Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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

extirpate • \EK-ster-payt\  • verb

Extirpate means “to destroy completely,” and is often—though not exclusively—used in reference to plant and animal populations. It can also be used to mean “to pull up by the root” and “to cut out by surgery.”

// Despite the years-long effort to extirpate it from the landscape, purple loosestrife continues to thrive in the town’s wetlands.

// The district attorney is vowing to extirpate political corruption from City Hall if she is elected mayor.

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Examples:

“Peregrine falcons were once extirpated from Missouri due to pesticide damage to eggs and habitat loss. They have been on the state’s endangered species list but are being considered for removal, thanks to a cooperative program by Midwestern state and federal wildlife agencies. Re-introductions and nest boxes placed high on tall buildings in cities or power plant smokestacks have boosted their numbers.” — Brian Dulle, Fox4kc.com , 8 July 2021

Did you know?

You don’t have to dig too deep into the history of extirpate to discover that its roots are in, well, roots (and stumps). Extirpate grew out of a combining of the Latin prefix ex- , meaning “out,” and the Latin noun stirps , “trunk” or “root.” Among the earliest definitions of extirpate in English were “to uproot” and “to clear of stumps,” as well as the broader meaning of “to destroy completely” or “wipe out.” While today we often encounter extirpate in relation to plant and animal species that have been regrettably removed from a specific region or in total, intangibles such as evil or prejudice, for example, may also be extirpated. We hope this helps but if you find yourself stumped the next time you encounter extirpate , just remember we’re rooting for you.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2022 is:

pell-mell • \pel-MEL\  • adverb

Pell-mell means “in a confused and hurried way” or “in mingled confusion or disorder.”

// On Black Friday, some shoppers rush pell-mell into stores to find their favorite items at a discounted price.

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Examples:

“But, before we head pell-mell down this road to ‘greening’ the nation’s transportation fleet, we have to ask the question, ‘What about car and truck safety?’ Isn’t this push toward electric vehicles also an opportunity to make our roads safer as well?” — The Journal Times (Racine, Wisconsin), 11 Sept. 2022

Did you know?

The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication . This process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, with often a slight change in its form—also generated the terms flip-flop , chitchat , and shilly-shally , the last of which comes from a single-word compression of the question “Shall I?” For pell-mell , the process is believed to have occurred long ago: our word traces to a Middle French word of the same meaning, pelemele , which comes from the Old French word pesle mesle , likely a product of reduplication from the Old French word mesle , a form of mesler , meaning “to mix” or “to mingle.”

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2022 is:

farce • \FAHRSS\  • noun

A farce is a ridiculous act, proceeding, or situation. Farce can also refer to a light dramatic work marked by satirical comedy and improbable plot, or the broad humor characteristic of such. The word can also refer to a savory stuffing.

// "The company's guarantee is a farce ," she complained. "The replacement they sent broke even more quickly than the original."

// The award-winning actor has a talent for farce .

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Examples:

"It seems absurd that [Manchester United manager Erik] Ten Hag, after only a matter of weeks in charge, could be under such scrutiny despite being parachuted into a situation not of his making, but many fans would argue that the club has long since descended into farce ." — Rob Dawson, ESPN.com , 18 Aug. 2022

Did you know?

From Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors to Monty Python and the Holy Grail , many of us are familiar with farce in its dramatic sense. However, when farce first appeared in English, it had to do with cookery, not comedy. In the 14th century, English adopted farce from Middle French with its original meaning of "forcemeat "—that is, a highly seasoned, minced meat or fish often served as a stuffing. In the 16th century, English imported the word again, this time to refer to a kind of knockabout comedy already popular in France. French farce had its origins in the 13th-century practice of "stuffing" Latin church texts with explanatory phrases. By the 15th century, a similar practice of inserting unscripted buffoonery into religious plays had arisen. Such farces—which included clowning, acrobatics, reversal of social roles, and indecency—soon developed into a distinct dramatic genre and spread rapidly in various forms throughout Europe.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2022 is:

nugatory • \NOO-guh-tor-ee\  • adjective

Something described as nugatory is of little or no consequence. Nugatory is also used especially in legal contexts to describe something without operative legal effect.

// Most of the criticism of the film in the weeks since its release has been nugatory nonsense.

