Word of the Day: Laudable
Let's have a hearty round of applause for laudable, a word that never fails to celebrate the positive. Laudable comes ultimately from Latin laud- or laus, meaning 'praise,' as does laudatory. Take
Word of the Day: Cotton
The noun cotton, from the Arabic word quṭun or quṭn, first appeared in English in the 14th century. The substance and the word that named it were soon both culturally prominent, so English did a very
Word of the Day: Verdant
English speakers have been using verdant as a ripe synonym of green since at least the 16th century, and as a descriptive term for inexperienced or naive people since the 19th century. (By contrast,
Word of the Day: Fawn
Language lovers, rejoice! If you’re the sort of person who fawns over etymology (one of the best sorts of people, in our opinion), then you’ll be glad to know the story of fawn: it comes ultimately
Word of the Day: Shenanigans
Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. Either way, we call it shenanigans, employing a word whose history is as slippery as the monkey business it names. We know that the word likely
Word of the Day: Genteel
In A History of the Novel (1975), David Freedman wrote of Theodore Dreiser, “Certainly there was nothing genteel about Dreiser, either as a man or novelist.” Indeed, few of the many uses of the
Word of the Day: Oblivion
Oblivion asks forgetfulness of us in both its meaning and etymology. The word’s Latin source, oblīvīscī, means “to forget, to put out of mind,” and since its 14th century adoption into English,
Word of the Day: Cadge
Long ago, peddlers traveled the British countryside, each with a packhorse or a horse and cart—first carrying produce from rural farms to town markets, then returning with small wares to sell to
Word of the Day: Fiscal
Fiscal comes from the Latin noun fiscus, meaning “basket” or “treasury.” In ancient Rome, fiscus was the term for the treasury controlled by the emperor, where the money was literally stored in
Word of the Day: Dross
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
Word of the Day