Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 25, 2020 is:

posthumous • \PAHSS-chuh-muss\  • adjective

1 : born after the death of the father

2 : published after the death of the author

3 : following or occurring after death

Examples:

Published eleven years following his death in 1969, John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces earned the author posthumous fame as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

"Sharon Jones may no longer be with us, but her legacy continues to endure in the form of posthumous releases. Daptone Records released a new Dusty Springfield cover from the upcoming Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings album, Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Rendition Was In ." — Emily Tan, Spin , 7 Oct. 2020

Did you know?

The etymology of the word posthumous tells a complex story. In Latin, posterus is an adjective meaning "coming after" (from post , meaning "after"). The comparative form of posterus is posterior , and its superlative form is postumus , which means, among other things, "last." Postumus had specific application in referring to the last of a man's children, which in some cases meant those born after he had died. Latin speakers incorrectly identified the -umus in this word with humus , meaning "dirt" or "earth" (suggesting the ground in which the unfortunate father now lay). The Latin spelling became posthumus , as if the word were formed from post and humus , and both the "h" and the suggestion of "after burial" or "after death" carried over into English.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 24, 2020 is:

mogul • \MOH-gul\  • noun

1 capitalized Mogul : an Indian Muslim of or descended from one of several conquering groups of Mongol, Turkish, and Persian origin; especially : Great Mogul

2 : a great personage : magnate

Examples:

"The philanthropic foundation created by the hedge fund mogul Ray Dalio is donating $50 million to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital to address health social inequalities." — The New York Times , 14 Oct. 2020

"The Atlanta rap mogul is walking around Super Sound Studios, the recording haven he purchased last year, talking into the heel of his phone." — Melissa Ruggieri, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , 25 Sept. 2020

Did you know?

Started by Bābur , a descendant of Genghis Khan , the Muslim Mogul dynasty ruled much of India from the early 16th century to the mid-18th century. The Moguls (whose name is also spelled Moghul or Mughal ) were known for their talented and powerful rulers (called "Great Moguls"), so it's no surprise that in English the word mogul came to denote a powerful person, as in today's familiar references to "media moguls." Skiers might wonder if such power moguls have anything to do with the name they use for a bump in a ski run, but that hilly homonym has nothing to do with Asian Mogul dynasties. We picked up the skier's mogul from German dialect, from a word that is probably related to the Viennese mugl , meaning "small hill."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 23, 2020 is:

vaunted • \VAWN-tud\  • adjective

: highly or widely praised or boasted about

Examples:

The team was able to overcome their opponents' vaunted defense and achieve an upset victory.

"She's been known to include works by vaunted artists in her videos, and with her husband Jay-Z, she's built up an important collection of Black art." — Alex Greenberger, Art News , 3 Aug. 2020

Did you know?

The verb vaunt has been used since the 15th century with the meaning "to make a vain display of one's own worth or attainments"—in other words, "to brag or boast." Over time, vaunt developed the meaning "to boast of (something)," as in "the promotional flier vaunts the natural beauty of the area," and gave rise to the adjectival form vaunted . The history of vaunt and vaunted leads back to the Latin word vānus , meaning "vain" or "empty." The word vain itself is also a descendant of vānus .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 22, 2020 is:

debouch • \dih-BOUTCH\  • verb

1 : to cause to emerge : discharge

2 : to march out into open ground : emerge , issue

Examples:

"… Mr. Holcomb … was talking about a small room that debouched from a well-maintained weight room in the basement…." — Barry Stringfellow, The MV Times (Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts), 15 Mar. 2017

"… the Germans controlled the Marfée and the other ridges along the west bank, debouching on to the Bulson plateau beyond." — David Reynolds, The New Statesman , 20 May 2020

Did you know?

Debouch first appeared in English in the 18th century. It derives from a French verb formed from the prefix de- ("from") and the noun bouche ("mouth"), which itself derives ultimately from the Latin bucca ("cheek"). Debouch is often used in military contexts to refer to the action of troops proceeding from a closed space to an open one. It is also used frequently to refer to the emergence of anything from a mouth, such as water passing through the mouth of a river into an ocean. The word's ancestors have also given English the adjective buccal ("of or relating to the mouth") and the noun embouchure (the mouthpiece of a musical instrument or the position of the mouth when playing one).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2020 is:

grandiloquence • \gran-DIH-luh-kwunss\  • noun

: a lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manner, or quality especially in language

Examples:

"The film finds its grounding in the closing scene when it strips away its grandiloquence and Beyoncé sings an a cappella version of 'Spirit' backed by a gospel choir…." — Aidin Vaziri, The San Francisco Chronicle , 2 Aug. 2020

"There will be plenty more rhetoric, pomposity and grandiloquence in the next few weeks as negotiations between the union and MLB get hot and heavy." — Bob Nightengale, USA Today , 13 May 2020

Did you know?

Grandiloquence , which debuted in English in the 16th century, is one of several English words pertaining to speech that derive from the Latin loqui , meaning "to speak." Other offspring of loqui include eloquent ("marked by fluent expression"), loquacious ("full of excessive talk"), and soliloquy ("a long, dramatic monologue"). Grandiloquence comes (probably via Middle French) from the Latin adjective grandiloquus , which combines loqui and the adjective grandis ("grand or great"). A word that is very similar in meaning to grandiloquence is magniloquence —and the similarity is not surprising. Magniloquence combines loqui with magnus , another Latin word meaning "great."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2020 is:

emigrate • \EM-uh-grayt\  • verb

: to leave one's place of residence or country to live elsewhere

Examples:

"… graduates and skilled technical workers are also emigrating , usually with a plan to save up for a few years and then return." — The Economist , 5 Nov. 2013

"Vuong's parents emigrated by boat from Vietnam five years earlier and settled in Modesto." — Marijke Rowland, The Modesto (California) Bee , 10 Oct. 2020

Did you know?

