its earlier uses in the sense "to take vengeance for"—as when Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus proclaims "We will solicit heaven, and move the gods / To send down Justice for to wreak our wrongs."

Litany

 WORD OF THE DAY

litany / noun / LIT-uh-nee

Definition
1: a prayer consisting of a series of invocations and supplications by the leader with alternate responses by the congregation
2a: a resonant or repetitive chant
2b: a usually lengthy recitation or enumeration
2c: a sizable series or set

Examples
“As soon as Mahershala Ali, the previous year’s supporting-actor winner for 'Green Book,' escorted her behind the curtain, [Laura] Dern made a straight line to the thank-you cam to rattle off a litany of names.”
— Anthony Breznican, Vanity Fair, 23 Apr. 2021

Russell was one of the game’s great originary figures, its brightest early star, a kind of Adam and a kind of Paul Bunyan, his litany of accomplishments absurd in its length and fable-like texture.
— Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?
How do we love the word litany? Let us count the ways.
We love its original 13th century meaning, still in use today, referring to a call-and-response prayer in which a series of lines are spoken alternately by a leader and a congregation.
We love how litany has developed in the intervening centuries three figurative senses, and we love each of these as well: first, a sense meaning “repetitive chant”; next, the “lengthy recitation” sense owing to the repetitious—and sometimes interminable—nature of the original litany; and finally, an even broader sense referring to any sizeable series or set.
Though litanies of this third sort tend to be unpleasant, we choose today to think of the loveliness found in the idea of “a litany of sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

Dilatory

 WORD OF THE DAY

dilatory / adjective / DILL-uh-tor-ee

Definition
1: tending or intended to cause delay
2a: characterized by procrastination
2b: tardy

Examples
"Members of Congress from both parties are raising tough questions about this dilatory pace."
— William A. Galston, The Wall Street Journal, 24 May 2022

Near the end of the meeting on Tuesday, Allard stopped testimony by raising a point of information and asking a series of procedural questions, a move LaFrance said was dilatory.
— Emily Goodykoontz, Anchorage Daily News, 7 Oct. 2021

Did You Know?
“Slow down, you move too fast / You got to make the morning last / Just kicking down the cobblestones / Looking for fun and feelin'…” dilatory?
We can’t say Paul Simon was wrong to choose groovy to end that verse of “The 59th Street Bridge Song” but dilatory would have also made sense.
You see, if procrastination is your style, dilatory is the word for you.
It’s been describing things that cause delay since at least the 15th century, and its ancestors were hanging around with similar meanings long before that. The word's source is dilatus, a form of the multifaceted Latin verb differre, meaning "to carry away in varying directions, spread abroad, postpone, delay, be unlike or distinct."
That verb is also an ancestor of the words different, differ, and defer—a fact we think is pretty groovy.

Melancholia

 WORD OF THE DAY

melancholia / noun / mel-un-KOH-lee-uh

Definition
1: severe depression characterized especially by profound sadness and despair
2a: a sad quality or mood
2b: melancholy

Examples
“His last single, 2020’s 'Finding Rest In a Weary World,' was impressive but relatively subdued, tinged with ambient melancholia even as the beat hit its stride.”
— Sue Park, Pitchfork, 18 Mar. 2022

To help with this season’s melancholia, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead contributed original music.
— Men's Health, 10 June 2022

Did You Know?
Melancholia traces back to Greek melan‑ ("black, dark") and cholē ("bile").
Medical practitioners once adhered to the system of humors—bodily fluids that included black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.
An imbalance of these humors was thought to lead to disorders of the mind and body.
One suffering from an excess of black bile (believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen) could become sullen and unsociable—liable to anger, irritability, brooding, and depression.
Today, doctors no longer ascribe physical and mental disorders to disruptions of the four humors, but the word melancholia is still used in psychiatry (it is identified as a "subtype" of clinical depression in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and as a general term for despondency.
The older term ­melancholy, ultimately from the same Greek roots, is historically a synonym of melancholia but now more often refers to a sad or pensive mood.

Alleviate

WORD OF THE DAY

alleviate / verb / uh-LEE-vee-ayt

Definition
1: relieve, lessen
2a: to make (something, such as pain or suffering) more bearable
2b: to partially remove or correct (something undesirable)

Examples
"People have tried to alleviate their climate anxiety in many ways."
— Antonia Mufarech, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 May 2022

For decades, as you probably know, researchers have found that when you tell patients that you're giving them medicine, many report that their symptoms are alleviated, even if they're only taking sugar pills.

— Daniel Zwerdling, Gourmet, August 2004

Did You Know?
Alleviate derives from the past participle of Late Latin alleviare ("to lighten or relieve"), which in turn was formed by combining the prefix ad- and the adjective levis, a Latin word meaning "having little weight," which also gave rise to the adjective light (as in "not heavy") in English.
We acquired alleviate in the 15th century, and for the first few centuries the word could mean either "to cause (something) to have less weight" or "to make (something) more tolerable."
The literal "make lighter" sense is no longer used, however, and today we have only the "relieve" sense.
Incidentally, not only is alleviate a synonym of relieve, it's also a cousin; relieve comes from levare ("to raise"), which in turn comes from levis.

