Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 29, 2022 is:

duress • \dur-RESS\  • noun

Duress , which is typically used with under , refers to force or threats meant to make someone do something. It is used especially of unlawful constraint .

// The defense asserts that the defendant's confession was made under duress .

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Examples:

"The ordinance ... was passed under duress by council members who believed that it would never be implemented." — Gilbert Garcia, The San Antonio (Texas) Express-News Online , 20 May 2022

Did you know?

Duress is most often paired with the word under to refer to force or threats meant to make someone do something. For example, someone forced to sign a document signs it “under duress,” and a person held “under duress” is not free to leave but is being constrained, usually unlawfully. (Do not confuse being “under duress” with being “under stress,” which is a much more common occurrence.) Duress is ultimately from Latin durus , meaning "hard," source too of durable and endure .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 28, 2022 is:

fulsome • \FULL-sum\  • adjective

Fulsome can be a positive term, as when it's used to mean "abundant, copious ," or "full and well developed," but it has negative meanings too, such as "overdone" and "excessively flattering."

// The photographs celebrate the island's fulsome biodiversity.

// While most of the speeches expressed sincere appreciation for the outgoing CEO's leadership, some were dense with fulsome and cringeworthy accolades.

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Examples:

"The county executive isn't opposed in principle to bonds for housing, but thinks county leaders need to have a more fulsome discussion about tradeoffs such debt would require." — Dan Brendel, The Washington (D.C.) Business Journal , 10 May 2022

Did you know?

In the 19th century, fulsome was mostly a literary term used disapprovingly to describe excessive, insincere praise and flattery. This meaning is still current, but since the early 20th century fulsome has been increasingly used with far more positive meanings, among them “abundant, copious” and “full and well developed.” The result is some amount of confusion: a phrase like “fulsome praise” used today without clarifying context may rightly be understood to mean either “abundant praise” or “excessive and obsequious praise.” While some critics object to the pleasanter meanings of fulsome , they are in fact true to the word’s origins : when it was first used in the 14th century fulsome meant “abundant, copious.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 27, 2022 is:

jingoism • \JING-goh-iz-im\  • noun

Jingoism is excessive patriotism or nationalism, especially when marked by a belligerent foreign policy.

// When the war began many people were caught up in a wave of jingoism .

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Examples:

"War is bad for culture. Not least of all because it turns our cultural institutions into bastions of jingoism ." — Annie Levin, The New York Observer , 7 Mar. 2022

Did you know?

Jingoism originated during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, when many British citizens were hostile toward Russia and felt Britain should intervene in the conflict. Supporters of the cause expressed their sentiments in a music-hall ditty with this refrain:

We don't want to fight, yet by jingo if we do,

We've got the ships, we've got the men,

We've got the money, too!

Someone holding the attitude implied in the song became known as a jingo or jingoist , and the attitude itself was dubbed jingoism . The jingo in the tune is probably a euphemism for Jesus .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2022 is:

culminate • \KUL-muh-nayt\  • verb

Culminate usually means “to reach the highest or a climactic or decisive point,” or "to reach the end or final result of something."

// The festivities will culminate with a spectacular display of fireworks.

// The partnership between the two songwriters culminated at last in a chart-topping single.

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Examples:

“The trail culminates at a mountaintop summit with handcrafted log benches as well as views of Lake Tahoe in one direction, Granite Chief Wilderness in the other.” – The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California), 28 July 2021

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When a star or other heavenly body culminates, it reaches its highest point above the horizon from the vantage point of an observer on the ground. Culminate was drawn from Medieval Latin culminare , meaning "to crown," specifically for this astronomical application. Its ultimate root is Latin culmen , meaning "top." Today, the word’s typical context is less lofty: it can mean “to reach a climactic point,” as in “a long career culminating in a prestigious award,” but it can also simply mean "to reach the end of something,” as in “a sentence culminating in a period.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 25, 2022 is:

noisome • \NOY-sum\  • adjective

The word noisome describes what is very unpleasant or disgusting, and is used especially of disgusting smells.

// A noisome stench came from the narrow alley.

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Examples:

"In 1905, a 'garbage committee' led by a Mrs. J.G. McLean demanded a more subtle and sanitary L.A. trash management than the noisy and noisome practice of trash cans collected and then dropped with a clang on public sidewalks where, as The Times wrote appetizingly, they lay 'with reminiscences of the day before yesterday's dinner clinging to the sides, there to fester and fry in the fierce rays of the sun.'" — Patt Morrison, The Los Angeles Times , 6 Feb. 2022

Did you know?

