Episoder
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 3, 2024 is:
cursory • \KER-suh-ree\ • adjective
Something described as cursory has been done or made quickly.
// We were disappointed that the mayor gave only a cursory glance at our report.
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Examples:
âAfter a few cursory questions ⊠one of the owners offered me the job on the spot and I said yes without asking about the pay, which caused the other one to laugh and hit the table with his hand and promise to teach me a thing or two about the real world.â â Sarah Gilmartin, Service: A Novel, 2024
Did you know?
Let your cursor linger long enough on our pages, and youâll be surprised at how much you can quickly discover. Consider the entry for cursory, for example. If you surmise after a mere cursory glance that thereâs not much to know about a word with a single sense (âhastily done or madeâ), you may want to hold your horses. Thereâs so much to find, including a helpful guide to choosing synonyms of cursory, such as shallow and superficial, that also describe things done with a lack of attention or care. Thereâs also an etymology section, where one learns that cursory was borrowed from the Medieval Latin adjective cursĆrius, which described things that were swift or related to running, and which in turn comes from the Latin noun cursor, meaning ârunner.â This fact may prompt you to jog over to the entries of other cursor descendants, such as cursorial (âadapted to or involving running,â as in âcursorial insectsâ) and, well, cursor.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 2, 2024 is:
extricate • \EK-struh-kayt\ • verb
To extricate someone or something is to free or remove that person or thing from an entanglement or difficulty, such as a trap or a difficult conversation.
// She hasn't been able to extricate herself from her legal problems.
// It took all afternoon to extricate the tractor from the mud.
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Examples:
âWhen you've spent your entire life achieving highlyâfrom school into jobsâit can be incredibly difficult to extricate yourself from the mentality that your professional success defines your worth.â â Julia DiPrete, Business Insider, 3 Jan. 2024
Did you know?
Oh what a tangled web the English language weaves. Extricate, for example, may remind you of extract, another word applied when something is removed, but we can tease them apart. Although extricate and extract resemble each other, to extract something is to remove it using methods that often involve physical force, as in âthe dentist had to extract my tooth.â Extricate, on the other hand, is more often used for the act of freeing someone or something from a difficult or tangled situation, which can, but need not, involve literal yanking or pulling. Extricating yourself from an awkward conversation, after all, can be as simple as announcing âI need to take this call!â and shuffling off with phone to ear. Extricate comes from the Latin verb extricare, which combines the prefix ex- (âout ofâ) with the noun tricae, meaning âtrifles or perplexities.â
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Manglende episoder?
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 1, 2024 is:
hatching • \HATCH-ing\ • noun
Hatching refers to the drawing or engraving of lines close together as a method of shading, or to a pattern so created.
// The artist uses hatching to breathe life into her comics.
// The hatching adds depth to the illustration.
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Examples:
"During the second half of the 19th century, drawing achieved a higher status. No longer merely a preparatory tool, nor merely just a method for training of the eye, it gained a new autonomy.... Pastel became popular at this time partly because it was easily portable and versatile, capable of supporting lively hatching as well as silky smoothness." â Frances Spalding, Apollo, 12 Feb. 2024
Did you know?
Hatching refers to the drawing or engraving of lines close together as a method of shading. The closer the lines, the darker the impression that is created. When the lines are drawn at an angle so as to intersect one another, that is called cross-hatching. One notable artist who drew on this technique is John Tenniel, the illustrator of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Another is Albrecht DĂŒrer, whose sketches have been celebrated for their adept use of cross-hatching to indicate foreshortening (an appearance of something, such as a subject's nose, as shortened due to its being pointed toward the viewer). The word hatching is a gerund of the verb hatch, which in turn comes from the Middle French hacher, meaning "to chop, slice up, or incise with fine lines." If hatching isnât your preferred style of shading, you might also consider stippling or blending.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 31, 2024 is:
hallowed • \HAL-oad\ • adjective
Hallowed describes something, such as a memorial, considered holy or blessed, or something that is highly respected and revered.
// The church stands on hallowed ground.
// Community service is one of the organizationâs most hallowed traditions.
