Merriam-webster's Word Of The Day
- Autor: Vários
- Narrador: Vários
- Editora: Podcast
- Duração: 0:18:42
- Mais informações
Informações:
Sinopse
Free daily dose of word power from Merriam-Webster's experts
Episódios
-
ruminate
11/02/2025 Duração: 02minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 11, 2025 is: ruminate \ROO-muh-nayt\ verb To ruminate is to think carefully and deeply about something. // We ruminated over the implications of our decision. See the entry > Examples: “Most of the songs bear the name of a store you’d see in every mall in the United States before they became sad ghost towns, air conditioning and smooth jazz blasting in the emptied, echoing caverns of capitalism. ... The trio uses nostalgia as a tool of examination, ruminating on the not-too-distant past in order to process the funny and sometimes heartbreaking process of getting older together.” — Dash Lewis, Pitchfork, 8 July 2024 Did you know? When you ruminate, you chew something over, either literally or figuratively. Literal rumination may seem a little gross to humans, but to cows, chewing your cud (partially digested food brought up from the stomach for another chew) is just a nat
-
vestige
10/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 10, 2025 is: vestige \VESS-tij\ noun A vestige is a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something lost or vanished. // The ruins here are the last vestiges of the Roman occupation in this part of Britain. See the entry > Examples: "Filled with vestiges of yesteryear, the Butte [Montana] historic district is one of the largest in the country." — Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Janie Osborne, The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2024 Did you know? Though English is categorized as a Germanic language, there’s no denying the enormousness of Latin’s footprint on its lexicon. Among English’s plethora of Latin derivatives is vestige, a word that traces back to the Latin noun vestigium, meaning "footstep, footprint, or track." Like its forebear, vestige refers to a perceptible sign made by something that has passed, or to a tangible reminder, such as a fragment or remnant, of what is past a
-
ecstatic
09/02/2025 Duração: 02minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 9, 2025 is: ecstatic \ek-STAT-ik\ adjective Someone described as ecstatic is very happy or excited; the person feels or shows ecstasy—that is, rapturous delight. // Greta and Sam were ecstatic when their daughter called to tell them that they were soon going to be grandparents. See the entry > Examples: “... through reading, through reporting, I begin to comprehend a truth. That moment of comprehension is ecstatic. Writing and rewriting is the attempt to communicate not just a truth but the ecstasy of a truth. It is not enough for me to convince the reader of my argument; I want them to feel that same private joy that I feel alone.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message, 2024 Did you know? If you feel like “a hot air balloon that could go to space” or, perhaps, “like a room without a roof,” you might—with all due respect to Pharrell Williams—be not just happy but ecstatic. In o
-
finesse
08/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 8, 2025 is: finesse \fuh-NESS\ verb To finesse something is to bring it about, direct it, or manage it by skillful maneuvering. // We managed to finesse a favorable deal on some Beatles LPs at the flea market through subtle bargaining. See the entry > Examples: “Many times, the teams that can lead a company to a successful public listing are not the ones best equipped to finesse the delicate relationship with equity research analysts.” — Ilona Limonta-Volkova, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024 Did you know? The noun finesse originally referred to the “fineness” or delicacy of something’s texture, structure, or workmanship. It later came to be applied to the delicacy of someone’s skill in handling tricky situations before gaining a sense specific to taking tricks in cards. In games such as bridge or whist, finesse refers to a particular stratagem that involves the clever withholding of
-
malapropism
07/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 7, 2025 is: malapropism \MAL-uh-prah-piz-um\ noun A malapropism is an amusing error that occurs when a person mistakenly uses a word that sounds like another word but that has a very different meaning. // "It's lovely to see all of you on this suspicious occasion," our host said. A flurry of snickers were heard in reply; the malapropism (she had of course meant to call it an "auspicious" occasion) was characteristic. See the entry > Examples: "Words were precious playthings to Roald Dahl. The Welsh-born writer was a master toymaker with his wildly imaginative prose, embracing spoonerisms and malapropisms to invent scrumdiddlyumptious words that tickled the ear and fizzled on the tongue when spoken aloud." — i-news, 21 Dec. 2024 Did you know? Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, was known for her verbal blunders. "He is the very pine-apple