// The law was unenforced and thus rendered nugatory .

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Examples:

“Elsewhere [on Death Cab for Cutie’s latest album], [Ben Gibbard] … continues his apparent affinity for writing songs about driving on ‘Wheat Like Waves’ and the gorgeously golden ‘Rand McNally,’ named after the now nugatory road atlas books.” — Madeline Roth, The Daily Beast , 27 Aug. 2022

Did you know?

Just because nugatory isn’t the most common word in the English language doesn’t mean it’s trifling . Rather, nugatory is literally trifling because the two words are synonymous, as in “comments too nugatory to merit attention.” Nugatory first appeared in English in the 17th century; it comes from the Latin adjective nugatorius , which can mean not only “trifling” or “frivolous” but also "futile.” This sense carried over into English as well, and so in some contexts nugatory means “ineffective” or “having no force,” as when Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson invoked “the nugatory value of the contemporary penny.” Nugatory may mean little to some, but we think it’s worth a pretty penny .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2022 is:

hummock • \HUM-uk\  • noun

A hummock is a small round hill or mound.

// He stood in awe, admiring the thick forest, and beyond that, the grassy hummocks he had traversed to reach the top of the mountain.

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Examples:

“...Yellowlegs nest on the ground, often at the base of a small tree or mossy hummock , so I watched my feet carefully. The nest is a small cup in the moss, typically lined with little dead leaves, lichens , and sedges .” — Mary F. Wilson, The Juneau (Alaska) Empire , 14 June 2022

Did you know?

Having trouble telling a hummock from a hammock from a hillock? Not to worry: all three words refer to a small hill or earthen mound. Hummock , in fact, is an alteration of hammock ; this 16th century pair share an ancestor with the Middle Low German words hummel (“small height”) and hump (“bump”), the latter of which is also a distant relative of our English word hump . As for the 14th-century vintage hillock , a version of the suffix -ock has been attached to nouns to designate a small one of whatever since the days of Old English. Note that the hilly hammock mentioned here is not related to the hammock offering a swaying repose between supports. That hammock comes from the Spanish hamaca , and ultimately from Taino , a language spoken by the original inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2022 is:

augur • \AW-gur\  • verb

To augur is to show or suggest, especially from omens, that something might happen in the future. Used most often in formal speech or writing, augur is often followed by an adverb (such as well ).

// The downturn augurs badly for the success of the business.

// This bad news could augur disaster for all of us.

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Examples:

"This year, MLS has increased the pipeline that is in place for women to be leaders at the team level. This is exemplified by the number of groundbreaking hires that have occurred. ... The addition of these women in their team front offices augurs well for the future." — Richard Lapchick, ESPN.com , 9 Nov. 2021

Did you know?

In ancient Rome, augurs were official diviners whose function it was to divine whether the gods approved of a proposed undertaking, such as a military move. They did so by various means, among them observing the behavior of birds and examining the entrails of sacrificed animals. We doubt the Romans predicted that augur would eventuate into a verb meaning “presage or foretell,” but in retrospect, augur ’s path must have been in the stars .

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2022 is:

magnanimous • \mag-NAN-uh-mus\  • adjective

Magnanimous is a formal word that means “having or showing a generous and kind nature.”

// She was too magnanimous to resent the unkind words of those grousing about her winning the spelling bee.

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Examples:

“[Former Olympic champion, Mark] Spitz was in a three-day period between his finals, the last of which was a full day off. At the routine Thursday night press conference for medal winners, Spitz asked to be excused from questions so the spotlight could play on his three relay teammates ‘because this is their first gold medal.’ ... It was a wonderfully magnanimous gesture, but I knew from past interviews that winning the 100-meter butterfly that night was much bigger to him than he was indicating...” — Bob Hammel, The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Indiana), 4 Sept. 2022

Did you know?

