Merriam-Webster's Word Of The Day podcast

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42:18

“I used to be the largest dairy consumer on the planet. I used to eat so much dairy and meat. The more that I looked into the dairy industry, the more that I saw that it was the singular, most inhumane industry on the planet, that we've all been lied to, including myself, for years. I always believed that the picture on the milk carton, the cow standing next to her calf in the green field with the red barn in the back was true. It’s certainly the complete opposite.” – Richard (Kudo) Couto Richard (Kudo) Couto is the founder of Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), an organization solely dedicated to investigating extreme animal cruelty cases. ARM has led high-risk undercover operations that have resulted in the shutdown of illegal slaughterhouses, animal fighting rings, and horse meat trafficking networks. Recently, they released a damning investigation into two industrial dairy farms outside of Phoenix, Arizona supplying milk to Coca-Cola’s Fairlife brand. What they uncovered was systemic animal abuse, environmental violations, and a devastating betrayal of consumer trust. While Fairlife markets its products as being sourced "humanely," ARM’s footage tells a very different story—one of suffering, abuse, and corporate complicity. Despite the evidence, this story has been largely ignored by mainstream media—likely due to Coca-Cola’s massive influence and advertising dollars.…

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

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updated about 13 hours ago

Series home•Feed

Free daily dose of word power from Merriam-Webster's experts

3392 episodes

#Learning English #Books #Arts #Word Of The Day #Language Learning #Podcasting Education #With MerriamWebster

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1
bumptious 1:48

13 hours ago1:48

1:48

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 7, 2025 is: bumptious • \BUMP-shus\ • adjective Bumptious describes people who are rudely and often noisily confident or over-assertive. It can also be applied to actions or behaviors that show this same attitude. // Our host apologized for the bumptious party guest who caused a scene before being asked to leave. See the entry > Examples: "She comes across as a bumptious , irritating ten-year-old who believes that her main vice, her steam-roller self-confidence, is a virtue." — Lloyd Evans, The Spectator (London), 17 Aug. 2024 Did you know? While evidence dates bumptious to the beginning of the 19th century, the word was uncommon enough decades later that Edward Bulwer-Lytton included the following in his 1850 My Novel : "'She holds her head higher, I think,' said the landlord, smiling. 'She was always—not exactly proud like, but what I calls Bumptious.' 'I never heard that word before,' said the parson, laying down his knife and fork. 'Bumptious indeed, though I believe it is not in the dictionary, has crept into familiar parlance, especially amongst young folks at school and college.'" The word is, of course, now in "the dictionary"; ours notes that it comes from the noun bump and the suffix -tious , echoing other disapproving modifiers including captious ("fault-finding") and fractious ("troublemaking").…

1
exculpate 1:50

1 day ago1:50

1:50

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 6, 2025 is: exculpate • \EK-skull-payt\ • verb To exculpate someone is to prove that they are not guilty of doing something wrong. // The editorial expresses confidence that the evidence will exculpate the accused. See the entry > Examples: “Research shows that social-media use is associated with greater narcissism (as well as depression and anxiety).... But it is too easy to exculpate ourselves as a society by pointing to technology and trends we can scarcely control, and young adults may not be in a position to address their avoidant behavior. The rest of us can help.” — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic , 1 June 2023 Did you know? There’s no need to say “my bad ” if you’re unfamiliar with exculpate ; while the word is far from rare, it is most often encountered in formal writing in reference to the clearing of someone of alleged fault or guilt, as in “they were exculpated of any wrongdoing.” You may be more familiar with a pair of terms that, like exculpate , come from the Latin noun culpa , meaning “blame” or “guilt.” One is the adjective culpable , used to describe someone deserving of condemnation or blame. The other is the Latin phrase mea culpa , which translates directly as “through my fault” and refers to an acknowledgement of personal fault or error that is more formal than, well, “my bad.”…

