Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

herald • \HAIR-uld\ • verb Herald is a verb meaning "to give notice of"; it is synonymous with announce, publicize, and foreshadow. Herald may also mean "to greet especially with enthusiasm." // The appearance of robins heralded the advent of spring. // She is being heralded as the year's best new author. See the entry > Examples: "Trumpets herald the arrival of the players at the arena." — Simon Webster, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2023 Did you know? While herald the verb is more common today, herald the noun is older. When the word was first welcomed into English in the early 14th century, it referred to an official at a tournament (one of those knightly sporting events the Middle Ages are famous for). The herald's duties included making announcements, hence the word's uses relating to announcements both literal and metaphorical. The word is ultimately Germanic in origin, though like so many words of 14th century vintage, it came to English by way of Anglo-French. The resemblance between herald and the name Harold is not coincidental: Harold is a modern form of Chariovalda, the name of a 1st century C.E. leader of the Batavi, a tribe who lived on the lower Rhine. The Germanic source of Chariovalda, haria-, is also the source of herald.

fealty • \FEE-ul-tee\ • noun Fealty is an old-fashioned and somewhat literary word that refers to intense loyalty or fidelity to a person, group, etc. More narrowly, fealty refers to the fidelity of a vassal or feudal tenant to their lord. // Authors who inspire such fealty can guarantee a publisher good sales, no matter the quality of the books they write. // Kneeling before the entire court, the knight pledged his fealty to the king. See the entry > Examples: “[Director, Denis] Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ movies deserve admiration if only for their fealty and ambition; the filmmaker’s respect for [Frank] Herbert’s source material radiates from every frame of movies that feel as massive as they are minutely orchestrated.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2024 Did you know? In The Use of Law, published posthumously in 1629, Francis Bacon wrote, “Fealty is to take an oath upon a book, that he will be a faithful Tenant to the King.” That’s a pretty accurate summary of the early meaning of fealty. Early forms of the term were used in Middle English in the early 14th century, when they specifically designated the loyalty of a vassal to a lord. Eventually, the meaning of the word broadened. Fealty can be paid to a country, a principle, or a leader of any kind, though the synonyms fidelity and loyalty are more commonly used. Fealty comes from the Anglo-French word feelté, or fealté, which comes from the Latin noun fidēlitās, meaning “fidelity.” These words come ultimately from fidēs, the Latin word for “faith.”

sanctimonious • \sank-tuh-MOH-nee-us\ • adjective Someone described as sanctimonious behaves as though they are morally superior to others. Language or behavior that suggests the same kind of moral superiority can also be described as sanctimonious. // While the subject matter was interesting, I found the presenter’s sanctimonious tone rather distracting. See the entry > Examples: “Smart and sincere but never sanctimonious, the awareness-raising drama doubles as a public service message of sorts.” — Peter Debruge, Variety, 13 Mar. 2024 Did you know? There’s nothing sacred about sanctimonious—at least not anymore. But in the early 1600s, the English adjective was still sometimes used to describe someone truly holy or pious, a sense at an important remove from today’s use describing someone who acts or behaves as though they are morally superior to others. (The now-obsolete “pious” sense recalls the meaning of the word’s Latin parent, sanctimonia, meaning “holiness” or “sanctity.”) Shakespeare used both the “holy” and “holier-than-thou” senses of sanctimonious in his work, referring in The Tempest to the “sanctimonious” (that is, “holy”) ceremonies of marriage, and in Measure for Measure to “the sanctimonious pirate that went to sea with the Ten Commandments but scraped one out of the table.” (Apparently, the pirate found the restriction on stealing inconvenient.)

