Summary: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 20, 2013 is: plaudit \PLAW-dit\ noun 1 : an act or round of applause 2 : enthusiastic approval usually used in plural Examples: The latest installment in the movie series earned plaudits from critics and fans alike. "Just a year and a half after graduating from Los Angeles' private Harvard-Westlake School, Platt has scored the show-stealing 'Mormon' role and won plaudits for offering an interpretation decidedly different from Josh Gad's Tony-nominated performance." From a review by Kerry Reid in the Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2013 Did you know? Give yourself a round of applause if you recognize the similarity between today's featured word and a pair of familiar words. (There's a hint in the first half of the previous sentence, as well as in the first sense of the definition.) "Plaudit" was borrowed into English in the early 17th century from a form of the Latin verb "plaudere," meaning "to applaud." "Plaudere" is, of course, also the ancestor of "applaud" and "applause," as well as of "explode," "plausible," and the now archaic "displode" (a synonym of "explode").