1
plethora 2:16

2 days ago2:16

2:16

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 5, 2025 is: plethora • \PLETH-uh-ruh\ • noun Plethora refers to a very large amount or number of something. Plethora is most often used in the phrase "a plethora of." // The hotel offers a plethora of amenities, including indoor and outdoor pools, a fitness center, and world-class dining. See the entry > Examples: "In 1895, Japan won Taiwan from China in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ending the Sino-Japanese War, and from 1895 to 1945, the island was a colony of Japan. The cultural influences of Japan persist to this day: in the tiny coffee shops with their enticing nutty aromas, in the plethora of Japanese-influenced sushi restaurants, and in Taiwan's highly efficient postal service and train systems." — Kim Liao, Where Every Ghost Has a Name: A Memoir of Taiwanese Independence , 2024 Did you know? Plethora was first used in English to refer to a medical condition marked by an excess volume of blood or other bodily fluid, with associated swelling and redness. (Its Greek ancestor, the noun plēthṓra , refers to a similar excess, or to general fullness or crowdedness.) These days, plethora is most often used in general contexts to refer to a large number or amount of something. While plethora conveys a plural meaning, it is a grammatically singular word, which makes choosing whether to pair it with a singular or plural verb confusing. Both can be correctly used, however; choose the singular if you wish to emphasize the grouping or collection ("a plethora of books is available"), and choose the plural if you wish to emphasize the individual elements or components ("a plethora of books have been written on the subject").…

1
risible 1:56

3 days ago1:56

1:56

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 4, 2025 is: risible • \RIZZ-uh-bul\ • adjective Risible is a formal word used disapprovingly to describe things that deserve to be mocked or laughed at because they are absurd or unreasonable. // Although the teachers derided the students’ slang as risible nonsense, the same had been said about their own generation’s lingo. See the entry > Examples: "Smartwatches and smartphones are banned in my children’s schools during the school day, which I’m very happy about; I find any argument for allowing these devices in the classroom to be risible ." — Jessica Grose, The New York Times , 27 Mar. 2024 Did you know? Say “cheese”! Now say thank you to the risorius muscles near the corners of your mouth for helping you smile. You might find this exercise a bit ridiculous—risible, even—but we’re here to explain that there is no need for derision ; it’s for a wordy reason. Risible , ridiculous , derision , and risorius all come from the Latin verb ridēre , meaning “to laugh.” This etymology helps make the meaning of risible clear; something is described as risible (such as saying “cheese” out loud to yourself while looking at your phone/computer) when it arouses or provokes laughter. But just as its synonym laughable often describes things deserving not just of laughter but of eye-rolling scorn, risible is frequently applied to that which merits both sneer and chortle, scoff and guffaw. Words are funny like that.…

1
sleuth 1:43

4 days ago1:43

1:43

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 3, 2025 is: sleuth • \SLOOTH\ • verb To sleuth is to carefully or methodically search for information, or to act as a detective. // We spent hours at the flea market sleuthing for 19th century paintings. See the entry > Examples: "To fill the market with vintage treasure, we called upon some of the industry’s best dressed—Anok Yai, Emma Chamberlain, Hamish Bowles, Julia Sarr-Jamois, Kaia Gerber, Paloma Elsesser, Tabitha Simmons, Tonne Goodman, and Gigi Hadid—to sleuth through eBay and curate their must-haves." — Lilah Ramzi, Vogue , 6 March 2025 Did you know? "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" Those canine tracks in Arthur Conan Doyle 's The Hound of the Baskervilles set the great Sherlock Holmes sleuthing on the trail of a murderer. It was a case of art imitating etymology. When Middle English speakers first borrowed sleuth from the Old Norse word slōth , the term referred to the track of an animal or person. In Scotland, sleuth hund referred to a kind of bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th-century U.S. English, sleuthhound , soon shortened to sleuth , began to be used for a detective. From there, sleuth slipped into verb use to apply to what a sleuth does.…

1
ziggurat 1:43

5 days ago1:43

1:43

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 2, 2025 is: ziggurat • \ZIG-uh-rat\ • noun A ziggurat is an ancient Mesopotamian temple consisting of a pyramidal structure built in successive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the top. The word ziggurat is also sometimes used for a similarly shaped structure. // Ancient ziggurats were always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. They had no internal chambers and were usually square or rectangular. See the entry > Examples: "The Breuer building, the former home of the Whitney Museum on New York's Upper East Side, counts as one of the defining buildings of the brutalist movement. Completed in 1966, it was designed by Marcel Breuer , who envisioned the structure as an inverted ziggurat ." — Alex Greenberger, Art in America , 14 Jan. 2025 Did you know? French professor of archaeology François Lenormant spent a great deal of time poring over ancient Assyrian texts. In those cuneiform inscriptions, he pieced together a long-forgotten language, now known as Akkadian , which proved valuable to our understanding of the ancient civilization. Through his studies, he became familiar with the Akkadian word for Mesopotamia’s towering, stepped temples: ziqqurratu , which stepped into English as ziggurat .…