Trivial

 WORD OF THE DAY

trivial / adjective / TRIV-ee-ul

Definition
1a: of little worth or importance
1b: relating to or being the mathematically simplest case
1c: characterized by having all variables equal to zero
2: commonplace, ordinary

Examples
“Urged on by co-founders Jim VandeHei and John Harris to ‘win the morning,’ Politico’s reporters and editors covered Washington high and low, devoting space in their influential email newsletters to presidential campaigns and more trivial details like birthdays of prominent local figures.”
— Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson, The New York Times, 3 May 2022

His later memory, untutored and unsupported by anything so trivial as evidence or documents, now flourished and ran wild.
— Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae, (1992) 1993

Did You Know?
When English speakers adopted the word trivial from Latin trivialis in the 16th century, they used it to mean just what its Latin ancestor meant: "found everywhere, commonplace."
But the source of trivialis is about something more specific: trivium, from tri- (three) and via (way), means "crossroads; place where three roads meet."
Since a crossroads is a very public place where all kinds of people might show up, trivialis came to mean "commonplace" or "vulgar." Today, the English word has changed slightly in meaning and instead usually describes something barely worth mentioning.
The link between the two presumably has to do with the commonplace sorts of things a person is likely to encounter at a busy crossroads.
Mathematicians use the word to refer to the mathematically simplest case, but the rest of us tend to use it just to mean "unimportant."
"Small talk" at a party, for example, is usually trivial conversation. To trivialize something is to treat it as if it doesn't matter, as if it is just another triviality.
Today, the English word typically describes something barely worth mentioning. Such judgments are, of course, subjective; feel free to mention this bit of trivia to anyone and everyone who crosses your path.
Extending that meaning to the related noun might sound unnecessarily harsh for a word we associate with pub quizzes, but the original notion behind trivia was that whatever qualified wasn't something you should worry about not knowing.
Before it became the name of a board game, trivial pursuit referred to something in which one takes an interest but that is ultimately inconsequential.

Riposte

 WORD OF THE DAY

riposte / noun / rih-POHST

Definition
1: a fencer's quick return thrust following a parry
2a: a retaliatory verbal sally
2b: retort
3: a retaliatory maneuver or measure

Examples
"As a riposte to the status quo, the studio has created Pendler, a conceptual urban e-bike pitched at commuters, meticulously designed and carefully shaped to be safer, more practical, and better performing that its rivals."
— Jonathan Bell, Wallpaper (wallpaper.com), 21 July 2022

Today, Dyett High School for the Arts stands as a riposte to shameful cuts of previous decades that all but eradicated arts education from its halls.
— Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 13 July 2022

Did You Know?
In the sport of fencing, a riposte is a counterattack made after successfully fending off one's opponent.
English speakers borrowed the name for this particular maneuver from French in the early 1700s, but the French had simply modified the Italian word risposta, which literally means "answer."
Ultimately these words come from the Latin verb respondēre, meaning "to respond."
It seems fitting that riposte has since come full circle to now refer to a quick and witty response performed as a form of retaliation.

Crepuscular

 WORD OF THE DAY

crepuscular / adjective / krih-PUHSS-kyuh-ler

Definition
1a: of, relating to, or resembling twilight
1b: dim
2: occurring or active during twilight

Examples
"Cardinals, a crepuscular species, follow their own schedule, eating an early breakfast and a stylishly late dinner. They will break that schedule on very cold days."
— Jim Williams, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 16 Feb. 2022

For instance, ungulates, such as bison, and coyotes are generally crepuscular, or most active at dusk and dawn, whereas alligators are diurnal and nocturnal.
— Andrea Sachs, Washington Post, 22 June 2022

Did You Know?
The early Romans had two words for the twilight
. Crepusculum was favored by Roman writers for the half-light of evening, just after the sun sets; diluculum was reserved for morning twilight, just before the sun rises—it is related to lucidus, meaning "bright."
We didn't embrace either of these Latin nouns as substitutes for our word twilight, but we did form the adjective crepuscular in the 17th century.
The word's zoological sense, relating to animals that are most active at twilight, developed in the 19th century.

Adjudicate

WORD OF THE DAY

adjudicate / verb / uh-JOO-dih-kayt

Definition
1: to make an official decision about who is right in (a dispute)
2: to settle judicially
3: to act as judge

Examples
"The request sought to move the trial to another location or bring an outside jury to adjudicate it."
— Lydia Morrell, The Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal Sentinel, 20 June 2022

Massive case backlogs continue to plague U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the immigration court system, crippling the government's ability to adjudicate applications in a timely manner.
— Camilo Montoya-galvez, CBS News, 20 Jan. 2022

Did You Know?
Adjudicate, which is usually used to mean "to make an official decision about who is right in a dispute," is one of several terms that give testimony to the influence of jus, the Latin word for "law," on our legal language.
Others include judgment, judicial, prejudice, jury, justice, injury, and perjury.
What's the verdict? Latin "law" words frequently preside in English-speaking courtrooms.

