Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 16, 2016 is: caesura • \sih-ZYUR-uh\  • noun 1 : a break in the flow of sound usually in the middle of a line of verse 2 : break, interruption 3 : a pause marking a rhythmic point of division in a melody Examples: "The Anglo-Saxon idiom of Beowulf sounds particularly alien to modern ears: four stresses per line, separated in the middle by a strong pause,...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 15, 2016 is: ostracize • \AH-struh-syze\  • verb 1 : to exile by ostracism 2 : to exclude from a group by common consent Examples: Athletes who cheat risk being ostracized by their peers and colleagues—in addition to suffering professional ruin. "Hateful speech is employed to offend, marginalize and ostracize. It's replaced reasonable persuasion by those...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 14, 2016 is: éclat • \ay-KLAH\  • noun 1 : ostentatious display : publicity 2 : dazzling effect : brilliance 3 a : brilliant or conspicuous success b : praise, applause Examples: "The … protagonist is a familiar archetype, that washed-up star who can't quite reclaim the éclat of decades past." — Kevin Zawacki, Paste, 25 Aug. 2014 "A woman, a hostess, coul...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 13, 2016 is: natant • \NAY-tunt\  • adjective : swimming or floating in water Examples: The pond was quiet, though occasionally a fish would rise to make a little splash among the natant lily pads. "The life cycle of spiny lobsters consists of two major phases: a lengthy planktonic larval phase that develops in oceanic water, and a benthic phase that begi...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 12, 2016 is: gust • \GUST\  • noun : keen delight Examples: "He was pleased to find his own importance, and he tasted the sweets of companionship with more gust than he had yet done." — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Godolphin, 1833 "… the more pampered burgess and guild-brother was eating his morsel with gust, or curiously criticising the quantity of the malt and...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 11, 2016 is: liminal • \LIM-uh-nul\  • adjective 1 : of or relating to a sensory threshold 2 : barely perceptible 3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional Examples: "Kipling is drawn to images of his characters sitting in perilous places, because he aims to communicate a liminal anxiety about iden...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 10, 2016 is: iconoclast • \eye-KAH-nuh-klast\  • noun 1 : a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration 2 : a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions Examples: "Hollywood loves trotting out some irascible iconoclast who denies love's potency, only to have them felled by their own emotion like a sapling in a hurricane." — Pi...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 9, 2016 is: jovial • \JOH-vee-ul\  • adjective 1 : (capitalized Jovial) of or relating to Jove 2 : markedly good-humored especially as evidenced by jollity and conviviality Examples: He was fondly remembered for his jovial temperament and generosity. "Inside, the crowd was boisterous and jovial, the young and fashionable sharing space with old regulars, a...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 8, 2016 is: lout • \LOUT\  • noun : an awkward brutish person Examples: To get away from the obnoxious louts making noise in the restaurant, Jared and Fiona asked the waiter if they could be moved to another table. "Leaf blowers kick a lot of dust up. Often, after I've just washed my car I will drive past some lout who is blowing crud directly at my passe...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 7, 2016 is: hoity-toity • \hoy-tee-TOY-tee\  • adjective 1 : thoughtlessly silly or frivolous : flighty 2 : marked by an air of assumed importance : highfalutin Examples: "… she was by no means hoity-toity, but a thinking, reasoning being of the profoundest intellectual, or, rather, the highest artistic tendencies." — Theodore Dreiser, The Titan, 1914 "Us...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 6, 2016 is: negotiate • \nih-GOH-shee-ayt\  • verb 1 : to confer with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter; also : to arrange for or bring about by such conferences 2 : to transfer to another by delivery or endorsement in return for equivalent value 3 : to get through, around, or over successfully Examples: Our driver had lived on the...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 5, 2016 is: felicitous • \fih-LISS-uh-tus\  • adjective 1 : very well suited or expressed : apt 2 : pleasant, delightful Examples: The warm air and clear, dark skies made for felicitous conditions for the fireworks show. "Experience has been instructive to Moulder, who has learned that churches have been particularly felicitous spaces. Granted, the genera...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 4, 2016 is: Yankee • \YANG-kee\  • noun 1 a : a native or inhabitant of New England b : a native or inhabitant of the northern United States 2 : a native or inhabitant of the United States Examples: "I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut…. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees…." — Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in K...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 3, 2016 is: ossify • \AH-suh-fye\  • verb 1 : to become or change into bone or bony tissue 2 : to become or make hardened or set in one's ways Examples: When a baby is born, many of the bones in its body have yet to ossify. "Bargaining systems that address legitimate problems today may ossify into cumbersome bureaucracies over time." — Dante Ramos, The Bo...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2016 is: defalcation • \dee-fal-KAY-shun\  • noun 1 : the act or an instance of embezzling 2 : a failure to meet a promise or an expectation Examples: "Early in my career, I uncovered a defalcation that resulted from one individual having too much control over the cash handling process." — James Williams, quoted in The Washington Business Journal, 30 J...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 1, 2016 is: qua • \KWAH\  • preposition : in the capacity or character of : as Examples: "Coben's novels have made him rich, but that's not what's important to him. It's sales qua sales—his statistical record—that motivates Coben, rather than the money his sales bring in." — Eric Konigsberg, The Atlantic, July/August 2007 "Sure, there have been other big...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 30, 2016 is: nadir • \NAY-deer\  • noun 1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer 2 : the lowest point Examples: Only once the novel's protagonist reaches her nadir does she arouse the reader's empathy, and we root for her to climb back to respectability. "The nadir came in the MLS...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 29, 2016 is: attenuate • \uh-TEN-yuh-wayt\  • verb 1 : to make thin or slender 2 : to make thin in consistency : rarefy 3 : to lessen the amount, force, magnitude, or value of : weaken 4 : to reduce the severity, virulence, or vitality of Examples: "… it's been well established that daily exercise such as walking for 30 minutes yields substantial health b...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2016 is: licit • \LISS-it\  • adjective : conforming to the requirements of the law : not forbidden by law : permissible Examples: The program subsidizes farmers growing licit crops, such as rubber, cassava, and cocoa. "The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) explained, opioids are a class of drugs that include the illicit drug heroin and th...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2016 is: crackerjack • \CRACK-er-jack\  • adjective : of striking ability or excellence Examples: She is a crackerjack athlete who excels in soccer and softball. "Like a well-made suspense film, Mr. Scovel's jokes have twists you don't see coming and the thrilling tension of a crackerjack plot where you have no idea what will happen next." — Jason Zin...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2016 is: jactitation • \jak-tuh-TAY-shun\  • noun : a tossing to and fro or jerking and twitching of the body Examples: "The effect of the first dose was most fortunate. In about ten minutes after it was swallowed, the jactitation ceased." — Edward H. Clarke, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 16 June 1870 "It is clear that Mrs Y.'s tics are far...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 25, 2016 is: extirpate • \EK-ster-payt\  • verb 1 a : to destroy completely : wipe out b : to pull up by the root 2 : to cut out by surgery Examples: "The spread of piracy has been treated more as a nuisance to be endured rather than as a deadly cancer that must be extirpated for the sake of both Somalia and the rule of law." — Tara Helfman and Dan O'Shea...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 24, 2016 is: hermetic • \her-MET-ik\  • adjective 1 : relating to or characterized by occultism or abstruseness : recondite 2 a : airtight  b : impervious to external influence c : recluse, solitary Examples: The infomercial claimed that the new containers used modern technology to guarantee a hermetic seal that would keep food fresh for months. "Later, a...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 23, 2016 is: genius • \JEEN-yus\  • noun 1 : a single strongly marked capacity or aptitude 2 : extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity 3 : a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority; especially : a person with a very high IQ Examples: "An airplane mechanic in World War II, my father had a genius for anythi...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2016 is: feign • \FAYN\  • verb 1 : to give a false appearance of : to induce as a false impression 2 : to assert as if true : pretend Examples: "If a predator approaches the nest, the parent feigns a broken wing, often leading the predator far from the nest before bursting into flight, the injured wing suddenly fully functional." — Jan Bergstrom, The...