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Examples:
"Writing these words, Iâm sitting in the living room of my childhood home, about five feet from the shelves that long ago contained those hallowed books from my aunt. In this exact spot, even before I had learned how to spell and write, I would scribble on blank paper with Magic Markers and staple the pages togetherâalways, this desire, this drive to make books." â Zachary Pace, LitHub.com, 23 Jan. 2024
Did you know?
The adjective hallowed, meaning "holy" or "revered," isnât especially spooky, but its history is entwined with that of a certain spooky season. Hallowed is the past participle of the verb hallow, a term that descends from the Middle English word halowen. That word can be traced back to the Old English adjective hÄlig, meaning "holy." During the Middle Ages, All Hallows' Day was the name for what Christians now call All Saints' Day (hallow was once used also as a noun referring to a saint), and the evening that preceded All Hallows' Day was All Hallows' Eve or All Hallow Evenâor, as we know it today, Halloween. (Although pumpkins are often hollowed out on Halloween, hollow has a different Old English root.)
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 30, 2024 is:
syncretism • \SING-kruh-tiz-um\ • noun
Syncretism refers to the combining of different forms of belief or practice.
// As a scholar of religion, Laila is especially interested in the syncretism of Manichaeism, which was influenced by Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism.
See the entry >
Examples:
"Explore the archaeological wonders of ChavĂn de Huantar, where history comes alive. This village, steeped in cultural richness, provides a journey into Peru's ancient past. 'The village of ChavĂn de HuĂĄntar is an example of how tourism can foster syncretism between religious traditions and ancestral cultural elements, generating experiences with a positive impact for the population and improving the quality of life of its residents,' said the UNWTO [United Nations World Tourism Organization]." â Laura Begley Bloom, Forbes, 26 Nov. 2023
Did you know?
The ancient Greeks used the term synkrÄtismos to refer to Cretan cities allied in opposition to a common enemy. In the early 17th century, English speakers adopted the term in the anglicized form syncretism to refer to the union of different religious beliefs. Three centuries later, lexicographers of the 1909 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language added a new definition of syncretism ("the union or fusion into one or two or more originally different inflectional forms, as of two cases"), but this specialized sense is rarely encountered outside of the field of linguistics. Some related terms that you are more likely to encounter are syncretize ("to attempt to unite and harmonize"), syncretist ("one who advocates syncretism"), and syncretic and syncretistic ("characterized or brought about by syncretism").
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 29, 2024 is:
omniscient • \ahm-NISH-unt\ • adjective
Omniscient describes someone or something with unlimited knowledge or understanding.
// "You'll need to tell me when you don't understand something I've explained," Maria said. "I'm not omniscient, you know."
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Examples:
"The Abrahamic faiths conceive of God as an omniscient creator and generally abjure gambling as a result; one of the first laws passed by the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the possession of cards, dice, or gaming tables." â Idrees Kahloon, The New Yorker, 2 Sept. 2024
Did you know?
One who is omniscient literally knows all. The word omniscient traces back to two Latin roots: omni-, meaning "all" or "universally," and the noun scientia, meaning "knowledge." You will recognize omni- as the prefix that tells all in such words as omnivorous ("eating all," or in actual use, "eating both plants and animals") and omnipotent ("all-powerful"). Scientia comes from the Latin verb scīre, meaning "to know," which likewise has a number of other knowledge-related descendants in English, including conscience, science, and prescience (meaning "foreknowledge").
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 28, 2024 is:
disbursement • \diss-BERSS-munt\ • noun
A disbursement is a payout of money from a fund that has been created for a special purpose. Disbursement can also refer to the money that is paid out.
// The company has made large disbursements for research.
See the entry >
Examples:
âConstructing and reserving White Stadium for the benefit of Boston Public Schools student-athletes was more due to the interpretation of the fundâs Board of Trustees, which, per the will, are in charge of the control and management of said fund, and the disbursement of its income, the source said.â â Gayla Cawley, The Boston Herald, 9 Sept. 2024
Did you know?
Disbursement was minted in English in the late 16th century by melding the noun suffix -ment with the verb disburse (which in turn comes, in part, from the Medieval Latin word bursa, meaning âmoney bagâ). During the 16th and 17th centuries, deburse, depurse, and dispurse were deposited in the English language bank as synonyms of disburse. Deburse and depurse were also used respectively to form debursement and depursement, but these synonyms of disburse and disbursement all quickly declined in value and were never redeemed.