-
ad-lib
06/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 6, 2025 is: ad-lib \AD-LIB\ verb To ad-lib something, such as a performance or part of a performance, is to improvise it—that is, to make up words or music instead of saying, singing, or playing something that has been planned. // The actor forgot his lines, so he ad-libbed. See the entry > Examples: “My real appreciation for [Céline] Dion grew in 2018, when I saw her perform in Vegas. I had agreed to attend with some friends, expecting a silly night of singing along to her hits like I was a kid again. It was the best live performance I had ever seen. Her singing was stunning, of course. She ad-libbed frequently, taking pleasure in showing off her range, and her voice was warm and supple.” — Caitlin Dickerson, The Atlantic, 18 July 2024 Did you know? Let’s play a word game—just fill in a word of your choosing within the brackets in the following sentence, according to the
-
canard
05/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 5, 2025 is: canard \kuh-NARD\ noun Canard refers to a false report or story, or to a belief or rumor that isn't true. It can also refer to a kind of airplane as well as to a kind of small airfoil. // The book unfortunately repeats some of history's oldest canards. See the entry > Examples: "It's such a canard to think young people don't care about great information. They do. ... [W]e have to start thinking, as media, of where they’re getting it." — Kara Swisher, quoted at The Atlantic, 29 Feb. 2024 Did you know? In 16th-century France, vendre des canards à moitié was a colorful way of saying "to fool" or "to cheat." The French phrase means, literally, "to half-sell ducks." No one now knows just what was meant by "to half-sell"; the saying was probably based on some story widely known at the time, but the details have not survived. Lost stories aside, the expressio
-
zaftig
04/02/2025 Duração: 01minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 4, 2025 is: zaftig \ZAHF-tig\ adjective Someone described as zaftig has a full, rounded figure, or in other words is pleasingly plump. // Portraits of zaftig models are exhibited in the artist's collection. See the entry > Examples: "... Pablo Picasso produced an estimated 13,500 paintings, in addition to astounding quantities of drawings, prints, sculptures and ceramics. ... He veered between opposite poles of abstraction and realism, between the gaunt, poetic figures of his Blue Period and the zaftig matrons of his Rose Period, between the paper-lightness of his wildly inventive collages and the bulbous tonnage of his sculpted bronze heads." — Deborah Solomon, The New York Times, 9 Apr. 2023 Did you know? Zaftig has been in use in English—mainly in the United States—since the 1920s; a couple of the earliest known uses are found in Variety magazine, in reviews of burlesq
-
sarcophagus
03/02/2025 Duração: 02minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 3, 2025 is: sarcophagus \sahr-KAH-fuh-gus\ noun Sarcophagus refers to a coffin, and specifically a stone coffin. // The crypt under the abbey church contains the sarcophagus of the monastery's founding abbot. See the entry > Examples: "Experts found as many as 1,035 artwork fragments, as well as one hundred graves increasing the cathedral's total record to more than five hundred burials. Many of the coffins, along with scattered bones, remain unidentified. A lead sarcophagus that may belong to the poet Joachim du Bellay is among one of the more notable burials." — Francesca Aton, ARTNews, 4 Dec. 2024 Did you know? Body-eating coffins might sound like something out of a horror film, but flesh-eating stone? The latter plays a role in the etymology of sarcophagus; it is the literal translation of líthos sarkóphagos, the Greek phrase that underlies the English term. The phra
-
presage
02/02/2025 Duração: 02minMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 2, 2025 is: presage \PRESS-ij\ verb To presage something is to give or be a sign that it will happen in the future. Presage is a formal synonym of foreshadow, foretell, and predict. // The sudden gloom and ominous dark clouds clearly presaged a nasty storm. See the entry > Examples: “What we’re really looking for are handsome, vigorous chickens who do well in cold climes. … Adding birds of different breeds presaged an important change in our understanding: now that it was easier to tell birds apart, the distinct personalities of individuals began to reveal themselves more clearly.” — Sy Montgomery, What the Chicken Knows: A New Appreciation of the World’s Most Familiar Bird, 2024 Did you know? Although sages, being known for their great wisdom, are sometimes believed to possess the ability to predict the future, there is no connection between the noun sage and the verb p