Category: Word of the Day
Word of the Day: Cacophony
Paul Schleifer According to www.dictionary.com, cacophony means “harsh discordance of sound; dissonance; a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds.” The etymology, according to www.etymonline.com, is actually kind of fun: “1650s, […]
Word of the Day: Enervate
Paul Schleifer Enervate is one of those words that means the opposite of what you might think it means. It sounds something like energize, right? So you might think it […]
Word of the Day: Swank
Paul Schleifer Swank, to English speakers in the US, means “fancy, elegant and showy.” In the UK, swank can also be a verb “to display one’s wealth, knowledge, or achievements […]
Word of the Day: Taciturn
Paul Schleifer According to the OED, taciturn means “Characterized by silence or disinclination to conversation; reserved in speech; saying little; uncommunicative.” The first recorded use is from the Tobias Smollett […]
Word of the Day: Evanescent
Paul Schleifer According to the OED, evanescent is an adjective describing something “That is on the point of vanishing or becoming imperceptible” or something “That quickly vanishes or passes away; […]
Word of the Day: Adultescent
Paul Schleifer This is a new one for me. In fact, it is so new that it draws the red squiggly line under it in MicroSoft Word. Adultescent refers to […]
Word of the Day: Royal
Paul Schleifer Royal is an adjective that means “of or related to a king, queen, or other sovereign.” There are also noun forms of royal, but the chief one, royals, […]
Word of the Day: Egress
Paul Schleifer The noun egress means three different but similar things: “the act of going out,” “the place where one goes out,” or “the right to go out.” There is […]
Word of the Day: Facile
Paul Schleifer Facile is primarily an adjective, but it has a variety of meanings, in part depending upon the type of noun that it is modifying. The OED lists its […]
Word of the Day: Ameliorate
Paul Schleifer Ameliorate means “to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory; improve (www.dictionary.com). It can be used as a transitive (takes an object: The mediator could not […]
Word of the Day: Babble
Paul Schleifer Babble is a flexible word. As a verb, it can be intransitive (used without an object) or transitive (used with an object). It means “to utter sounds or […]
Word of the Day: Bushwhacker
Paul Schleifer A bushwhacker is a person who whacks his way through the bushes. Makes sense, right? The word is an Americanism. According to the OED, it first appears in […]