Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 06, 2015 is: inimical \in-NIM-ih-kul\ adjective 1 : being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence 2 a : having the disposition of an enemy : hostile b : reflecting or indicating hostility : unfriendly Examples: The mayor's proposal received an inimical response from members of the town council. "Profiling and other means of applying stereotypes to certain types of persons on the basis of how they appear, as opposed to how they behave, is inimical to the very foundations of our democratic republic." — Mark T. Harris, Sacramento (California) Bee, January 3, 2015 Did you know? In inimical, one finds both a friend and an enemy. The word descends from Latin inimicus, which combines amicus, meaning "friend," with the negative prefix in-, meaning "not." In current English, inimical rarely describes a person, however. Instead, it is generally used to describe forces, concepts, or situations that are in some way harmful or hostile. For example, high inflation may be called inimical to economic growth. Inimicus is also an ancestor of enemy, whereas amicus gave us the much more congenial amicable (meaning "friendly" or "peaceful") and amiable (meaning "agreeable" or "friendly").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 05, 2015 is: moxie \MAHK-see\ noun 1 : energy, pep 2 : courage, determination 3 : know-how Examples: Accustomed to being a wallflower, Morris admired his friend for having the moxie to walk up to a girl he didn't know and ask her to dance. "No, Elvin didn't win last weekend's prestigious Beast of the East Tournament, but he did have a good run to the finals where he showed the moxie of a champion." — Jeremy Elliott, Patriot News (Harrisburg, PA), December 25, 2014 Did you know? "Hot roasted peanuts! Fresh popcorn! Ice-cold Moxie!" You might have heard such a snack vendor's cry at a baseball game—if you attended it in 1924. That was the heyday of the soft drink named Moxie, which some claim outsold Coca-Cola at the height of its popularity. The beverage was a favorite of American writer E. B. White, who wrote, "Moxie contains gentian root, which is the path to the good life. This was known in the second century before Christ and is a boon to me today." By 1930, moxie had become a slang term for nerve and verve, perhaps because some people thought the drink was a tonic that could cure virtually any ill and bring vim back to even the most lethargic individual.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 04, 2015 is: quotidian \kwoh-TID-ee-un\ adjective 1 : occurring every day 2 : belonging to each day : everyday 3 : commonplace, ordinary Examples: After weeks on the road, it felt good to be back to our quotidian routines. "Some of Bach's music is a prime example of how even works of genius can be destroyed in the wrong hands. The Cello Suites were deemed quotidian exercises until Pablo Casals revealed their beauty." — Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, January 2, 2015 Did you know? In Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the character Rosalind observes that Orlando, who has been running about in the woods carving her name on trees and hanging love poems on branches, "seems to have the quotidian of love upon him." Shakespeare's use doesn't make it clear that quotidian derives from a Latin word that means "every day." But as odd as it may seem, Shakespeare's use of quotidian is just a short semantic step away from the "daily" adjective sense. Some fevers occur intermittently—sometimes daily. The phrase quotidian fever and the noun quotidian have long been used for such recurring maladies. Poor Orlando is simply afflicted with such a "fever" of love.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 03, 2015 is: ex parte \eks-PAR-tee\ adverb or adjective 1 : on or from one side or party only — used of legal proceedings 2 : from a one-sided or partisan point of view Examples: "The record of the case was of vast length and full of technicalities, it was discussed ex parte by vehement propagandists on both sides…." — Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's, 1931 "In the U.S., lawyers are forbidden to meet with a judge 'ex parte,' or outside the presence of opposing counsel." — Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, January 9, 2012 Did you know? "Latin has not been over-used in a procedural context ('ex parte' being a rare exception)," wrote a correspondent to The London Times in May 1999. Indeed, ex parte (which literally meant "on behalf [of]" in Medieval Latin) pops up quite often in legal settings. Even when ex parte steps outside of the courtroom—to be used of an ex parte meeting, interview, chat, conversation, investigation, discussion, or contact, for example—the "one-sided" sense often has some sort of legal or legislative slant referring to involvement of just one party or side in a case or dispute.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 02, 2015 is: compunction \kum-PUNK-shun\ noun 1 : anxiety arising from awareness of guilt 2 : distress of mind over an anticipated action or result 3 : a twinge of misgiving : scruple Examples: A diligent editor, Michelle feels no compunction about deleting words and phrases from even the most beautifully written paragraph for the sake of space or clarity. "The council of generals who took power from Mr. Mubarak had feared a public backlash too much to ever allow the former president's release, but Mr. Sisi's government felt no such compunction, Mr. Bahgat said." — David D. Kirkpatrick and Merna Thomas, The New York Times, November 30, 2014 Did you know? An old proverb says "a guilty conscience needs no accuser," and it's true that the sting of a guilty conscience—or a conscience that is provoked by the contemplation of doing something wrong—can prick very hard indeed. The sudden guilty "prickings" of compunction are reflected in the word's etymological history. Compunction comes (via the Anglo-French compunction and the Middle English compunccioun) from the Latin compungere, which means "to prick hard" or "to sting." Compungere, in turn, derives from pungere, meaning "to prick," which is the ancestor of some other prickly words in English, such as "puncture" and even "point."