Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 01, 2013 is: vernal \VER-nul\ adjective 1 : of, relating to, or occurring in the spring 2 : fresh or new like the spring; also : youthful Examples: This time of the year, I enjoy getting out for morning walks to take in the crisp, clean vernal air. "Spend the morning learning about aquatic life found in vernal pools. Vernal pools may be dry in summer, but in the spring they are filled with life-sustaining water. This is when the peepers and wood frogs start croaking, and salamanders arrive under cover of rain and darkness to breed." — From an article by David Colberg in The Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, April 3, 2013 Did you know? If you want to sound sophisticated this spring, you can do what various learned individuals have done since the 16th century and refer to the spring equinox as the vernal equinox. You might also alter a classic rhyme to chant "Vernal showers bring May flowers." Or if you really want to wax poetic, you could compliment your lass's vernal grace or your beau's vernal charm. If you do, and your sweetheart asks where such a word comes from, you can further impress by saying, "'Vernal,' my dear, comes from the Latin 'vernalis,' which is derived from the Latin word for spring, 'ver.'"

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 30, 2013 is: verbose \ver-BOHSS\ adjective 1 : containing more words than necessary : wordy; also : impaired by wordiness 2 : given to wordiness Examples: The writing style in government publications is often both dry and verbose—a deadly combination. "The 50,000-word goal, for example, can make even the most succinct writers verbose. Why be satisfied with a prissy dog when you can have a tiny white prissy dog with a pink ribbon around her neck and add an additional nine words to your novel?" — From an article by Dana Sachs in Publisher's Weekly, November 30, 2012 Did you know? There's no shortage of words to describe wordiness in English. "Diffuse," "long-winded," "prolix," "redundant," "windy," "repetitive," "loose," "rambling," "digressive," and "circumlocutory" are some that come to mind. Want to express the opposite idea? Try "succinct," "concise," "brief," "short," "summary," "terse," "precise," "compact," "lean," "tight," or "compendious." "Verbose," which falls solidly into the first camp of words, comes from Latin "verbosus," from "verbum," meaning "word." Other descendants of "verbum" include "verb," "adverb," "proverb," "verbal," and "verbicide" (that's the deliberate distortion of the sense of a word).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 29, 2013 is: ceorl \CHAY-orl\ noun : a freeman of the lowest rank in Anglo-Saxon England Examples: "The most prominent ranks were the king, the nobleman or thegn, and the ordinary freeman or ceorl." — From an article in the Eastern Daily Press (Norfolk, England), October 11, 2012 "The status of a ceorl in relation to the nobility above him and the serfs beneath him can best be seen in the amount of his wergild…." — From Peter Blair Hunter's 1956 book An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England Did you know? In Old English, "ceorl" referred to freemen who ranked above the servile classes but below the nobility. In this sense, "ceorl" is now primarily encountered in historical writings where, to this day, it has maintained its Old English spelling. The word also evolved, however, into a form that will be more familiar to most English speakers today. In Middle English, "ceorl" took on the spelling "churl" (among others), and with that variant spelling it began to develop disparaging senses by the early 14th century. "Churl" can still be used to refer to the historical rank of ceorl or as a general term for a medieval peasant, but it is now primarily encountered in the senses of "a rude ill-bred person" or "a stingy morose person."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 28, 2013 is: persnickety \per-SNIK-uh-tee\ adjective 1 a : fussy about small details : fastidious b : having the characteristics of a snob 2 : requiring great precision Examples: I love my friend Emma, but I also know how persnickety she can be, so I removed the grocery store cake from its plastic container and brought it to her party on a fancy plate. "Traditionally, people have been a bit harsh on lexicographers, painting us as persnickety, nerdy, obsessive-compulsive types. And I don't think we're quite that bad." — From an article by Sarah Ogilvie in The San Francisco Chronicle, December 11, 2012 Did you know? Persnickety people like things neat and tidy, but the etymology of "persnickety" doesn't provide the kind of clean, clear explanation that appeals to the fastidious. "Persnickety" was first documented in English in 1892 as an alteration of "pernickety," a word that has the same meaning. "Pernickety" goes back to the early 1800s, but from there, the word's "history" gets messy. Some say "pernickety" might be from a child's version of "particular"; others, that the "nick" part came from association with "knick-knack." Or perhaps the Latin prefix "per-," meaning "thoroughly," played a role. But it's all pure conjecture—no one knows for sure.