catastrophe • \kuh-TASS-truh-fee\ • noun A catastrophe is never a good thing. Catastrophe can refer to a momentous tragic event, an utter failure, a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth, or a violent usually destructive natural event. // Despite her careful planning, the party turned out to be a catastrophe. See the entry > Examples: "In the event of a major catastrophe like a hurricane, the agency would have a funding reserve set aside for initial response and recovery operations." — Ella Nilsen, CNN, 10 June 2024 Did you know? When catastrophe was borrowed from Greek in the 1500s it was a term for tearjerkers: the catastrophe was the conclusion or final event of a usually tragic dramatic work. (Greek katastrophē, which means the same thing, comes from katastrephein, meaning "to overturn.") From there, the word moved on to occupy other territory relating to tragic happenings, utter failures, and the worst sort of natural disasters. Just as disaster can range from a calamitous event to one that is merely unsuccessful, catastrophe can refer to what is truly devastating as well as to what is simply deeply disheartening. In Henry IV, Part 2, Shakespeare opted to steer the word away from disaster entirely and plant it squarely in the world of burlesque: "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" May all our catastrophes be of such a comic variety.

extenuate • \ik-STEN-yuh-wayt\ • verb Extenuate is a formal word that is most often used to mean “to lessen the strength or effect of something, such as a risk.” In legal use, to extenuate a crime, offense, etc., is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses. // Developers are trying to extenuate the various risks associated with the product. See the entry > Examples: “Oedipus, paragon of problem-solvers, discovers by the end of the play the limits of his own keen intellect. In trying to outrun his fate, he learns that he is part of a design that is larger than his understanding. But it is as a victim of fate that he finds the freedom to assume a courageous responsibility for deeds committed in ignorance. ... Nothing can extenuate the horror of acts he spent his adult life trying to avoid.” — Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times, 12 Sept. 2022 Did you know? Extenuate is most familiar in the phrase “extenuating circumstances,” which refers to situations or facts that provide a partial justification or excuse for something. The word extenuate can, however, also be used all on its own. Its most typical use is with the meaning “to lessen the strength or effect of something, such as a risk,” but it also has legal use closely related to the meaning of “extenuating circumstances”; to extenuate a crime, offense, etc., is to lessen or to try to lessen its seriousness or extent by making partial excuses. Extenuate didn’t get its start in this semantic territory, however. It was borrowed into English in the 1500s with a now-archaic meaning it took directly from its Latin forebear, extenuare: “to make light of; to treat as unimportant.” Extenuate is today mostly at home in technical and legal contexts, but it occasionally appears in general writing with what may be a developing meaning: “to prolong, worsen, or exaggerate.” This meaning, which is likely influenced by the words extend and accentuate, is not yet fully established.

visage • \VIZ-ij\ • noun Visage is a formal word that refers to someone’s face or facial expression, or to the general appearance of something. // Manny was surprised to see the smiling visage of his childhood friend, now running for the state senate, beaming down from a billboard. // Don’t be intimidated by the rugged visage of the mountain; it’s accessible to climbers of all skill levels. See the entry > Examples: “[Keri] Russell was 22 when she was cast in the title role of Felicity. At the beginning of the series, her character was 17 years old, but thanks to Russell’s preternaturally youthful visage (and that glorious head of hair!), she pulled it off believably.” — Jessica Sager, Parade, 7 Jan. 2024 Did you know? In “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem, a traveller tells of a colossal statue’s “shattered visage” lying half sunk in desert sands, going on to describe its “frown / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command…” Now, Shelley could have simply chosen face over the more highfalutin synonym visage, but not only would face shatter the sonnet’s iambic pentameter, but a formal-sounding word is sometimes preferable to a basic one for all kinds of reasons, including sound, tone, or simply the cut of its jib. Physiognomy, for instance, refers to facial features thought to reveal qualities of temperament or character, as when Emily Brontë writes in Wuthering Heights, “I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.” Countenance, meanwhile, is often used to refer to the face as an indication of mood or emotion, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance.” As all of these quotes attest, when it comes to wordsmithery, sometimes you’ve just got to vamp.