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 01, 2015 is: ambient \AM-bee-unt\ adjective : existing or present on all sides : encompassing 2 of electronic music : quiet and relaxing with melodies that repeat many times Examples: The chemicals must be kept at an ambient temperature of 70 degrees. "Liz Harris summons a wounded sound that suggests that ambient music, despite its intangibility, should be memorable." — The Washington Post, December 28, 2014 Did you know? Biologists explore the effects of ambient light on plants; acoustics experts try to control ambient sound; and meteorologists study ambient pressure, air, or temperature. All this can make ambient seem like a technical term, but when it first saw light of day, that all-encompassing adjective was as likely to be used in poetry as in science. John Milton used it in Paradise Lost, and Alexander Pope wrote of a mountain "whose tow'ring summit ambient clouds conceal'd." Both poets and scientists who use ambient owe a debt to the Latin verb ambire, meaning "to go around," the grandparent of our English word.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 31, 2015 is: succumb \suh-KUM\ verb 1 : to yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire 2 : to be brought to an end (such as death) by the effect of destructive or disruptive forces Examples: Rescuers feared that the missing mountain climbers would succumb to hypothermia. "When I look back on my life . . . I see moments where it might have been understandable had I turned to drugs or ice cream. But I never succumbed. My natural tendency … is to be happy." — Martin Short, I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend, 2014 Did you know? If the idea of someone succumbing brings to mind the image of a person lying down before more powerful forces, you have an excellent grasp of the Latin that gave us succumb. Succumb derives from the French word succomber, which is itself from the Latin word succumbere, meaning "to fall down" or "to yield." Succumbere was formed by combining sub-, meaning "under," with -cumbere, meaning "to lie down." The earliest application of succumb in the late 15th century was as a transitive verb meaning "to bring down" or "to overwhelm," but this sense is now obsolete. The current sense of "to yield" first appeared in print in the early 17th century; the more specific use—yielding to a disease or other destructive force—followed two centuries later.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 30, 2015 is: urticaria \er-tuh-KAIR-ee-uh\ noun : hives Examples: The first sign of the patient's allergic reaction to the medication was an outbreak of urticaria. "Chronic urticaria is common and can appear on any part of the body. Sunlight and heat can be triggers for some people, whereas cold is a trigger for others." — Keith Roach, Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida), October 14, 2014 Did you know? Hives can be caused by a number of things. It can be a reaction to a piece of food you ate, a new medication you took, or irritants in the air you're breathing—or to wandering into a patch of nettles. Urticaria, the medical term for hives, points the finger at nettles, at least etymologically: it comes from the Latin word urtica, meaning "nettle." Urtica itself is related to the Latin verb urere, meaning "to burn," a nod to the stinging hairs many species of nettle possess.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 29, 2015 is: disingenuous \dis-in-JEN-yuh-wuss\ adjective : lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : calculating Examples: Be aware that their expressions of concern may in truth be disingenuous and self-serving. "He said the group's claims were wildly disingenuous and its objections politically and financially motivated." — James L. Rosica, The Tampa Tribune, December 18, 2014 Did you know? Today's word has its roots in the slave-holding society of ancient Rome. Its ancestor ingenuus is a Latin adjective meaning "native" or "freeborn" (itself from gignere, meaning "to beget"). Ingenuus begot the English adjective ingenuous. That adjective originally meant "freeborn" (as in "ingenuous Roman subjects") or "noble and honorable," but it eventually came to mean "showing childlike innocence" or "lacking guile." In the mid-17th century, English speakers combined the negative prefix dis- with ingenuous to create disingenuous, meaning "guileful" or "deceitful."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 28, 2015 is: retronym \REH-troh-nim\ noun : a term (such as analog watch or snail mail) that is newly created and adopted to distinguish the original or older version, form, or example of something from other, more recent versions, forms, or examples Examples: "… first came paperback book, differentiated from a book with a cloth or leather binding, provoking the retronym hardcover book." — William Safire, The New York Times Magazine, November 18, 2007 ''Nowadays we need such distinctions as free-range chickens, birth mother, natural blonde, … and manual toothbrushes. The faster we advance, the more retronyms we enlist." — David Astle, Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, November 1, 2014 Did you know? Remember way back when cameras used film? Back then, such devices were simply called cameras; they weren't specifically called film cameras until they needed to be distinguished from the digital cameras that came later. Similarly, the term desktop computer wasn't often used until laptops became prevalent. A lot of our common retronyms have come about due to technological advances: acoustic guitar emerged to contrast with electric guitar, and brick-and-mortar store to distinguish traditional stores from online retailers. Retronym was coined by Frank Mankiewicz, an American journalist and former president of National Public Radio, and first seen in print in 1980.