📕 Word of the Day: dross

dross • \DRAHSS\ • noun

Something referred to as "dross" is of low value or quality. Dross may also be used as a technical term to refer to unwanted material that is removed from a mineral to make it better.

// He's a skilled editor who has a talent for turning literary dross into gold.

📝 Examples:
"Hollywood optimists argue that AI's greatest weakness will be originality. After all, viewers already complain of being deluged with formulaic, low-budget dross churned out by streaming platforms because an algorithm deems it popular." — Tom Leonard, The Scottish Daily Mail, 23 Feb. 2026

📜 Did you know?
Dross has been a part of the English language since Anglo-Saxon times. It comes from the Old English word drōs, meaning "dregs," those solid materials that fall to the bottom of a container full of a liquid such as coffee or wine. While dross today is used to refer to anything of low value or quality, its earliest use is technical: dross is a metallurgy term referring to solid scum that forms on the surface of a metal when it is molten or melting—remove the dross to improve the metal. The metallurgical sense of the word is often hinted at in its general use, with dross set in contrast to gold, as when 19th century British poet Christina Rossetti wrote "Besides, those days were golden days, / Whilst these are days of dross."

#English #Vocabulary #wordoftheday #MW #WOTD

hādung-dæg, m.n: the anniversary of a person’s ordination. (HA-dung-DAIE / ˈhaː-dʌŋ-ˌdæj)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

A Zany #WOTD ... Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for Mar 26 is "zany": www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-...

Word of the Day: Zany

📕 Word of the Day: zany

zany • \ZAY-nee\ • adjective

Zany describes people or things that are very strange and silly.

// The cartoon series centers around two zany characters, best friends who also happen to be space aliens, constantly amusing each other with outrageous antics.

📝 Examples:
“The fourth and final episode centers on a birthday party for The Cat in the Hat. ... Seeing where the clues lead, the friends embark on a joyous adventure of songs, dances, silly challenges, and plenty of zany energy from their wacky striped friend.” — Sarah Scott, Parents, 22 Dec. 2025

📜 Did you know?
The oddballs among us are likely familiar with zany as an adjective, meaning “eccentric.” But did you know the word originated as a noun—one that has withstood the test of time? Zanies have been theatrical buffoons since the heyday of the Italian commedia dell’arte, in which a “zanni” was a stock servant character, often an intelligent and proud valet with abundant common sense and a love of practical jokes. Zanni comes from a dialect nickname for Giovanni, the Italian form of John. The character quickly spread throughout European theater circles, inspiring such familiar characters as Pierrot and Harlequin, and by the late 1500s an anglicized version of the noun zany was introduced to English. The adjective appeared within decades, and eventually both adopted more general meanings to refer to or describe those of us who are quipsters and weirdos.

#English #Vocabulary #wordoftheday #MW #WOTD

rest, f.n: rest, repose, sleep; bed, couch; a place of rest. (REST / ˈrɛst)
Image: Sherborne Missal; England, early 15th century; British Library, Add MS 74236, p. 66.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

Here is a fin world to play with for #WOTD Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for Mar 25 is "undulate": www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-...

📕 Word of the Day: undulate

undulate • \UN-juh-layt\ • verb

Undulate is a formal word that means “to move or be shaped like waves.”

// On the approach to the tulip festival, visitors are greeted by a large field of the colorful flowers undulating in the wind.

📝 Examples:
“When sufficiently heated, the fresh cheese contracts, sweating whey from the curds that provides liquid to cook the dough, which will plump up and undulate slightly as it expands.” — Karima Moyer-Nocchi, The Epic History of Macaroni and Cheese: From Ancient Rome to Modern America, 2026

📜 Did you know?
Undulate and inundate (“to cover something with a flood of water”) are word cousins that flow from unda, the Latin word for “wave.” No surprise there. But would you have guessed that abound, surround, and redound are also unda offspring? While their modern definitions have nothing to do with waves or water, at some point in their early histories, they all meant “to overflow,” and caught a wave from there.

#English #Vocabulary #wordoftheday #MW #WOTD

burh-āgende, adj: holding a citadel or city; (if read as a noun) ruler of a citadel or city. (BUR’H-AH-yen-duh / ˈbʌrx-ˌaː-jɛn-də)
#OldEnglish #WOTD

#WOTD is Cadence. Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for Mar 24 is "cadence": www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-...

📕 Word of the Day: cadence

cadence • \KAY-dunss\ • noun

Cadence is used to refer to various rhythmic or repeated motions, activities, or patterns of sound, or to the way a person's voice changes by gently rising and falling while they are speaking.

// Ivy relaxed at the beach, listening to the cadence of the surf.

// He speaks with a soft Southern cadence.

📝 Examples:
“Urged by a fast-talking auctioneer and his familiar cadence, paddles shot up as bids climbed into the four- and five-figure range.” — Lily Moayeri, Rolling Stone, 29 Jan. 2026

📜 Did you know?
A cadence is a rhythm, or a flow of words or music, in a sequence that is regular (or steady as it were). But lest we be mistaken, cadence also lends its meaning to the sounds of Mother Nature (such as birdsong) to be sure. Cadence comes from Middle English borrowed from Medieval Latin’s own cadentia, a lovely word that means “rhythm in verse.” (You may also recognize a cadence cousin, sweet cadenza, as a word that is familiar in the opera universe.) And from there our cadence traces just a little further backward to the Latin verb cadere “to sound rhythmically, to fall.” Praise the rising and the falling of the lilting in our language, whether singing songs or rhyming or opining on it all.

#English #Vocabulary #wordoftheday #MW #WOTD