Migrate , emigrate , and immigrate are all about being on the move. The source of all three is the Latin word migrare , which means "to move from one place to another." Emigrate and immigrate sound alike, and both involve leaving one location and arriving in another, but they are applied differently: emigrate stresses leaving the original place, while immigrate focuses on arriving in the new one. You won't have trouble keeping them straight if you remember that the prefix e- means "away," as in eject , and the prefix im- or in- means "into," as in inject .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2020 is:

cohesive • \koh-HEE-siv\  • adjective

: exhibiting or producing cohesion : causing parts or members to unify or stick together

Examples:

"His hair was slicked artfully back from his brow in one cohesive wave." — Kate Christensen, In the Drink , 1999

"Our closely-knit sales team had been doing great since we started working from home back in March and so far had been able to maintain performance goals. Part of what made the team cohesive before the pandemic was that we regularly engaged in fun social activities … where we could informally talk business." — Eva Del Rio, The Gainesville (Florida) Sun , 24 Aug. 2020

Did you know?

Cohesive describes something that sticks together literally or figuratively. To get into the stickiness of the matter, look at the word's etymology: cohesive ultimately derives from Latin haerere , meaning "to stick." Other descendants of haerere in English include adhere (literally meaning "to stick"), its relative adhesive (a word for a substance for sticking things together), inhere (meaning "to belong by nature or habit"), and even hesitate (which implies remaining stuck in place before taking action). Haerere also teamed up with the prefix co - to form cohaerere , an ancestor of cohesive , cohesion ("a sticking together"), cohere ("to stick together"), and coherent ("able to stick together" or "logically consistent").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2020 is:

bugbear • \BUG-bair\  • noun

1 : an imaginary goblin or specter used to excite fear

2 a : an object or source of dread

b : a continuing source of irritation : problem

Examples:

"Taxation without representation was famously a bugbear of American colonists in the 18th century." — The Economist , 2 July 2020

"Why? Why? What a beast of a word that is—the detective's bugbear . I thought I had it, until you said—Great Scott! I'll tell you why." — P. G. Wodehouse, Something New , 1915

Did you know?

Bugbear sounds like some kind of grotesque hybrid creature from fable or folklore, and that very well may be what the word's creator was trying to evoke. When the word entered English in the 16th century, it referred to any kind of creature made up to frighten someone; in 1592, Thomas Nashe wrote of "Meere bugge-beares to scare boyes." The word's first element refers not to the familiar creatures one encounters in the garden, but to a different bug entirely: since the 15th century, bug (from Middle English bugge , meaning "hobgoblin"—that is, a mischievous goblin) has referred to a ghost or goblin. The bear in bugbear is the one still feared today, and suggests what such made-up creatures were perhaps described as resembling.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2020 is:

fulvous • \FULL-vus\  • adjective

: of a dull brownish yellow : tawny

Examples:

The dog had an unusual coat of fulvous fur with black and white splotches.

"I planned to visit the Pine Barrens to marvel at the fulvous leaves rioting to autumnal frenzy." — Denis Hamill, The Independent (East Hampton, New York), 15 Nov. 2017

Did you know?

Fulvous has never been a common word. You are most likely to encounter it in texts from the 19th century—unless, that is, you care about ducks. In that case, you might know about a kind of whistling-duck called the fulvous tree duck , which is a brownish duck with long legs and a long neck and an unusual world distribution. It lives in isolated populations in North America, South America, India, and Africa—remarkably without geographic variation. But back to fulvous : it shares a meaning with its direct ancestor, the Latin word fulvus , and fulvus itself is believed to possibly share an ancestor with flavus , Latin for "yellow."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2020 is:

snivel • \SNIV-ul\  • verb

1 : to run at the nose

2 : to snuff mucus up the nose audibly : snuffle

3 : to cry or whine with snuffling

4 : to speak or act in a whining, sniffling, tearful, or weakly emotional manner

Examples:

"Leonard … really wanted to meet the Microsoft co-founder.… It didn't go so great, as Leonard lost his cool and sniveled all over Gates' tie." — Kurt Schlosser, GeekWire , 29 Mar. 2018

"'It says single women aged 45 and older are barely visible and at the bottom of the food chain for dating and relationships,' I sniveled into the phone to a close friend, reading aloud from the blog I had found." — Jennifer Byrne, The Guardian , 20 Feb. 2020

Did you know?

There's never been anything pretty about sniveling. Snivel , which originally meant simply "to have a runny nose," was probably snyflan in Old English. It's likely related to sniffle , not surprisingly, and also to an Old English word for mucus, snofl. It's even related to the Middle Dutch word for a cold, snof , and the Old Norse word for "snout," which is snoppa . There's also a connection to nan , a Greek verb meaning "flow." Nowadays, we mostly use snivel as we have since the 1600s: to refer to self-pitying whining, whether or not such sniveling is accompanied by unchecked nasal flow.