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 27, 2015 is: incontrovertible \in-kahn-truh-VER-tuh-bul\ adjective : not open to question : indisputable Examples: The manager presented the clerk's time card as incontrovertible evidence that the employee had been late for work all five days the previous week. "No matter where you are on the political spectrum, the midterm elections produced one incontrovertible fact—there are more women in Congress than ever before." — Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 16, 2014 Did you know? If something is indisputable, it's incontrovertible. But if it is open to question, is it controvertible? It sure is. The antonyms controvertible and incontrovertible are both derivatives of the verb controvert (meaning "to dispute or oppose by reasoning"), which is itself a spin-off of controversy. And what is the source of all of these controversial terms? The Latin adjective controversus, which literally means "turned against."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 26, 2015 is: legerdemain \lej-er-duh-MAYN\ noun 1 : sleight of hand 2 : a display of skill and adroitness Examples: The company's accountants used financial legerdemain to conceal its true revenues and avoided paying $2 million in taxes as a result. "U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden is trying for a bit of late-session congressional magic to finally get some movement on proposals to increase federal timber harvests in western Oregon. The Oregon Democrat has pulled off some last-minute feats of legislative legerdemain in the past, so it's not at all out of the question that he can do it again…." — The Associated Press, November 17, 2014 Did you know? In Middle French, folks who were clever enough to fool others with fast-fingered illusions were described as leger de main, literally "light of hand." English speakers condensed that phrase into a noun when they borrowed it in the 15th century and began using it as an alternative to the older sleight of hand. (That term for dexterity or skill in using one's hands makes use of sleight, an old word from Middle English that derives from an Old Norse word meaning "sly.") In more modern times, a feat of legerdemain can even be accomplished without using your hands, as in, for example, "an impressive bit of financial legerdemain."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 25, 2015 is: constellate \KAHN-stuh-layt\ verb 1 : to unite in a cluster 2 : to set or adorn with or as if with constellations Examples: "The members of the family seemed destined to constellate around a table, held by the gravity of our affection for each other." — Elsa M. Bowman, Christian Science Monitor, July 11, 1996 "The band is currently a three-piece, led by guitar-wielding singer Brett Kerr, 24, of North Muskegon. The group originally constellated around his songwriting in 2009." — Lou Jeannot, Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle, July 1, 2010 Did you know? It's plain that constellate is related to constellation, and, indeed, things that "constellate" (or "are constellated") cluster together like stars in a constellation. Both words derive ultimately from the Latin word for "star," which is stella. Constellation (which came to us by way of Middle French from Late Latin constellation-, constellatio) entered the language first—it dates to at least the 14th century. Constellate didn't appear until a full 300 years later.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 24, 2015 is: evitable \EV-uh-tuh-bul\ adjective : capable of being avoided Examples: The investigator determined that the accident was certainly evitable and would not have happened if the driver hadn't been negligent. "Books, journals, conventions, and electronic networks have made provincial isolation easily evitable…." — James Sledd, English Journal, November 1994 Did you know? British author T. S. Eliot once gave a lecture at Trinity College (Cambridge, England) in which he spoke about "the disintegration of the intellect" in 19th century Europe, saying, "The 'disintegration' of which I speak may be evitable or inevitable, good or bad; to draw its optimistic or pessimistic conclusions is an occupation for prophets . . . of whom I am not one." Evitable, though not common, has been in English since the beginning of the 16th century; it's often found paired with its opposite, inevitable, as in Eliot's passage as well as in this self-reflection by Liverpool Echo writer Gary Bainbridge in March of 2014: "I have been thinking about my inevitable death, and decided I would like to make it a bit more evitable." Both words were borrowed from similar Latin adjectives, which in turn are based on the verb evitare, which means "to avoid."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 23, 2015 is: anabasis \uh-NAB-uh-sis\ noun 1 : a going or marching up : advance; especially : a military advance 2 : a difficult and dangerous military retreat Examples: Reluctantly, the general ordered a hasty anabasis in the face of overwhelming opposing forces. "This German and Austro-Hungarian withdrawal from the Balkan Peninsula in the autumn of 1918 would presage a similar German anabasis…." — R. C. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough, 2010 Did you know? The first sense of anabasis follows logically enough from its roots. In Greek, the word originally meant "inland march"; it is derived from anabainein, meaning "to go up or inland," which is formed by combining the prefix ana- ("up") and bainein ("to go"). The second and opposite sense, however, comes from an anabasis gone wrong. In 401 B.C., Greek mercenaries fighting for Cyrus the Younger marched into the Persian Empire only to find themselves cut off hundreds of miles from home. As a result, they were forced to undertake an arduous and embattled retreat across unknown territories. Xenophon, a Greek historian who accompanied the mercenaries on the march, wrote the epic narrative Anabasis about this experience, and consequently anabasis came to mean a dramatic retreat as well as an advance.