Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day Podcast

pedantic • \pih-DAN-tik\  • adjective
*1 : narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned 2 : unimaginative, pedestrian

Example sentence:
Many students at the lecture were confused about what the pedantic professor was saying because he insisted on using highly elevated diction.

Did you know?
In Shakespeare's day, a pedant was a male schoolteacher. The word's meaning was close to that of the Italian "pedante," from which the English word was adapted. Someone who was pedantic was simply a tutor or teacher. But some instructional pedants of the day must have been pompous and dull, because by the early 1600s both "pedant" and "pedantic" had gained extended senses referring to anyone who was obnoxiously and tediously devoted to his or her own academic acumen.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 22, 2009 is:

mollycoddle • \MAH-lee-kah-dul\  • verb
: to treat with an excessive or absurd degree of indulgence or attention

Example sentence:
Parents of other players complained that the coach was unfairly mollycoddling the team's star pitcher.

Did you know?
Coddling eggs is delicate business. You need to cook them slowly and gently, keeping the water just below boiling. Given how carefully you need to treat the eggs, it's not surprising that “coddle,” the name for the cooking process, developed the figurative sense “to pamper.” “Mollycoddle” was formed by combining “coddle” with “molly,” a nickname for Mary. In its earliest known uses in the 1830s, “mollycoddle” was a noun, a synonym of our modern “wimp,” but within 30 years it was being used as the verb you're likely to encounter now.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2009 is:

pittance • \PIT-unss\  • noun
: a small portion, amount, or allowance; also : a meager wage or remuneration

Example sentence:
The children worked for a pittance at the factory in subhuman conditions.

Did you know?
It's a pity when you haven't anything but a pittance. And in fact, "pity" and "pittance" share etymological roots. The Middle English word "pittance" came from Anglo-French "pitance," meaning "pity" or "piety." Originally, a "pittance" was a gift or bequest to a religious community, or a small charitable gift. Ultimately, the word comes from the Latin "pietas," meaning "piety" or "compassion." Our words "pity" and "piety" come from "pietas" as well.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 20, 2009 is:

galvanize • \GAL-vuh-nyze\  • verb
1 : to stimulate with an electric current *2 : to excite or be excited as if by an electric shock 3 : to coat (iron or steel) with zinc; especially : to immerse in molten zinc to produce a coating of zinc-iron alloy

Example sentence:
“The Russians launched a satellite into space, and the sudden realization that we were falling behind galvanized Americans into action.” -- Bill Powell, Newsweek, October 9, 1989

Did you know?
Luigi Galvani was an Italian physician and physicist who, in the 1770s, studied the electrical nature of nerve impulses by applying electrical stimulation to frogs’ leg muscles, causing them to contract. Although Galvani’s theory that animal tissue contained an innate electrical impulse was disproven, the Italian word "galvanismo" came to describe a current of electricity especially when produced by chemical action. English speakers borrowed the word as "galvanism" in 1797; the verb "galvanize" was introduced in 1802. Charlotte Brontë, in 1853, used the verb figuratively in her novel Villette: "Her approach always galvanized him to new and spasmodic life." These days, "galvanize" also means to cover metal with zinc or a zinc alloy to protect from rust (as in galvanized carpentry nails).

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 19, 2009 is:

anachronism • \uh-NAK-ruh-niz-um\  • noun
1 : an error in chronology; especially : a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other *2 : a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially : one from a former age that is incongruous in the present

Example sentence:
Manual typewriters and slide rules are often regarded as anachronisms in this age of computers and calculators.

Did you know?
An anachronism is something that is out of place in terms of time or chronology. The word derives from "chronos," the Greek word for "time," and "ana-," a Greek prefix meaning "up," "back," or "again." When it was first used in English in the 17th century, "anachronism" referred to an error in the dating of something (as, for example, in etymology, when a word or use is mistakenly assumed to have arisen earlier than it did). Anachronisms were sometimes distinguished from parachronisms, chronological errors in which dates are set later than is correct. But "parachronism" did not stand the test of time. It is now a very rare word.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 18, 2009 is:

littoral • \LIT-uh-rul\  • adjective
: of, relating to, or situated or growing on or near a shore especially of the sea

Example sentence:
The report shows dramatic improvement in the condition of the state's littoral waters since the cleanup effort began.