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 27, 2013 is: emblem \EM-blum\ noun 1 : a picture with a motto or set of verses intended as a moral lesson 2 : an object or the figure of an object symbolizing and suggesting another object or an idea 3 a : a symbolic object used as a heraldic device b : a device, symbol, or figure adopted and used as an identifying mark Examples: "The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience." — From Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray "For their wins at the region level, both Ocana and Martinez got medals with each region school's emblem on the design…." — From an article by Lindsey Derrick in The Daily Citizen (Dalton, Georgia), April 1, 2013 Did you know? Both "emblem" and its synonym "symbol" trace back to the Greek verb "ballein," meaning "to throw." "Emblem" arose from "emballein," meaning "to insert," while "symbol" comes from "symballein," Greek for "to throw together." "Ballein" is also an ancestor of the words "parable" (from "paraballein," "to compare"), "metabolism" (from "metaballein," "to change"), and "problem" (from "proballein," "to throw forward"). Another (somewhat surprising) "ballein" descendant is "devil," which comes from Greek "diabolos," literally meaning "slanderer." "Diabolos" in turn comes from "diaballein," meaning "to throw across" or "to slander."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 26, 2013 is: decimate \DESS-uh-mayt\ verb 1 : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of 2 : to exact a tax of 10 percent from 3 a : to reduce drastically especially in number b : to cause great destruction or harm to Examples: Budget cuts have decimated public services in many towns and cities throughout the state. "Disease, habitat destruction and overharvesting have already decimated the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay." — From an article in The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Virginia), April 10, 2013 Did you know? The connection between "decimate" and the number ten harks back to a brutal practice of the army of ancient Rome. A unit that was guilty of a severe crime (such as mutiny) was punished by selecting and executing one-tenth of its soldiers, thereby scaring the remaining nine-tenths into obedience. It's no surprise that the word for this practice came from Latin "decem," meaning "ten." From this root we also get our word "decimal" and the name of the month of December, originally the tenth month of the calendar before the second king of Rome decided to add January and February. In its extended uses "decimate" strayed from its "tenth" meaning and nowadays refers to the act of destroying or hurting something in great numbers.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 25, 2013 is: force majeure \forss-mah-ZHUR\ noun 1 : superior or irresistible force 2 : an event or effect that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled Examples: "The [railway] line, which connects the northern Tete province with the coast, was shut on Feb. 12 after heavy rains and a derailment, forcing several cases of force majeure on a number of coal shipment contracts." — From an article on Reuters.com, March 4, 2013 "Those Mets of the late eighties and early nineties were a powerful presence in the city, a celebrity force majeure, but they were always a little short on the field." — From an article by Roger Angell in The New Yorker, May 20, 1996 Did you know? "Force majeure" translates literally from French as "superior force." In English, the term is often used in line with its literal French meaning, but it has other uses as well, including one that has roots in a principle of French law. In business circles, "force majeure" describes those uncontrollable events (such as war, labor stoppages, or extreme weather) that are not the fault of any party and that make it difficult or impossible to carry out normal business. A company may insert a force majeure clause into a contract to absolve itself from liability in the event it cannot fulfill the terms of a contract (or if attempting to do so will result in loss or damage of goods) for reasons beyond its control.