Noisome looks and sounds like a close relation of noisy , but it’s not. While noisy describes what is excessively loud, noisome typically describes what is excessively stinky. (It is also used to describe things offensive to the senses generally, as well as things that are highly obnoxious, objectionable, or simply harmful.) Noisome comes from the synonymous Middle English noysome , which combined the suffix -some , meaning “characterized by a specified thing,” and the noun noy , meaning “annoyance.” Noisy , incidentally, comes ultimately from Latin nausea , meaning “nausea.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 24, 2022 is:

confidant • \KAHN-fuh-dahnt\  • noun

A confidant is someone to whom secrets are entrusted, and especially a very close friend.

// She told only her closest confidant where she had buried the money.

// The longtime confidant of the disgraced mayor was also brought in for questioning.

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Examples:

“Lee Strasberg, the Actors Studio director who was, with his wife, Paula, a confidant and caretaker of Marilyn Monroe, felt that an actor must plumb the depths of her psyche to find the emotional truth of a performance.” –James Sullivan, The Boston Globe , 20 Jan. 2022

Did you know?

If you're confident of the trustworthiness of your confidants, you're tuned into the origins of the word confidant . The word comes, via French, from the Italian confidente , meaning "trusting, having trust in," from Latin confīdere , meaning "to put one’s trust in, have confidence in.” Other descendants of confīdere in English include confide , confidence , confident , and confidential , all of which ultimately have Latin fīdere , meaning "to trust (in), rely (on)," as their root. Confidant (and its variant confidante , used especially of a woman) and confident are often confused, a topic about which we have plenty to say .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 23, 2022 is:

ingenuous • \in-JEN-yuh-wus\  • adjective

Ingenuous is most commonly used to describe someone who shows innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness.

// The ingenuous enthusiasm shown by several of the older campers was contagious, and soon everyone was excited about the project.

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Examples:

“I remember too well being young yet adult, confident yet ingenuous . It’s like marching off to war, armed with a bubble wand.” — Margo Bartlett, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch , 20 Apr. 2022

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Ingenuous is most often used to describe someone who has a childlike innocence and openness. It should not be confused with ingenious , which typically describes someone who is unusually inventive or clever, or something made or done in an especially original or clever way. The words look very much alike, but sound different: remember that ingenuous sounds like its linguistic relation genuine , while ingenious sounds like genius —despite the fact that there is no etymological connection between those two. For more on this pair, read on .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2022 is:

quibble • \KWIB-ul\  • verb

To quibble is to argue or complain about small, unimportant things. The word can also mean "to evade the point of an argument by making trivial or frivolous objections."

// If I may quibble for a moment with your description of the uniforms: they are navy blue, not royal blue.

// The siblings often quibbled over whose turn it was to sit in the front seat of the car.

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Examples:

“The Outfit is a smart movie—maybe a little too smart for its own good here and there, but let’s not quibble .” – Mick LaSalle, The San Francisco Chronicle , 15 Mar. 2022

Did you know?

Quibble is most familiar as a verb, but it can also function as a noun meaning "an evasion of or shift from the point" and "a minor objection or criticism." Both forms of quibble settled into English in the mid-17th century, presumably (though not definitively) as a diminutive of a now-obsolete noun quib , meaning “quibble.” Quib in turn may have come from a form of Latin qui , meaning “who,” a distant relation also of our word who .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 21, 2022 is:

prescience • \PRESH-ee-unss\  • noun

Prescience is the ability to see or anticipate what will or might happen in the future.

// Stacy had the prescience to know that the stock’s value wasn’t going to remain high forever, and she managed to sell it just before it started to decrease.

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Examples:

"As the author of some of the most searing indictments of the damage governments and people can do, George Orwell has become synonymous with the kind of prescience most artists only dream of." — Clarke Reader, The Elbert County News (Kiowa, Colorado), 16 Mar. 2022

Did you know?

If you know the origin of science you already know half the story of prescience . Science comes from the Latin verb sciō , scīre , "to know," also source of such words as conscience , conscious , and omniscience . Prescience has as its ancestor a word that attached prae- , a predecessor of pre- , to this root to make praescire , meaning "to know beforehand."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 20, 2022 is:

garrulous • \GAIR-uh-lus\  • adjective

Garrulous can mean "chatty" or "excessively talkative" when describing a person (or even a bird that calls or sings rapidly and constantly), or it can mean "wordy" when referring to a piece of language itself, such as a letter or speech.

// Annie’s garrulous and outgoing nature is a stark contrast to her brother’s more retiring demeanor.

// His garrulous , rapid-fire presentation hyping the new feature was exciting at first, but soon became repetitive and tiresome.

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Examples:

“Most college presidents I've met are outgoing, garrulous types who enjoy talking with students and faculty.” —John Boyle, The Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen Times , 15 May 2022

Did you know?

Garrulous is a 17th century Latin borrowing that has its origin in garrīre , meaning "to chatter, talk rapidly." That Latin root is probably imitative in origin—that is, it was coined to imitate what it refers to. English has a number of words that are imitative in origin, among them several others that describe ways of talking, such as babble and chatter .