amiable • \AY-mee-uh-bul\ • adjective Someone or something described as amiable is friendly and agreeable. // Both children have amiable dispositions, which makes them easy to travel with. See the entry > Examples: "An amiable, Honda Civic–driving, bird-watching Everyman in shorts and glasses, Gary somehow turns out to be the perfect fake assassin." — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 24 May 2024 Did you know? Amiable has its roots in amīcus the Latin word for "friend," and can ultimately be traced back to the verb amare, meaning "to love." English has been friendly with amiable since the 14th century, at which time it meant "pleasing" or "admirable" (a sense that is now obsolete). The current, familiar senses of "generally agreeable" and "friendly and sociable" came centuries later. Amare has also given English speakers such words as amative and amorous (both meaning "strongly moved by love"), amour ("a usually illicit love affair"), and even amateur (which originally meant "admirer"). And that’s just the tip of the amare iceberg: its influence on Romance languages is nothing short of integral. The Spanish word for "friendship" is amistad, the French word for "friend" is ami, and the Italian word for "love"? That’s amore.

nonplus • \nahn-PLUS\ • verb To nonplus someone is to perplex them, or in other words, to cause them to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do. // The stranger's odd question about the town where my grandfather was born nonplussed me. See the entry > Examples: "Motherhood is only somewhat less likely to nonplus the reader than How Should a Person Be? On one level, it's a feminist disputation over art versus maternity—whether a female writer must be a mother or whether she can get away with being just (just!) a writer. But this is also a book about life with a capital L." — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2022 Did you know? Does nonplus perplex you? You aren't alone. Some people believe the non in nonplus means "not," and assume that to be nonplussed is to be calm and poised, but in fact the opposite is true. If you are among the baffled, the word's history may clarify things. In Latin, non plus means "no more." When nonplus debuted in English in the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with quandary. Someone brought to a nonplus had reached an impasse in an argument and could say no more. In short time, people began applying nonplus as a verb, and today it is often used in participial form with the meaning "perplexed" (as in "Joellen's strange remark left us utterly nonplussed").

tomfoolery • \tahm-FOO-luh-ree\ • noun Tomfoolery is a word with an old-fashioned sound to it that refers to playful or silly behavior. // The antics in the play itself apparently inspired tomfoolery behind the scenes as well, as cast members constantly played practical jokes on one another. See the entry > Examples: “Children aged seven and older are invited to be part of some musical mischief with the BBC Concert Orchestra and star percussionist Colin Currie, not to mention the world premiere of the Beano Concerto for percussion and orchestra. Actors and animation will also play a part and there’s plenty of audience participation too. Prepare for charming tomfoolery and the perfect first foray into classical music.” — Martha Alexander, The Evening Standard (London), 30 May 2023 Did you know? The word tomfoolery owes a debt to one Thome Fole, but just who that Mr. Fole was is unclear. A court jester identified as Thome Fole was employed at Durham Abbey in the 14th century, but the record is unclear about whether Thome Fole was the given name of this particular performer, or if the name was applied as a generic moniker to jesters. Regardless, Thome Fole eventually evolved into tomfool, which was in use as a noun referring to any notable fool by the early 17th century, and as an adjective describing such fools by the mid-18th century. Tomfoolery as a term for playful or foolish behavior didn’t come into use until the early 19th century, but it’s proven to be of far more use to English speakers than tomfool.

otiose • \OH-shee-ohss\ • adjective Otiose is a formal word typically used to describe either something that serves no useful purpose, or something that has no use or effect. // I enjoyed the storyline, but was bothered by the otiose punctuation. // The new zoning regulations rendered their proposal for the empty lot otiose. See the entry > Examples: "Christian Tetzlaff has only begun to play the concerto recently, but it was a masterly performance. The concentrated tension, always the hallmark of Tetzlaff’s playing, never flagged.... In other hands, an encore might have been otiose after all that. But Tetzlaff’s playing of the andante from Bach’s A minor solo sonata proved just as magical, and seemed to draw the entire hall into its hushed meditations." — Martin Kettle, The Guardian (London), 25 Aug. 2023 Did you know? In this life, some pursuits seem destined to set the world on fire while others simply aren’t worth the candle. That’s where otiose comes in. The adjective traces back to the Latin noun otium meaning “leisure.” When otiose was first used in the late-18th century it described things that, like leisure (at least according to some), are pointless or otherwise produce no useful result, as in “it would be otiose to ask you about the book since you haven’t read it yet.” By the mid-19th century it was also being used to describe people who indulge a bit too much in leisure and idleness—your loafers, layabouts, and lazybones—and thus need a fire lit under them. Both otiose and the noun otiosity (which predates the adjective by several centuries) are usually found in formal writing, but should you have a burning desire to do so, feel free to drop either into casual contexts at your leisure.