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 24, 2013 is: occlusion \uh-KLOO-zhun\ noun 1 : a shutting off or obstruction of something 2 : the coming together of the surfaces of the upper and lower teeth 3 : the front formed by a cold front overtaking a warm front and lifting the warm air above the earth's surface Examples: Heart attacks result from the occlusion of blood supply to a part of the heart. "Three days before Thanksgiving 2011, Marilyn Mathern experienced a small blood clot, or retinal occlusion, in her eye." — From an article by Briana Wipf in the Great Falls Tribune (Montana), February 26, 2013 Did you know? "Occlusion" is a descendant of the Latin verb "occludere," meaning "to close up." "Occludere" in turn comes from the prefix "ob-," here meaning "in the way," and the verb "claudere," meaning "to close or shut." "Occlusion" is one of many English terms derived from "claudere." Some others are "recluse," "seclusion," and "exclude." An occlusion occurs when something has been closed up or blocked off. Almost all heart attacks are the result of the occlusion of a coronary (heart) artery by a blood clot. When a person's upper and lower teeth form a "malocclusion," they close incorrectly or badly. An occlusion, or occluded front, happens when a fast-moving cold front overtakes a slow-moving warm front and slides underneath it, lifting the warm air and blocking its movement.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 04, 2013 is: redbrick \RED-brik\ adjective 1 : built of red brick 2 often capitalized : of, relating to, or being the British universities founded in the 19th or early 20th century Examples: The round-table forum brought four distinguished Redbrick professors to face off against four renowned scholars from Oxford and Cambridge. "As the product of redbrick universities rather than the rarefied spires of Oxbridge, the Goldman Sachs oracle gives the impression of being a slightly hesitant candidate to succeed Sir Mervyn King at the Bank of England." — From an article by Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail (London), June 21, 2012 Did you know? Although red brick is a perfectly innocent building material in America, the British usage of "redbrick" is often potentially uncomplimentary. "Redbrick" is a British coinage created to denote the universities which were newer and perhaps less prestigious than Oxford and Cambridge (and sometimes the ancient universities of Scotland). These newer universities tended to be constructed of red brick, rather than the stone used for Oxford and Cambridge, and were most often created in industrial cities such as Liverpool. Sometimes the term is also used to distinguish these universities from those built after World War II. Limited evidence suggests that "redbrick" may be developing an extended meaning of "lower-class" or "working class," but this is not yet established enough to merit a dictionary entry.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 03, 2013 is: boulevardier \bull-uh-vahr-DYAY\ noun : a frequenter of the Parisian boulevards; broadly : man-about-town Examples: Trevor fancies himself something of a boulevardier, and he appears in the newspaper's society pages often enough that the label seems apt. "Effervescent and boyish, he has a boulevardier's bounce and a performer's panache." — From an article by Mark Feeney in the New York Times, November 4, 2012 Did you know? The first boulevardiers got their name from the thoroughfares they frequented: the typically straight and geometrically precise boulevards of Paris. These particular men must have cut an impressive figure because the word "boulevardier" was eventually applied to any worldly and socially active man. Unlike many near-synonyms, "boulevardier" is generally a complimentary term. It differs from "flaneur" in that the latter refers to someone who is idle, and it doesn't imply the same vanity and foolishness that words like "fop," "dandy," and "coxcomb" do.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 02, 2013 is: ambidextrous \am-bih-DEK-strus\ adjective 1 : capable of using both hands with equal ease 2 : unusually skillful : versatile 3 : characterized by duplicity : double-dealing Examples: "Jensen, a right-handed athlete, quickly began to teach himself to become ambidextrous." — From an article by Sam Blum in The Daily Orange (Syracuse, New York), February 20, 2013 "For that ambidextrous creature known as the author-illustrator—or at least for the best among them—story and art, like mind and body, are almost impossible to pull apart." — from a book review by Meg Wolitzer in the New York Times, November 10, 2011 Did you know? Latin "dexter" originally meant "related to or situated on the right side," but since most people do things better with the right hand, "dexter" developed the sense of "skillful" (as demonstrated by our word "dexterous"). In 1646, English physician and author Sir Thomas Browne combined "dexter" with the Latin prefix "ambi-" (meaning "both") in the first documented use of "ambidextrous": "Some are . . . ambidextrous or right-handed on both sides." The word can now describe the kind of physical or mental agility demonstrated by one with multiple diverse talents.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 01, 2013 is: provenience \pruh-VEE-nee-unss\ noun : origin, source Examples: The museum has hired outside experts to help uncover the provenience and ownership history of several of its artifacts. "The mask's provenience is unclear; the dealer suggested that it originated from a cave in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico.…" — From an article by Jack Frazier and Reiko Ishihara-Brito in Antiquity, September 1, 2012 Did you know? Did you suspect that "provenience" and "provenance" originate from the same source? You're right; they're parent and child. "Provenance" is the older of the two. It has been used to mean "origin" in English since at least the 1780s, and it is modeled on the French verb "provenir," meaning "to come forth, originate." The French word, in turn, derives from Latin "provenire," a composite of "pro-" (meaning "forth") and "venire" (meaning "come"). "Provenience" is a chip off the old block, originating as a modification of "provenance" about 100 years after its parent debuted in English texts. The source of the extra syllable in "provenience" is most likely "proveniens," a participle of "provenire" (the similar Latin participle "conveniens" gave us "convenience," another "venire" derivative).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 31, 2013 is: balneology \bal-nee-AH-luh-jee\ noun : the science of the therapeutic use of baths Examples: Balneology is used at the spa as a means of treating injured muscles. "Fortunately, our collection contains a large number of items relating to balneology, the science of baths and bathing, including pamphlets from hot spring resorts across the United States from the late 1800s and early 1900s." — From an article posted February 12, 2013 at nyamcenterforhistory.org Did you know? "Sure, the hot water feels good. Sure, the massage is nice. But it goes beyond that, advocates say." So wrote Ellen Creager in an article published on February 18, 2001 in the Detroit Free Press. The healing powers of mineral baths have long been touted by advocates like those mentioned by Creager. Though we've had the word "balneology" for just over 130 years, this method of treating aching muscles, joint pain, and skin ailments goes back to ancient times. Proponents of the science of bath therapy created the name "balneology" from the Latin word "balneum" ("bath") and the combining form "-logy" ("science"). Today, some medical institutes in Europe have departments of balneology. Modern "balneologists" impart their knowledge to, or themselves serve as, "balneotherapists," who apply their "balneotherapy" to clients.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 30, 2013 is: obviate \AHB-vee-ayt\ verb : to anticipate and prevent (as a situation) or make unnecessary (as an action) Examples: Rob checks every ledger entry twice to obviate any problems when it comes time for an audit. "Some TVs come equipped with … technology that manufacturers incorporated to obviate the need for supplementary cable boxes." — From an article by Mike Rogoway in The Oregonian, January 13, 2013 Did you know? "Obviate" derives from Late Latin "obviare" (meaning "to meet or withstand") and Latin "obviam," which means "in the way" and is also an ancestor of our adjective "obvious." "Obviate" has a number of synonyms in English, including "prevent," "preclude," and "avert"; all of these words can mean to hinder or stop something. When you prevent or preclude something, you put up an insurmountable obstacle. In addition, "preclude" often implies that a degree of chance was involved in stopping an event. "Obviate" generally suggests the use of intelligence or forethought to ward off trouble. "Avert" always implies that a bad situation has been anticipated and prevented or deflected by the application of immediate and effective means.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 29, 2013 is: fuliginous \fyoo-LIJ-uh-nus\ adjective 1 a : sooty b : obscure, murky 2 : having a dark or dusky color Examples: Theo's journalism professor encouraged him to eschew fuliginous prose in favor of simple, straightforward language. "For two weeks he continued his surveying in a fuliginous atmosphere of almost continual fog but then, on 5 August, the mists suddenly cleared, allowing him to make a detailed observation of a solar eclipse (on the appropriately named Eclipse Island, one of the tiny Burgeo Islands)." — From Frank McLynn's 2011 book Captain Cook: Master of the Seas Did you know? "Fuliginous" is a word with a dark and dirty past—it derives from "fuligo," the Latin word for "soot." In an early sense (now obsolete), "fuliginous" was used to describe noxious bodily vapors once thought to be produced by organic processes. The "sooty" sense, which English speakers have been using since the early 1620s, can be used to describe everything from dense fogs and malevolent clouds to overworked chimney sweeps. "Fuliginous" can also be used to refer to something dark or dusky, as in Henry James' novel The Ambassadors, in which the character Waymarsh is described as having "dark fuliginous eyes."