Brackish

WORD OF THE DAY

brackish / adjective / BRACK-ish

Definition
1: somewhat salty
2a: not appealing to the taste
2b: repulsive

Examples
“The Homosassa River is an estuarial waterway that flows through marine wetlands on the western edge of the Florida panhandle, turning brackish as it approaches the Gulf of Mexico.”
— Marissa Grunes, Boston Review, 11 Feb. 2022

Implement brackish groundwater desalination through innovative technologies.
— Maritza Dominguez, The Arizona Republic, 6 July 2022

Did You Know?
When the word brackish first appeared in English in the 1500s, it simply meant "salty," as did its Dutch parent brak. (English speakers also adopted the synonymous brack from the same source but it gets very little use.)
Then, as now, brackish was used to describe water that was a mixture of saltwater and freshwater, such as one encounters where a river meets the sea.
Since that time, however, brackish has developed the additional meanings of "unpalatable" and "repulsive," presumably because of the oozy, mucky, and sometimes stinky (or stinkyish, if you prefer)—not just salty—qualities of coastal estuaries and swamps.
"The brackish water that we drink
Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
Is full of chalk and lime." 

As this use from Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Reading Gaol" illustrates, brackish water can also include things other than salt that make it unpleasant to drink.

Patina

WORD OF THE DAY

patina / noun / puh-TEE-nuh

Definition
1a: a usually green film formed naturally on copper and bronze by long exposure or artificially (as by acids) and often valued aesthetically for its color
1b: a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use
2: an appearance or aura that is derived from association, habit, or established character
3: a superficial covering or exterior

Examples
"She has attracted a popular following for stories grounded in historical fact, adorned with a patina of romance and adventure."
— Stephanie Parkyn, Canberra Times (Australia), 1 Jan. 2022

The owners of this 18-room townhouse added modern appliances but kept the patina of the room’s existing subway tile.
— Monique Valeris, ELLE Decor, 11 July 2022

Did You Know?
When Italians began using patina in the 17th century to refer to the green film that forms on the surface of copper, they were drawing on Latin, in which patina means "a shallow dish." (Presumably, the Italian meaning developed from the observation of such film forming on copper dishes.)
By the mid-18th century, English speakers were also calling the green film patina, and by the 20th century, they'd expanded the word's application to surface appearances of things that have grown more beautiful with age or use—think of an old wooden desk or a tarnished silver goblet.
Use of the word to refer to thin layers both literal and figurative ("a patina of grime," "a patina of respectability") followed soon after.

Nebulous

 WORD OF THE DAY

nebulous / adjective / NEB-yuh-lus

Definition
1a: of, relating to, or resembling a nebula
1b: nebular
2: indistinct, vague

Examples
"Instead of promoting nebulous concepts of 'diplomacy,' we should turn to the principles of negotiations and focus on concrete questions."
— Anastassia Fedyk, The Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2022

The reasons for all of this are a bit nebulous with lots of talk about demand unexpectedly outpacing supply, but there’s likely a healthy dose of opportunism here as well.
— Jonah Flicker, Robb Report, 19 June 2022

Did You Know?
Nebulous may sound other-worldly—after all, it’s related to nebula, which refers to a distant galaxy or an interstellar cloud of gas or dust—but its mysteriousness is rooted in more earthly unknowns.
Both words ultimately come from Latin nebula, meaning “mist, cloud,” and as far back as the 14th century nebulous could mean simply “cloudy” or “foggy.”
Nebulous has since the late 17th century been the adjective correlating to nebula (as in “nebulous gas”), but the word is more familiar in its figurative use, where it describes things that are indistinct or vague, as when Jack London wrote of “ideas that were nebulous at best and that in reality were remembered sensations.”
In English, nebula refers to a cloud of gas or dust in deep space, or in less technical contexts, simply to a galaxy.
One's memory of a long-past event, for example, will often be nebulous; a teenager might give a nebulous recounting of an evening's events upon coming home; or a politician might make a campaign promise but give only a nebulous description of how he or she would fulfill it.

Ineffable

WORD OF THE DAY

ineffable / adjective / in-EFF-uh-bul

Definition
1a: incapable of being expressed in words
1b: indescribable
1c: unspeakable
2a: not to be uttered
2b: taboo

Examples
"But onstage alone, talking to a crowd, he's smooth as can be. A seductive presence, he has that ineffable quality of stardom: a preternatural ability to connect."
— Jason Zinoman, The New York Times, 28 May 2022

Watch the movie to get a sense of that ineffable ingredient, and the sometimes-subtle ways that Streisand deploys it.
— Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 26 May 2022

Did You Know?
"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.
The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness," wrote Frederick Douglass in his autobiography.
Reading Douglass's words, it's clear that ineffable means "indescribable" or "unspeakable."
And when we break the word down to its Latin roots, we see how those meanings came about.
Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective effābilis, meaning "capable of being expressed."
Effābilis comes from effārī, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning “to speak.”