harry • \HAIR-ee\ • verb To harry someone or something is to harass or torment them by or as if by constant attack. // The visiting team harried the home team relentlessly during the first quarter. See the entry > Examples: “His side played like a team who understood the magnitude of a fixture laced with bitterness. They hassled and harried their opponents from the first minute and were rewarded with the biggest margin of victory in this fixture since 1956.” — Henry Clark, The Mail on Sunday (London, UK), 4 Feb. 2024 Did you know? Harry has been a part of English for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. It took the form hergian (“to make predatory raids, ravage, wage war”) in Old English and harien (“to plunder, ravage, torment, pursue, drag”) in Middle English, passing through numerous variations before finally settling into its modern spelling. While its oldest senses were violent indeed (and harry can still be used today to mean “to make a pillaging or destructive raid upon”) one is just as likely today to encounter the word in less martial, though still fraught, contexts that involve someone or something being troubled or worried. Holiday travelers may be harried, for example, by numerous stresses (traffic, flight delays, lost baggage, etc.), while sports teams are often said to harry one another while vying for control of the ball, puck, or what-have-you.

limpid • \LIM-pid\ • adjective Limpid describes things that are perfectly transparent or clear, or that are simple in style. // Though the stream was deep, flecks and shimmers in the sand shone up through its limpid water. // The author is known for her limpid, exacting prose. See the entry > Examples: "The movie’s opulent sets and Giuseppe Rotunno’s limpid cinematography transmit a palpable yearning for the gilded palaces and gala balls of a bygone era." — Mark Olsen, The Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2024 Did you know? Let's clarify a few things about limpid. Since the early 1600s, this word has been used in English to describe things that have the soft clearness of pure water. The aquatic connection is not incidental; language scholars believe that limpid probably traces to lympha, a Latin word meaning "water." (That same Latin root is also the source of the English word lymph, the term for the pale liquid that helps maintain the body's fluid balance and that removes bacteria from tissues.) While limpid was used originally to describe liquids free of visible, cloudy material, it didn't take long for the word to gain its figurative sense of "clear and simple in style." And despite its similarity to the unrelated adjective limp—which can be used to describe writing, for example, that lacks spirit or oomph—limpid carries no such negative connotations.

coterie • \KOH-tuh-ree\ • noun Coterie refers to an intimate and often exclusive group of people with a unifying common interest or purpose. // The mayor arrived at the meeting with a coterie of advisors. See the entry > Examples: "By day I was exposed to third-wave-feminist texts—lots of talk about claiming my power and rejecting gender roles. But on evenings and weekends, the small coterie of Latino students enrolled in my predominantly white college would gather and dance. The chasm between the bodily autonomy I was being empowered to have intellectually and the physical pliability to a partner’s will that salsa required was simply too wide for my teenage brain to bridge." — Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic, 15 Jan. 2024 Did you know? A coterie today is, in essence, a clique—that is, a tight-knit group sharing interests in common. Historically, however, coteries hung around agricultural fields, not garden parties. In medieval France, coterie referred to a group of feudal peasants who together held a parcel of land (that coterie comes from the Old French word for a single peasant, cotier). Such associations of country people inspired later French speakers to use coterie more broadly and apply it to other kinds of clubs and societies. By the time the word began appearing in English texts in the early 1700s, its meaning had been extended to refer to any circle of people who spent a great deal of time together, who shared the same basic attitudes, and who held a passion for some particular topic. Coterie mostly appears now in formal speech and writing, and tends also to imply a bit of exclusivity—if you’re thinking of joining your local coterie, you may need to learn the secret handshake, or perhaps bone up on the latest techniques for harvesting barley.