1
convoluted 2:03

6 days ago2:03

2:03

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 1, 2025 is: convoluted • \KAHN-vuh-loo-tud\ • adjective Something described as convoluted is very complicated and difficult to understand, or has many curves and turns. // The speaker’s argument was so convoluted that most of the audience had trouble determining whether they were for or against the new policy. // The route from the airport to the village was long and convoluted . See the entry > Examples: “The publishing house had recently declined to publish my new book and one of their editors appeared in my inbox, asking for a blurb for an upcoming title. Because this felt awkward, I made a convoluted show of declining. So convoluted that my reply left several avenues for them to come back and ask again . Rather than isolate the issue in a clear way, I coughed up a blurb.” — Sloane Crosley, LitHub.com , 12 Mar. 2025 Did you know? If you’ve ever felt your brain twisting itself into a pretzel while trying to follow a complicated or hard-to-follow line of reasoning, you’ll appreciate the relative simplicity of the adjective convoluted , which is perfect for describing head-scratchers (and pretzel-makers). Convoluted traces back to the Latin verb convolvere , meaning “to roll up, coil, or twist.” Originally, convoluted (like its predecessor in English, the verb convolute ) was used in the context of things having literal convolutions —in other words, twisty things like intestines or a ram’s horns. Over time it expanded to figuratively describe things like arguments, plots, stories, logic, etc., that are intricate or feature many twists and turns that make them difficult to understand.…

1
insouciance 2:20

7 days ago2:20

2:20

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 30, 2025 is: insouciance • \in-SOO-see-unss\ • noun Insouciance is a formal word that refers to a feeling of carefree unconcern. It can also be understood as a word for the relaxed and calm state of a person who is not worried about anything. // The young actor charmed interviewers with his easy smile and devil-may-care insouciance . See the entry > Examples: “ Gladiator II is OK when Denzel’s off-screen, but sensational when he’s on it. ... What makes the performance great is its insouciance ; it’s both precise and feather-light. And it’s what a great actor can do when he’s set free to have fun, to laugh at himself a little bit. ... Denzel’s Macrinus is gravitas and comic relief in one package.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Time , 22 Nov. 2024 Did you know? If you were alive and of whistling age in the late 1980s or early 1990s, chances are you whistled (and snapped your fingers, and tapped your toes) to a little ditty called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin , an a cappella reggae-jazz-pop tune that took the charts by surprise and by storm. An ode to cheerful insouciance if ever there was one, its lyrics are entirely concerned with being entirely unconcerned, remaining trouble-free in the face of life’s various stressors and calamities. Such carefree nonchalance is at the heart of insouciance , which arrived in English (along with the adjective insouciant ), from French, in the 1800s. The French word comes from a combining of the negative prefix in- with the verb soucier , meaning “to trouble or disturb.” The easiness and breeziness of insouciance isn’t always considered beautiful, however. Insouciance may also be used when someone’s lack of concern for serious matters is seen as more careless than carefree.…

1
furtive 2:10

8 days ago2:10

2:10

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 29, 2025 is: furtive • \FER-tiv\ • adjective Furtive describes something that is done in a quiet and secret way to avoid being noticed. It can also mean "expressive of stealth" or " sly " (as in "a furtive look"), or "obtained underhandedly" (as in "furtive gains"). // We exchanged furtive smiles across the table, carefully not to attract the teacher's attention. See the entry > Examples: "Like cardinals, Carolina wrens have slowly and gradually immigrated into New Brunswick and other areas of the Maritimes…. So if we look at this little bird, what do we see? First, it 'looks' like a wren, meaning it's small with a cocked-up tail and a fairly long beak. It would also have a rather perky behaviour and furtive movements. Its coloration is quite striking, being a rich earthy brown above and deep caramel below, and another distinctive feature is a prominent white line over each eye." — Jim Wilson, The Daily Gleaner (New Brunswick, Canada), 27 Mar. 2025 Did you know? You can’t steal someone’s heart without capturing their attention, nor can you steal someone’s thunder without hijacking their audience’s attention. But attention is something most thieves would rather avoid; whether stealing a glance or a diamond, one must be furtive or risk getting caught in the act. When first used in written English in the early 1600s, furtive meant "done by stealth." It later adopted the less common meaning "stolen" or "obtained underhandedly." Whichever meaning you choose, the word has a fittingly elusive ancestry, either stepping into English via the French furtif or coming directly from that word's ancestor, the Latin furtivus , itself a descendent of fur , meaning "thief."…

1
alacrity 1:36

9 days ago1:36