Did you know?
You're most likely to encounter "littoral" in contexts relating to the military and marine sciences. A "littoral combat ship" is a fast and easily maneuverable combat ship built for use in coastal waters. And in marine ecology, the "littoral zone" is a coastal zone characterized by abundant dissolved oxygen, sunlight, nutrients, and generally high wave energies and water motion. Most of us, however, are more likely to encounter the noun "littoral," which refers to a coastal region (and more technically, to the shore zone between the high tide and low tide points). Although the adjective is older -- dating from the mid 17th century -- the noun, which dates from the early 19th century, is more common. "Littoral" comes to English from Latin "litoralis," itself from "litor-" or "litus," meaning "seashore."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 17, 2009 is:

flyting • \FLY-ting\  • noun
: a dispute or exchange of personal abuse in verse form

Example sentence:
In the first flyting in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice wittily responds to Benedick's line "What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?" with "Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet / food to feed it as Signior Benedick?"

Did you know?
Flyting in 15th- and 16th-century Scotland is analogous to a modern-day rap competition during which rappers improvise clever disses and put-downs against their opponents. Similarly, the makars (a Scottish word for "poets") engaged in verbal duels in which they voiced extravagant invectives in verse against their rivals. The base of "flyting" is the ancient verb "flyte" (also spelled "flite"), meaning "to contend" or "to quarrel."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 16, 2009 is:

dissertate • \DISS-er-tayt\  • verb
: to speak or write at length : dissert; also : to write a dissertation

Example sentence:
Amy shared with her academic advisor her plans to dissertate on the subject of women’s roles in postcolonial India.

Did you know?
English speakers created the word "dissert" in the mid-17th century, but a single word for the concept was apparently not enough because "dissertate" appeared in the language less than a hundred years later. Both words descend from the Latin noun "dissertus," which shares their meaning. ("Dissert" came directly from "dissertus," whereas "dissertate" came by way of "dissertatus," past participle of "dissertare," meaning "to discuss, argue, or debate.") "Dissertus" itself traces back to the verb "disserere," formed by combining the prefix "dis-" and "serere" ("to place, arrange, or join together"). Other descendants of "serere" in English include "assert," "insert," and even "series."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 15, 2009 is:

ennui • \ahn-WEE\  • noun
: a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction : boredom

Example sentence:
In reaction to the ennui that he was feeling after working for twelve years in an unchallenging position, Darrell began to look for a new career.

Did you know?
The French loanword "ennui" comes from the very same Late Latin word that gave us "annoy" -- "inodiare" ("to make loathsome"). We borrowed "ennui" several centuries after absorbing "annoy" into the language. "Ennui" deals more with boredom than irritation -- and a somewhat specific sort of boredom at that. It generally refers to the feeling of jadedness that can result from living a life of too much ease. The poet Charles Lloyd described it well in his 1823 "Stanzas to Ennui" when he referred to that world-weary sensation as a "soul-destroying fiend" which visits with its "pale unrest / The chambers of the human breast / Where too much happiness hath fixed its home."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 14, 2009 is:

perspicuous • \per-SPIK-yuh-wus\  • adjective
: plain to the understanding especially because of clarity and precision of presentation

Example sentence:
"His language is very pure, perspicuous, and to the point." (John Kaminski, The Capital Times [Madison, Wisconsin], October 11, 2006)

Did you know?
"Perspicuous" is based on Latin "perspicere," meaning "to see through," so that which is perspicuous is clear and understandable. "Perspicuous" has a close cousin, "perspicacious," which is used of a person with astute insight. Both words come directly from Latin adjectives that mean the same thing they do: "perspicuous" from "perspicuus," and "perspicacious" from "perspicax." Needless to say, it's possible to confuse the two. One easy way to keep out of trouble is to think of "perspicUous" as the "U" word, and remember that it means "Understandable" -- in contrast to the "A" word, "perspicAcious," which means "Astute."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 13, 2009 is:

gust • \GUST\  • noun
: keen delight

Example sentence:
The hungry children ate every morsel with gust.

Did you know?
You're no doubt familiar with the simple "gust" that means "a brief burst of wind." But that word, which first appeared in print in 1588, was preceded at least a century and a half earlier by a differently derived homograph. The windy "gust" is probably derived from an Old Norse word, whereas our featured word today (which is now considerably rarer than its look-alike) comes to us through Middle English from "gustus," the Latin word for "taste." "Gustus" gave English another word as well. "Gusto" (which now usually means "zest," but can also mean "an individual or specific taste") comes to us from "gustus" by way of Italian.