eclectic • \ih-KLEK-tik\ • adjective Something described as eclectic, such as a collection or a person's tastes, includes things taken from many different sources. // The collection includes an eclectic mix of historical artifacts. See the entry > Examples: “Known for its eclectic, international flavor and its status as a bar crawl destination, this neighborhood has landed some of the city’s most respected restaurants in recent years. Go to Keren for Eritrean breakfast, Lucky Buns for top-notch burgers, Lapis for refined Afghan dishes, the Game for Filipino bar food, Green Zone for Middle Eastern-flavored cocktails, and Tail Up Goat for Mediterranean toasts and fresh pasta.” — Eater.com (Washington, D.C.), 21 Mar. 2024 Did you know? Eclectic comes from the Greek adjective eklektikos, meaning “picking out, selecting what appears to be best,” which in turn comes from the verb eklegein, meaning “to select.” Eclectic was originally applied to ancient philosophers who were not committed to any single system of philosophy but instead selected whichever doctrines pleased them from every school of thought. Later, the word’s use broadened to cover other selective natures, as well as the use of elements drawn from different sources. For instance, a museum with an eclectic collection may showcase pieces from a variety of styles and periods and in different media. Similarly, a person may be said to have eclectic tastes if they enjoy a broad range, rather than a single genre, of film, music, literature, etc.

bilk • \BILK\ • verb Bilk is typically applied in contexts relating to fraud and deceit. It can mean "to cheat out of something valuable," or "to evade payment of or to," or "to obtain something by defrauding someone." // Prosecutors contend that the defendant bilked hundreds of investors out of their life savings. // Some vendors accuse the company of bilking its creditors. // The organization's treasurer had bilked thousands of dollars from the nonprofit over the course of one year. See the entry > Examples: "In a scheme revealed in February, Arlington was bilked out of nearly a half-million dollars by international hackers impersonating a vendor working to rebuild the community's high school." — John Hilliard, The Boston Globe, 11 June 2024 Did you know? Initially, bilking wasn't considered cheating—just good strategy for cribbage players. Language historians aren't sure where bilk originated, but they have noticed that its earliest uses occur in contexts relating to the game of cribbage. Part of the scoring in cribbage involves each player adding cards from their hand to a pile of discards called the "crib." At the end of a hand, the dealer gets any points in the crib. Strategically, then, it's wisest for the dealer's opponents to discard the cards most likely to "balk," or put a check on, the dealer's score (or in other words, the ones least likely to contribute to point-making combinations). Etymologists theorize that bilk may have originated as an alteration of that card-game balk.

fountainhead • \FOUN-tun-hed\ • noun Fountainhead is a word usually encountered in literary contexts that refers to the origin or source of something. // Ragtime, popularized by such performers as Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake, is considered one of the musical fountainheads of jazz. See the entry > Examples: “In Marbury, in 1803, Chief Justice John Marshall proclaimed, ‘It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ There, the Supreme Court, for the first time, declared an act of Congress unconstitutional and ‘entirely void.’ Because the Court implied that its own authority to interpret the Constitution is superior to that of the other branches, the case is the fountainhead of judicial supremacy.” — Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker, 5 Jan. 2023 Did you know? In Walden, widely considered Henry David Thoreau’s masterwork, the poet-philosopher extolled one major—nay, transcendent—perk of being an early bird: “Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket to morning time in this world.” Thoreau was using fountainhead in its figurative sense—referring to morning as the “origin” of the day to follow—while also paying homage to its literal meaning, “the source of a stream” (the earliest sense of fountain being “a natural spring”). As someone who spent two years living, writing, and meditating in a cabin, Thoreau was nothing, after all, if not thorough.