When you see anima , animus , or a similar formation in a word, it’s often an indicator of something alive, lively, or spirited. Something described as animated is full of life, for example, and the word animal refers to a living thing. The Latin word anima means “breath” or “soul” and animus means “spirit.” In magnanimous , animus is joined by the Latin word magnus , meaning “great.” Basically meaning “greatness of spirit,” magnanimity is the opposite of selfishness. A truly magnanimous person can lose without complaining and win without gloating, and angry disputes can sometimes be resolved when one side makes a magnanimous gesture toward the other.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2022 is:

crucible • \KROO-suh-bul\  • noun

Crucible refers to a place or situation that forces someone or something to change. Most commonly found in formal and literary writing, it can also mean “a difficult test or challenge.” Its original meaning, still in use, is “a pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted.”

// Her rock-solid songwriting skills were forged in the crucible of the Nashville music scene.

// After years of intense daily archery training, she is ready to face the crucible of the Olympics.

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Examples:

“Fungi have helped trees adapt on a millennial scale. They could be crucial to helping trees adapt in the climate crisis. ‘In difficult times, organisms find new symbiotic relationships in order to expand their reach,’ said Dr. [Cosmo] Sheldrake, the biologist. ‘Crisis is the crucible of new relationships.’” — Somini Sengupta, The New York Times , 27 July 2022

Did you know?

Unless you’re studying Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in school, it may not be crucial to learn the story behind crucible , but it can’t hurt! Crucible looks like it should be closely related to the Latin combining form cruc- (“cross”); however, unlike crucial , it isn’t. It was forged instead from the Medieval Latin crucibulum , a noun for an earthen pot used to melt metals, and in English it first referred to a vessel made of a very heat-resistant material (such as porcelain) used for melting a substance that requires a high degree of heat. It’s possible that the resemblance between cruc- and crucible encouraged people to start using crucible to mean “a severe trial,” as that sense is synonymous with one meaning of cross , but the idea of simmering in a literal crucible also sounds plenty severe. The newest sense of crucible (“a situation in which great changes take place,” as in “forged in the crucible of war”) recalls the fire and heat required to transform some solids into liquids.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 12, 2022 is:

intoxicate • \in-TAHK-suh-kayt\  • verb

Intoxicate means "to excite or stupefy by or as if by alcohol or drugs." It can also mean "to poison."

// The little bit of beer they drank was not enough to intoxicate them.

// The stunning spectacle of this Las Vegas show is sure to intoxicate spectators.

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Examples:

"The farm-to-table cuisine offers vegetarian, gluten-free, grass-fed meats and sustainable seafood options. Add to the meal a glass of wine to softly intoxicate the senses, and relaxation is guaranteed." — Michael Alpiner, Forbes , 26 Feb. 2021

Did you know?

From scents to songs, many harmless things have the power to intoxicate. At least, that is, by today’s standards. The origins of intoxicate are less inviting. You might have guessed that intoxicate is related to toxic ; both words trace back to the Latin noun toxicum , meaning "poison," and the earliest function of intoxicate was as an adjective describing something (such as the tip of an arrow) steeped in or smeared with poison. Toxicum turns up in the etymologies of a number of other English words including intoxicant ("something that intoxicates") and detoxify ("to remove a poison from"), and also in a number of names for various poisons themselves. Happily though, today you’re likelier to be intoxicated by Cupid’s arrow than—one hopes—by a poison dart.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 11, 2022 is:

doughty • \DOW-tee\  • adjective

Doughty means “brave, strong, and determined.”

// The family sent gifts to the doughty firefighters for saving their cat.

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Examples:

“[Rafael] Nadal was forced into five gruelling sets by Denis Shapovalov, but the 20-time Grand Slam champion ultimately showed the greater desire to outlast his doughty opponent and sealed his place in his 36th major semi-final in four hours and 10 minutes.” — Dan Quarrell, Eurosport , 25 Jan. 2022

Did you know?

There’s no doubt that doughty has persevered in the English language—it’s traceable all the way back to the Old English word dohtig —but how to pronounce it? One might assume that doughty should be pronounced \DAW-tee\, paralleling similarly spelled words like bought and sought , or perhaps with a long o , as in dough . But the vowel sound in doughty is the same as in doubt , and in fact, over the centuries, doughty ’s spelling was sometimes confused with that of the now obsolete word doubty (“full of doubt”), which could be the reason we have the pronunciation we use today. The homophonous dowdy (“having a dull or uninteresting appearance”) can also be a source of confusion; an easy way to remember the difference is that you can’t spell doughty without the letters in tough (“physically and emotionally strong”).