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 27, 2024 is:
usurp • \yoo-SERP\ • verb
To usurp something (such as power) is to take and keep it by force and without the right to do so. Usurp can also mean "to take the place of by or as if by force."
// Some people have accused city council members of trying to usurp the mayorâs power.
// We cannot allow lies to usurp the truth.
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Examples:
â[Kazimierz] PuĆaski, like other Poles in the 1770s, hoped for the American republic to live because he was watching the Polish republic perish. PuĆaski was a veteran of wars with Russia. Catherine the Great, a German princess, had usurped the Russian imperial throne after the murder of her husband in a coup dâĂ©tat in 1762.â â Timothy Snyder, The Atlantic, 15 Sept. 2024
Did you know?
While often associated with questionable behavior by the royals of eras past, usurp retains its usefulness today. Itâs still typically applied when someone takes power without authority or the right to do so, though the power taken is not necessarily political and the question of right and authority may be subject to debate; a city council usurping a mayorâs power is a more traditional use of the word, but one product can be said to be usurping market share from another, and one athlete may claim to have usurped GOAT status. The usurpation can even be sartorial: Amanda Mull, writing for The Atlantic, noted how tracksuits in the 1980s âusurped much of cotton sweatpantsâ momentum toward legitimate coolness.â Usurp comes from Latin: usurpare, meaning âto take possession of without a legal claim,â was formed by combining usu (a form of usus, meaning âuse,â which also led to the words usually and use) and rapere (âto seizeâ).
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 26, 2024 is:
categorical • \kat-uh-GOR-ih-kul\ • adjective
Categorical is a synonym of absolute and definite that describes something that is said in a very strong and clear way. It can also mean "of, relating to, or constituting a category" or "involving, according with, or considered with respect to specific categories."
// The organization has issued a categorical denial about its involvement in the deal.
// The library relies on a categorical system for classifying books.
See the entry >
Examples:
"In the last 15 years or so, psychiatry has embraced what's called a dimensional approach, based on the idea of scales and spectrums of trait and symptom severity. That replaced the categorical approach, which took a more binary view of mental syndromes and assessed whether conditions were present or not." â David Adam, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Aug. 2023
Did you know?
The ancestor of categorical and category has been important in logic and philosophy since the days of Aristotle. Both English words come from the Greek word katÄgoria, which Aristotle used to name the ten fundamental classes (also called "predications" or "assertions") of terms, things, or ideas into which he felt human knowledge could be organized. Ironically, although those categories and things categorical are supposed to be absolute and fundamental, philosophers have long argued about the number and type of categories that exist and the role they play in our understanding of the world. High-level philosophical disputes aside, the word categorical continues to sometimes describe an absolute assertion, one that involves no conditions or hypothesesâfor example, the statement "hot dogs are sandwiches all humans are mortal."
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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 25, 2024 is:
euphoria • \yoo-FOR-ee-uh\ • noun
Euphoria refers to a feeling of great happiness and excitement.
// The initial euphoria following their championship victory has since subsided.
See the entry >
Examples:
âCiara picked up the crown where it had landed. It was warm, but more than that, the metal seemed to pulse somehow, like it was a living thing with a heartbeat of its own. It almost buzzed in her hands and she felt a gentle euphoria, simply holding it.â â Juno Dawson, The Shadow Cabinet: A Novel, 2023
Did you know?
Health and happiness are often linked, sometimes even in etymologies. Today euphoria generally refers to happiness, but it comes from euphoros, a Greek word that means âhealthy.â Given that root, itâs unsurprising that in its original English uses euphoria was a medical term. A medical dictionary published in 1881 (The New Sydenham Societyâs Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences), for example, defines euphoria as âwell-being, or the perfect ease and comfort of healthy persons, especially when the sensation occurs in a sick person,â and the second edition of our own unabridged dictionary published in 1934 labels euphoria as a psychological term meaning âa sense of well-being and buoyancy.â The idea of buoyancy also connects to the wordâs Greek roots: euphoros comes from a combination of the prefix eu-, meaning âwellâ or âeasily,â and the verb pherein, meaning âto bear.â Modern physicians still use the term, but euphoria has since entered everyday usage as a word for happy feelings so intense one feels borne aloftâthat is, as if one is floating on air.