ungainly • \un-GAYN-lee\ • adjective Ungainly usually describes someone or something moving in an awkward or clumsy way, or the awkward, clumsy movements themselves. It can also describe an object that is difficult to handle (especially because of being large or heavy), or someone or something that has an awkward appearance. // While seals are ungainly on land, they are beautifully agile swimmers. // Getting the ungainly couch up the stairs was a real chore. // The creature is large and ungainly. See the entry > Examples: "[Composer, Gioachino] Rossini, who was just 25 at the time, and his librettist Jacopo Feretti turned this 'Cinderella' into a comedy. It contains all kinds of farcical elements, including hidden identities and the wonderfully exaggerated stepsisters, who are delightfully mean, self-involved and ungainly." — Kyle MacMillan, The Chicago Sun Times, 22 Jan. 2024 Did you know? What do you have to gain by knowing the root of ungainly? Plenty. The gain in ungainly is an obsolete English adjective meaning "direct" that ultimately comes from the Old Norse preposition gegn, meaning "against." (It is unrelated to the noun in "economic gains" or the verb in "gain an advantage"; those came to English by way of Anglo-French.) Ungainly can describe someone who is clumsy, as in "a tall, ungainly man"; or something that causes you to feel clumsy when you try to handle it, as in "a car with ungainly controls"; or something that simply looks awkward and out of place, as in "an ungainly strip mall."

respite • \RESS-pit\ • noun Respite refers to a short period of time when someone is able to stop doing something that is difficult or unpleasant, or when something difficult or unpleasant stops or is delayed. // The long weekend provided a nice respite from the pressures of her job. // The station's meteorologist had predicted that the bad weather would continue through the week without respite. See the entry > Examples: "Shaded spots are necessary for a respite from the North Texas sun. If your deck or patio isn't covered, add a stylish umbrella to the mix." — Ryan Conner and Mary Grace Granados, The Dallas Morning News, 13 Mar. 2023 Did you know? Everyone needs a little R & R from time to time. That's where respite comes in handy: this word was first used in the 14th century to refer to a delay or extension asked for or granted for a specific reason, such as to give someone time to deliberate on a proposal. This kind of respite offered an opportunity for the kind of consideration inherent in this word's etymology: respite traces from the Latin term respectus (also the source of English's respect), which comes from respicere, a verb with both concrete and abstract meanings: "to turn around to look at" or "to regard." Within a few decades of its earliest known use, English speakers had granted respite the sense we use most often today—"a welcome break."

dicker • \DIK-er\ • verb To dicker is to talk or argue with someone about the conditions of a purchase, agreement, or contract. // My favorite thing about flea markets is dickering over prices. See the entry > Examples: “They haggled and dickered and bargained through a good number of dealerships.” — Terry Woster, Tri-State Neighbor (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), 7 Dec. 2023 Did you know? The origins of the verb dicker likely lie in an older dicker, the noun referring to a quantity of ten animal hides or skins. The idea is that the verb arose from the bartering of, and haggling over, animal hides on the American frontier. The noun dicker comes from decuria, the Latin word for a bundle of ten hides, and ultimately from the Latin word decem, meaning "ten." The word entered Middle English as dyker and by the 14th century had evolved to dicker.

swole • \SWOHL\ • adjective Someone described as swole is extremely muscular. In other words, they have a physique enhanced by bodybuilding exercises. // Her New Year’s resolution was to get swole, so she signed up with a personal trainer and committed to working out every day. See the entry > Examples: “It’s possible to build muscle in a couple of half-hour workouts a week, provided you train both smart and hard. Building muscle has a lot more benefits than just making you look swole, though, for both men and women. Having more muscle and strength makes everyday activities, be that carrying shopping loads or lifting your suitcase into an overhead compartment, easier.” — Rachel Hosie, Business Insider, 25 Mar. 2024 Did you know? If someone said you were swole, would you know how to respond? If you’re unfamiliar with the word, you might think your face is swollen or check yourself for signs of puffiness. If you know the word, however, you’d know you’re in fact looking quite fit and muscular and might respond with a simple “Thank you for noticing.” Often used on social media, swole has come to be a complimentary term for those with a physique enhanced by weightlifting and bodybuilding exercises. The word isn’t exactly new—swole goes back to Middle English as a past tense and past participle of swell meaning “to enlarge,” “to bulge,” or “to puff out” (literally and figuratively). In the late 1980s the sense of “having well-defined muscles” emerged as a regional variant of swollen in African American English. Rapper Ice-T used the adjective in his 1991 song “The Tower”: “And hit the weight pile / The brothers was swole.” In addition, it was applied as a verb to describe becoming ripped or cut, as when the late Tupac Shakur applied it in his 1997 song “When I Get Free”: “… did push-ups till I swole up.”